Head of Artist Relations for NI, iZotope, & Plugin Alliance, Dave Godowsky - Pensado's Place #590

hey everybody welcome to this week's episode of pensado's place we got a great conversation with Dave gdowski from uh Native Instrument he's head of artist relations and one of his biggest artists is Alicia Keys and we are going to make her new plugin Alicia's electric keys we're going to make that available to you in fact for the next four weeks will be three giveaways per week it's amazing plugin it's got the sounds of her personal electric grand piano um the way she and her partner an do things they are recorded with excruciating detail with a really powerful sound design engine and she's got her own custommade effect chains in that it's the clo you won't be Alicia Keys but it's the closest you can get so uh how do you do that you go to P. T Alicia electric key Alicia's electric Keys you'll see the link below us and uh come join us and win uh our conversation with Dave is something that you should listen to I think uh because we're in this real time of change and the we call it the culture of creativity is changing and we addressed it a bit so without further Ado here's Dave gdowski Dave welcome to the show man thanks for having me we were just

recently talking before the cameras went on about how we're such a thin line in terms of being connected and when that line gets disconnected you were talking about you know a blizzard and I got friends you're on the East Coast friends that are under 100 degree Heat and the things start to not work or your internet goes out and first you think it's cool and all of a sudden you worry wait I'm out of touch with people can I get food and can I get yeah it's part of this ethos where we are in an environment where if we don't hold the line who does right and we I was thinking about it because of the we had this blizzard it was a late blizzard I live in Maine we had a blizzard in March that um left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days and yeah it's kind of fun for a while but then suddenly you know your phone battery runs out and there's no computer there's no internet for a lot of people there's no water or heat or suddenly the walls of your house and the roof is are really all you have yeah and uh you realize that everything about modern society and Modern Life is actually just we're just barely holding on to it and you can revert back to like hundreds of years ago in like less than 24 hours and I think that's an important

consideration even as a creative person I think the idea of being just so Roots based bottom line how do I because no matter what tools you guys have amazing tools and we meet people who have amazing tools but if they don't touch you if you don't feel it in your gut if you don't have a passion for it they're missing something you oh yeah I mean that's the most some people might think this is all tangential conversation but it's not and that's the important point is I think you know this is all leading somewhere it's actually at the center of it of you know anyone listening to this is someone who makes music and I assume if you're involved with making music what you're chasing after is that thing that great thing the reason you got into music in the first place that moment where a song any kind of music just affects you and touches you in a way that nothing else in the world does yeah and so then you get that you know desire to create that yes and so the question is like well where does what's that you know what's that all about and that's the thing that's deeper rooted than just looking on what's on the outside of a song or looking at the production tools and Technology and I think also getting comfortable with the fact that you may not get to that that is the glory you're going to search and you're going to put your own interpretation on something and you're going to learn from other things you listen you're going to surprise yourself and go I didn't know that would affect me that way her we had talked about this before of um uh we spoke uh a couple mons ago just after my grandmother's funeral she was 101 years old and Y I when I went to her funeral I was thinking to myself like you know when she was born the majority of houses in America didn't have electricity wow and like this isn't some distant ancestor this is someone who I was joking around with on the phone last week like this is and when she was you know the majority of didn't have electricity like it's crazy to think about that well we were

part of when we were talking about that um my grandmother while earlier same scenario but she was actually a slave uh for and unbelievable and she could have that conversation with me it stopped when she was about two and so I was like wow my grandmother was a slave now all the changes that happened since then from electricity I remember going to their Farm I lived in Canada at the time and we would go see our grandparents and they were part of a farm that was called Tunnel Hill and Tunnel Hill was on the Underground Railroad for slaves to go up to the north and they could sleep in my grandmother there was a train track and it had a over whatever like a tunnel and they could stay in the tunnel come up to my grandparents get some food do whatever go back down and continue on their journey and you start to think about what we do versus what people went through to get to the point where we could do what we could do and it's just mind boggling I mean and for them they could never imagine I remember when um Barack Obama got elected I took all the pictures of my ancestors and I put them in front of the TV for his inauguration and just said you know what even if you're not here you're around and this is something you probably couldn't imagine here you go and so along with that when I think about the tools that we get to deal with and what music means because often times artists are at the Forefront of when there's these massive movements in the C whether it's culturally or politically or and this is a time for artists to be heard yeah you know and I think from all sides from all perspectives and music kind of represents the where the vend diagrams cross yes in the most important way and you see it with technology and the economy and politics and everyone always turns to music to help guide them through things and explain things on some fundamental level yes and I think that's also tied in to kind of where that greatness comes from that the thing that inspires all of us and the things that we're all as artist trying to create and that's what's ironic when you look at the things that we fixate on oftentimes there's and this is the thing that fascinates me the most is the disconnect between what we fixate on when we're trying to make music and the reality of where it all actually seems to come from because they're often really different they're

very different and the fascinating thing about where we are now is we all used to focus on the hit record Being the end thing and now it's so much broader than that it's so much bigger than that and there's opportunity in that both in terms of your creative spirit and really your checking account and that hit record thing is tied into a different era of Industry anyway I mean you know so much of what we also fixate on around that you know hits and what we consider to be success is rooted in you know a mostly bygone era and also a brief era you know like yes it was only like you know it was it wasn't it was like what the 50s that people had records at home at all that's right you know before that you couldn't even really put music on I mean I guess you know there was like a victrola or something but the modern LP era 50s 60s again like it wasn't that long ago yep um I'm actually in a

conversation now with somebody to do potentially put together a live label and they'll just record this artist who's phenomenal just on the road while she tours and do you know four song six song EPS that are recorded that night mixed that night and given to the audience through QR codes and other fan engagement ways that night you know you can break the barriers which lend to how you think different differently creatively about capturing things and it's really exciting actually it's such a smart idea I remember um one of the you know in my job I'm lucky enough to get to inter face with different great artists all the time so I've gotten a lot of Unforgettable moments because of that and one of them was um Pete townend I remember he said wow uh music is not just recording is not just about capturing music it's about capturing a moment and that was such an interesting insightful thing to me well listen we

your Pete Townson moment is my Maurice White moment from Earth one and Fire and I used to say Rees I was lucky enough to work with him for six years and get his last record done through Concord and and it was actually the first and only time he had black representation I wasn't his only representation but it wasn't you had to get into that Circle of trust right yeah um because he had created a very successful career in what he was doing and he said I was like man where did the interludes come from and he said man we'd be recording and I would just tell the band keep playing I didn't know what was going to happen but I had a feeling there'd be a moment and particularly if I could feel they were rocking and it turned out those interludes became such Staples for the catalog and in some cases became as famous as the songs yeah you know and it's all because of the feeling being willing to follow the feeling and not reverse engineer it or try to manufacture it think of all the times that it's actually more common than not that these moments these accidents or mistakes are the things that actually lead to you know like uh you know the Bob Dylan's shirt buttons on blood on the tracks hitting the guitar or like uh Johnny I remember Johnny Greenwood in creep like before the chorus you hear him like chug chugged on the guitar it's like he was just checking to make sure it was on it wasn't supposed to be in the recording but it was like an accident and it became like the most uh the defining moment of their big hit that broke the band or like you know there's so many examples of it well it's also

instructive to the people that we're speaking to today don't be afraid to do that go down that path yeah leave it in it's another take yeah know what you might get just go the music is not something that you try to put into a box and it has a this happy bold up ending go be creative man go yeah scratch that itch yeah and don't be afraid to like just follow the feeling you know like uh I know we've talked before about David Boe and like the uh five years you know that classic song um if you hear the soloed vocal of it you can hear him just crying he's like it can barely sing because he's sobbing while he's singing and he's missing notes and it's all broken it it's the kind of thing somebody might say like oh well we can't use that obviously like we got to take it again no but no that's what led to the classic moment you know um yeah so yeah this is all and the interesting thing here is that a lot of the technology and the tools that we value most if they're used irresponsibly you can accidentally they can be counterproductive to all these

things absolutely I mean our favorite line is use technology don't let technology use you yep you know and understand you know computers can't cry and ultimately your gut and your ear and your passion and your emotion is important for you to be in touch with because it's going to allow you to go places that you never thought before um be don't be afraid to be courageous uh this you're in your room you're making something no nobody's going to you know chastise you go for it and it's really a combination of how you take the past the kind of analog of the world and the digital and then you're in the middle controlling how that works you're the conduit you you're actually the plugin that's most important yes definitely you know I mean imagine if uh you know our company makes uh a product called RX yeah that's used to fix a lot of problems but if you're if you don't have an someone creative uh you know using it artistically um you could inadvertently erase all these all the most valuable moments you know you'd lose Bowie crying you'd lose Dylan's buttons on the guitar you'd lose Johnny Greenwood's you know guitar noise all these classic moments you know you would lose I was talking about this with Laura cisk recently who uses RX every day and she said you know that's the most important thing about it um is actually the person using it yeah and you know and that's why you know AI will never can't really do that because AI wouldn't know any

better and it's an interesting perspective because I feel like AI is something for me to at least approach to the degree that I can manage it in my own circumstance in other places maybe not I don't think we're designed to beat algorithms but I can sort of affect how much I want to control something and then if I want to stop it let me stop it I I've got to at least go into it with that perspective yeah you know is that how you feel yeah definitely I mean I love Ai and machine learning and everything it does for the world and for music production and everything I mean it's amazing yeah um and I think some of it gets overblown a little bit like people talk about it like aliens have landed on the earth and introduced some new thing that's never been here before like you know I think um it's not as crazy as people make it sound um you know when you're driving like a automatic transmission in a car or you know the lane assist it beeps when you're you know drifting or so you know there's little things like this that are like you're not like oh there's a robot Drive in the car for me someday you're not going to need me anymore you know like it's not that big of a deal it's like no it's just a helpful

feature in your car and we're as we get used to it we learn how to manage it like anything else yep you know and as long as it supports that thing you know the thing that we were talking about earlier about the thing that inspires you when you hear music this great mysterious unexplainable thing that makes you feel something when you listen to music and that's the thing that hasn't changed today versus before AI versus before recorded music you know Mozart and Bach and Beethoven 200 plus years ago like I don't think that thing has actually changed so it doesn't matter what technology or tools or whatever genres of music because ultimately all of that is actually just on the outside it's just a vehicle for the feeling yep and

remember that we including the audience we have control over the parts we have control of don't approach it like oh my God I have to submit myself to this and whatever it's going to be is going to be no right no no BR bring you to the party that's what music has always been yep and creativity is about you coming to the party with your perspective your thing and and it has mattered over time whatever has been in a way we're always in a technical Evolution and we adapt accordingly uh I remember oh sorry go ahead no go ahead I was just thinking about bringing yourself to the party I just thinking of another Dylan anecdote that I happened to read at some point over the last few years was um when he recorded that uh great song uh murder most foul that came out it was right when covid started um and it's you know like a 16 minute crazy ambitious song it's a really cool song but Fiona Apple plays piano on it and I was reading an interview where apparently she was pretty nervous going into it and he just said don't worry about messing up don't worry about playing the wrong notes or anything I don't want the right notes I just want you right it is that exact same idea it's like I just want you to be there it's not about what you're playing you know it's funny um just like you over the course of pensado's place we've had a chance to meet and talk to greats and fortunately in some cases they get really comfortable with sharing things and so very early on in the show when we talked to Drake's guy 40 uh who is just brilliant y I didn't know at the time and he was forthcoming with it that he had been doing all that he was doing and dealing with multiple sclerosis yep and just amazing um when ALS Schmidt when I went to ALS Schmidt for our first award show I said Al I know you're G to think I'm crazy but you think you could reach out to Paul McCartney and he went yeah I was like oh no and he did and then I left I came back I knocked on the door I said Al you think you could reach out to Dylan and he did that too but he got out he got Paul he couldn't get Dylan but a lot of people didn't know that Al had a hearing problem in one ear I didn't know that and a lot of people didn't know because he was just so damn gifted yeah and I noticed when we would interview him he'd want to sit on a certain side so he could hear and he was comfortable with sharing that and we never blew it up or did anything like that but the the point that I think we're both making is that you get through whatever you got and it doesn't mean that you still don't bring yourself to it limitations assets issues that's the beauty of creativity man just wow yeah Al Schmidt you would never I mean it's such that's such a great story because you know he's considered the best to ever do it in terms of being able to hear you know someone might say oh well he must have just had superhuman ears in terms of a technical capability of you know but if he had uh actually had hearing problems and there were maybe there were frequencies he couldn't even hear but it didn't matter because it was him and the

other thing is that when you have your team who understands and you know he always had one or two guys they were in the booth with him doing their thing helping him out and together it just made a full unit that killed I mean Al mixes were just in I mean just unreal and across a wide range of genres wide range you would never think a guy that age that celebrated you can go from you know Paul McCartney to earthwind in fire to blood swe you know whoever it was Al's point of view was not only necessary it it helped make those records classic um and you would never think it was based on limitations um yeah H how do you feel about the future are you optimistic oh definitely I mean I even the present I mean I think there's never been so much great music as there is today I think pop music is as good as it's ever been I think all of it is I mean yeah there's no shortage of great music and there's just more there's never been so many people interested in making music and empowered with the tools and the resources to be able to pursue it and I mean just objectively the all the signs point to the Future being uh some of the best music we'll ever hear just by nature of how many people are doing it and interested and passionate about it um I know you got to get through the noise that's a different issue there's also so there's never been so much bad music also but that's okay like right you just got to work a little harder to find the good stuff but um it's

everywhere and I think that uh from our chair that we're seeing people who are saying let me utilize all the tools available to me to find it now as opposed to I can't you know there's younger newer other kind of perspectives and ideas and I'm not going to approach this the same way I'm differently and let's see where it lands and that shit's exciting man yeah there's never been so much creativity and production and I love the idea that someone can come into the studio with a song and be able to have just an infinite you know have so many different ways to approach it and capture it and different ways to try it it's not just like well this is my guitar right this is my bass so yeah this is what I got you know yeah and I know that the same thing also does create problems like you don't want too many possibilities because you know like we were saying limitation again Pete townend actually in the exact same conversation said you know if you can't capture it in four tracks you don't got it right you know like he wrote Tommy on a four track so like you know like maybe and maybe that's a little extreme but like if you can't capture it in a minimal number of tracks maybe you got to go back to the drawing board well and what to your

point what people who are creative in the music space sometimes lose sight of is you're aiming for Simplicity yeah and simplicity is much harder than being complex yes you I I'm not that musical I can go be complex in the next 10 minutes and you'll be like what the hell is this but when you look at the people that we admire The Beatles and just you know fill in the list yeah it's how did they get to that how do you get to Ellen or rig y less is more H how do you I guess my dog was triggered by Ellena Rigby oh nice come on in so that that's what's so fascinating about when you know your mission you got your tools you got you bring your instinct to it you stay balanced and then go for it you know the less is more thing I was just a week ago with Alicia Keys because we're building a new um software instrument together and it's a followup to the one that we did together you know Alicia's keys that was like 15 years ago or something yeah um and we were talking about that same thing we're actually talking about things that she's learned oh because she's seen a lot in her career she's a very talented producer and engineer and Ranger and writer and she said the one thing she wish she knew early on is that less is more uh and that you can make something sound bigger with fewer parts and uh that girl on fire was her example of that they were trying to make it a big Stadium thing and it turned out that cutting it down to just a handful of elements is what made it sound big and huge yeah I think Tom Petty got that too I think a lot of people got that it's you know it's kind of counterintuitive um but it's true well speaking of that which we'll have a conversation about that privately because of you I've been talking to an melli about stuff that we're going to go do and she's like oh me and Alicia me and Alicia which is great to hear so we'll talk about you know if we can be helpful when you launch it or whatever the case may be oh yeah for sure and's Amazing by the way I don't know if I've ever met anyone who does so who wears so many hats it's unreal it's crazy I've never I actually said to her like an you gotta like are you know like maybe you should like take off a few of these hats like you've got you do too many things but I think it's just the way she operates no I literally over the last two weeks have been in that same mode like herb just because everybody wants you to walk on water doesn't mean you can walk on water for everybody like and if you don't find a balance if you don't pour something into your yourself you don't have other things to give to people you know and that's uh but here's what I would propose if you're down for it I think this should be an ongoing series that maybe we do this once a quarter I love it upon things I think uh as you know we would love to be somebody that is a promoter of and involved with your tools and so on so forth and have that make sense but I think macro viw convers about that stuff at minimum is good for me and you I think it likely is good for other people yeah as too and just as somebody who has watched your work over time this is what makes it optimistic about the business people who care people who you can always tell when the level of artists who deal with you um our conversations have been organic from the jump I mean yeah we could just record every one of them I know I wish we had recorded some of them well we're going to do a bunch more uh we'll miss some stuff but we'll get some new stuff great just like making music Absolut there you go the culture of creativity yeah uh family we are going to do more of this Dave gdowski is somebody Whose advice you want uh perspective you want and it's going to make your ability better um that's not true of everybody in the business it's true of some and he literally is one of the best Dave thanks man love you dud more to come love you man same here