Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hi, guys. Welcome once again to the Ride Core podcast. And I've got a very special guest today whose music I've been listening to recently. My wife actually introduced me to him, but I'm gonna let him introduce, do his own introduction. So divine. Take it away.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Thanks for. Thanks for having me.
Yeah. Hey, everyone. My name is Soda vine, also known as Nanak Sodhi. I'm a music producer and composer based in Canada and I have been creating Punjabi fusion music for the last four or five years. Before that, I used to write music for films, which was not Punjabi fusion, just standard score. And I've written music for television. I've played at multiple music festivals. Just all around the music guy and happy to be here. Chat music.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Interestingly, though, you also work for Google as well, don't you?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I do, I do, yeah.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: So mechanical engineering, is it?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: That's right. I do. I do have a degree in engineering. Mechanical engineering.
Yeah. I have an alter ego, you know, which is my engineering tech nonic and then the music nonic. And what I found is as I'm getting older, there's so much overlap between the two skill sets.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Because my role at Google, I'm a product manager. I'm head of product for Recaptcha, which is like a cybersecurity feature. And I'm, I'm leading the team around the account protection side. I'm leading the product side for account protection, which is like making people's accounts safer, but there's so much around it that's, you know, how do you take a feature to market? How do you get folks to use it? How do you explain it to folks? How do you make sure the product itself is good? And then when you look at music, it's the same thing. It's like, how do you get people to listen to your stuff? How do you get the word out there? How do you make sure the product is good? Like, very similar head space. Right.
And so as I'm getting older and getting more years under my belt, I'm finding. Oh yeah, like that's actually similar. You know, we do, we do like customer interviews and yeah, like, I do ask my listeners, like, what do they think of this song or that song? So it's a lot of overlap.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: That's really interesting. I, I work in. It is well, well, not mechanical engineering, but I work in id. So we, we touch on cyber security quite a bit because we become. Oh yeah, your platform.
So we do a lot of that. Yeah. It's really interesting that you, that you that you said that especially with the mechanical engineering, with. What's your role at Google, if you don't mind me asking.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: So I'm, I'm a product manager.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Product manager. Nice.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I'm, I'm head of product for recaptcha account protections. So I'm looking at how to make everyone's accounts safer on the web essentially. And folks that use recaptcha and I'm sure you've heard of recaptcha. It's like the bot detection. Are you a robot?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: So it's your fault, is it those.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm the guy, I'm the guy that sends you that.
Where's the bicycle And.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so viewers. So Soda Vines, the guy who you want to blame for that? That's really cool.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, Just, just email me sod gmail.com or whatever.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Tell me a bit about your background.
I know you worked as a screen composer, but tell me about your background. How did you get into music firstly?
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So for me I, I always, I grew up in a pretty musical household, so. So my, my dad, he sang a lot of music at home. He did a lot of like music nights with his friends and our family friends.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: And what type of music was it?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: So it was all Bollywood, Bollywood karaoke style music. So they would all just sing Bollywood music together. And every time we'd be going on a road trip, it'd always be like the cassettes with like, you know, throwback songs, but then also some of the more recent songs. And like this is talking like the 90s, right? And so you'd have the one cassette with whatever, six songs, six songs on one side. And it's like, okay, it's like how many times are we going to listen to this? And just as a kid you just pick that stuff up, right? And my dad also had a. For his, I think it was their, my parents like first marriage anniversary or my first, my dad's first birthday as a married couple. My mom bought him a Casio synth, like a small Casio keyboard. Right. And that was kicking around the house. So growing up I always had this like really advanced for its time, this like tone bank keyboard. And I would always just be like messing around like trying all these different sounds that has all these like drum patterns and stuff. So very young age I discovered that I like that stuff.
And going forward in, in middle school I discovered GarageBand completely by fluke, to be honest, because I, it was funny. Like I walked into, I signed up for A computers class because a little bit, you know, into that stuff and there were all these like black Dell monitors, like a hundred of them in the classroom. And then there's this white like cool looking Mac computer on the side that like nobody wanted to use.
And I was like, well, these computers look kind of like chunky. That one looks like cool. Like it's like if you remember the Emacs, they're like all round and stuff.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: So I, I opened that up and I saw this like bouncing guitar on the bottom which was like GarageBand. And I'm like, okay, what is this? I opened it up and like, boom, there's all these, this music stuff, right? And at that time I had never like graduated from this keyboard. I was just, I had that musical direction in me, but I never really like got it out. And through GarageBand I started to do that a little bit. And then that led to me, you know, discovering music. Then I joined music in high school and you know, started making more beats on GarageBand and then moved over to Logic, which is basically GarageBand's bigger brother.
And I started to find more friends that were into the creative side of things. So a few of my friends in high school, middle school, they were film, they were filmmakers, so they were creating films. And we just kind of linked up and said, hey, like Nanik makes these beats and you guys make these little videos. Like, let's just put the beats in the back of the videos. Like, pretty simple, straightforward. And that, that was how I started to write music for video.
And then as we got older and older, we started doing proper short films. That's how I started doing music for short films. Like we got like the drama kids involved and the English kids were like writing the thing. And then, you know, I was doing the music and then my buddies were doing the filmmaking, editing.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: You had a whole production crew, didn't you?
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a whole production crew of like folks that just were like throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what sticks. You know, you're all like, like 17, 16, like you're not, you're not trying to like do it big time, right? You're just like, hey, this is cool, let's just see what happens. And yeah, like, as we got older and older, we stuck around the city. Like we all went to the same university because I'm from Calgary and so what are the University of Calgary? And like we started creating these films and lo and behold, like we did our first, first feature film when I was 21, 22, something like that. And I'm, I'm kind of one of the younger guys. The rest of the crew is a bit older. So we did a full feature length film, went to the Calgary International Film Festival. That was really cool. Got to do like a whole red carpet and things. And keep in mind we're all like, we're still a bunch of kids just writing stuff for fun, right? We're not trying to like that is so cool. There's, there's no like production crew. There's nobody that actually really knows the film industry. Right. This is just like a bunch of folks that got together with like no budget, like stole our dad's video camera kind of thing. Like, you know, like I'm like making stuff like old MacBook Pro or like a compact Presario on FL Studio. Like so, yeah, like very, very grassroots.
And then that's when after, after that happened, you know, more folks started hitting me up like, hey, can you write music for my film or can you do this for this short film, etc. Etc. And I, and I said okay, this is cool and started doing more of that work.
And it got to a point where I, I wanted to just release music on my own. I didn't want to wait for a film, I didn't want to wait for a short project or film project. I was like, okay, let me just put out music. And that's where so Divine was born. So, so Divine was just not exod. So divine putting stuff out that I wanted to put out in the world as just independent music and you know, fast forward, whatever years and every year I've been putting out some, some work that inspires me on the side. I started writing music for TV Bell Media, which is a company in Toronto headquartered in Toronto, writing music there for, for their stuff while doing the engineering stuff. So just kind of continue down. What was interesting. I, I had a radio show on FM radio in Calgary for three years where I was, you know, playing music for whoever was listening at 6pm on Tuesdays, which is, which is a good time slots. I got to like test out a lot of my tracks. I would just like play the track, not say anything and see if anyone texted me.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Like that's almost a peak time slot, ladies.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: I got lucky because the person that was hosting that radio show, she went on maternity leave and that radio show had been going for like 20 years. That's why it had such a good slot. And so I got a chance to just test out music. I would play a Track that I was working on last night and just wait, if somebody texted me on the show being like, hey, what song is that? Like, that's how I knew it was resonating a good song.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Or if nobody messaged, then it's like, okay, whatever. Like, it's probably not.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: That's a really interesting approach to be fair.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I miss having that. I miss having that show because it was so. It was so clutch.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Was it like a proper this year radio or like.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: No, it was, it was, it was community radio. So it was the University of Calgary radio station.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Which is one of the older. It's one of the more powerful and community fed radio stations because it's not commercial. Right. Like we didn't have ads. It was like an hour is an hour. You are getting an hour of time on the mic.
So that way it was really cool.
Yeah. And I don't think I would have. I don't think I could have gotten away with just playing my own music on like if I was, I don't know, hosting on like BBC or something. Right. Like that. That's a bit more.
That's a bit more like a tightly run ship.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Right. Community radio is like, you're almost encouraged to experiment.
So yeah, it was fantastic time. But you know, Fast Forward kept making music and now, now I've, I've. I've just been really inspired by the crossover genre. Like, you know, obviously my heritage is Punjabi and so I've been really inspired by this crossover genre between Punjabi inspired or like Indian inspired sound palettes arranged and presented in a western way that's like palatable by the western audience. And so that's just been inspiring for me. So I've been creating a lot of that kind of stuff and it's found its own audience. I want to say, like, folks.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Are.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Listening to this stuff all around the world and I'm like, wow. Because I'm not really marketing it.
It's not like I have like music, to be fair.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: I mean, one thing I gotta say, the mix is so clean. The music always sounds really clean. So I don't know if you went for that potentially. So.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that's like, that's like, that's what happens when you have so much time writing music for film and TV and like you have to really be mindful of every sound you put into the mix.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Because like film, you cannot do that. Like you cannot have a crappy mix for a film. Like it will get kicked off. The editor will be like, get Rid of this.
So I'm just how you've.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: How you kind of got to that process, because sometimes you, like, you have mixes which are really bass heavy and. But they're not clean. It's, like, grungy. And I can see how you. That wouldn't lend itself to a film.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Absolutely not. Like, playing that in a theater would, like, destroy the theater. Right. Because, like, the bass, like a subwoofer in a theater is so much. It's so different than a PA subwoofer at a stage. Right. So if you suddenly, like, feed it all this, like, gunk mud, suddenly your dialogue sounds terrible. Everything it sounds like is rattling. Like, it's just. So I had to be very mindful on that. And also, I think coming from an engineering background, I did a lot of. So I worked as a systems engineer for almost four years. And so a lot of that was, like, DSP signal processing design.
So I almost needed to, like, apply some of that stuff to production. Right. So that's why, like, I. I approach it from, like, more of, like, a scientific approach.
And, yeah, I've always. Yeah, I guess I've just been doing this for so long. After a while I'm like, okay, this is not going to work. This is going to work. I know. I've heard this sound like a thousand times in a car, in a studio and on stage. This is going to work. This is not going to work. But thank you. I'm glad that it's translating.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Hi, guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify, on Apple Music and Apple, add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank you.
No, absolutely. I was listening. I was listening to you musical saying. It's just so, so clean and crisp. It's. It's like.
You know how, like, you get the Dolby sound, right?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Because the bass is not overpowering, but it's still prominent and clean and crisp.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: You've got this round system one. It's fantastic.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: 100. Yeah. So. So that, like, I could. I mean, I could share a little bit about that if you want.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I love hearing about it.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Because, yeah, we can. We can talk a little bit about bass. So bass is interesting because it's. If you look at a sound spectrum, if you look at, like, any kind of spectrum analyzer. Right. It's. The bass has a lot of space that you can see visually. Right. Like frequencies from 20 to 100 Hertz take up like a third of the screen. And then. Or, sorry, a little bit less. And then 100 to a thousand. A little bit more compressed. Thousand to ten thousand is even more compressed. Ten thousand, twenty thousand is like, even more compressed. Right. So you have a lot of space to look at the bass. And often times what can happen with bass is it can cause harmonics in the upper range.
So if you ever, like, take. If you ever put the sustain pedal off on. On a piano and you hit a low note, it'll lighten up the other notes.
But the thing is, in digital recording, that doesn't happen by itself.
Because digital recording, I can just put like a. A sine wave at 50 hertz and it's just a pure sine wave and nothing else is going on.
So a lot of times to get the bass to be popping and be really clean, you have to, like, add those harmonics in onto that bass. So a lot of times with my bass, I. I'll add some harmonics in the mid lows just to make sure that, like, the bass is audible without being too overpowering.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Really interesting.
That's so cool. I think I would.
Production is not my forte. I'm mainly a singer. Right. But I do. I do sort of do drips and drabs of it here and there. I'm trying to get more into it now, so it's actually really interesting that you said that.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot to it, man. Because, like, I think people can tell when a mix is well done. Yeah, right. Like. Like, even if you're not into music, you can just kind of tell, you're like, okay, yeah, this sounds good. This sounds kind of. I don't know how to describe it, but it doesn't sound quite there. So getting the mix right is, I think, a really big signal onto how professional the recording is. Right.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: I'm surprised you're not doing more work. Like, I know you've done the nano remix with. With the. With the tips. Right. Which is really cool.
Yeah. I'm just surprised you're not doing more. More stuff, like, with the expertise you've got. There's not many producers who I speak to, and it's not. Not disrespecting other producers, but on the technical level that you're describing things, there's not many out there, dude. Honestly. Honestly.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Thanks, man.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's actually really inspirational, to be fair. Yeah, I'm. I'm.
I'm your fan now.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Thanks, man. Thanks. Yeah, Well, I mean, I'd love to do more music. I just.
I. Yeah, like, I think being a producer in the modern day, unless you are like full time with like a team, it's hard to get your name out there because there's so many producers. Right. And so I, I want. I would definitely love to do more work, but yeah, like, at this point, I. I'm trying to work on some of my own stuff.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Releasing that, putting that out there and hopefully like things like the Nano remix, that stuff, like more of that stuff happens. Right. Because that stuff is also like serendipity. Right. Like, they reached out to me one day and they were like, hey, like, we like your stuff. Would you. Would you want to do this remix? And I was like, yeah, of course.
Oftentimes I find as producer, going the other way is not as successful if you're like, hey, tips. If I like what? It's stood outside their headquarters in Mumbai. They'd probably be like, who is this guy? Like, you know, so I'm working on it.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Interestingly, you might find something. A few years back, I went to Real World Studios.
Peter Gabriel Studio. Have you heard of that?
[00:19:57] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: So peep Peter Gabrielle, he's got a studio near Real Worlds. To all the major artists in the world would come there from Beyonce.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: The 80s artists become there.
Recorded most of his albums there in the uk.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Okay. Honestly, they had like a Adobe Atmos studio.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Honestly, it was just unbelievable. When you.
When you finish this interview, make sure you go on Google Ruger Studios because it's the best studio I've ever been to. It's got like rooms and the acoustics and stuff to show you where this, this art is recorded, where they show you where. And a lot of it wasn't a lot of.
And a lot of the main mainstream artists there, they didn't record in the booth. They just recorded in the open space.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: It was honestly.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: That's so cool. Yeah, man. Artists at that level, like Nusrat Kanji, like, they are just so.
Yeah, like, acoustics do not matter at that level. Like, it's just. You're just.
Those folks are so good that they. And. And they're. They're coming from a different, like, approach to music as well. Right. Where like, like music is not like sung in a booth by yourself. Like, it's like there's almost like a team and. And you're all like vibing. You're almost like vibing off all the other singers, instrumentalists. Right. It's not like something that you're like, here, go sit in this like silo and sing into this. So yeah, that approach is so different and I, I find like that's where the power comes from because music is all about like resonating a vibe together and capturing that and trying to maintain that. Like that's what a producer's, you know, dream producer role is. It's like creating a vibe in the studio and capturing that vibe in a way that's like induces that vibe to whoever listens to it.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Interesting that, that, that, that recording room, it was. It floats on water. So around it is water.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: So the reason why I think there's a trains track somewhere nearby.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Stop the vibrations. Oh, it's something like, you know, like Lord of the Rings sort of thing.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Places like that. It's beautiful. It's like in a village somewhere. It's just phenomenal.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: It's awesome. So it's in a village. They tried to get away from everything, but they put it next to a train track.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
But I know that, that that studio is floating. So it starts vibrations.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: That's very cool. That's super cool. Yeah. I mean, yeah, acoustics is a whole, It's a whole thing. Right. Like you can go crazy in audio file. Like stuff will just never. There's no end to it. No, but I, I do think with like modern day tech we can get away with a lot more dirty recording. Especially with AI. Like have you used so much?
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Have I.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Have I used AI in my productions? No, but have I used AI just to see what it can do on music? Yeah, it is pretty cool. It's pretty damn cool. It's kind of scary.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: I mean, I need to upgrade my Mac.
Yeah. More.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: A lot of the stuff is just online. Right. So you don't even need a. You can do it on your phone.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I've used some stuff, but not, not production wise. No.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a few, there's a few that you can just upload a track and they say that you still hold the rights to the track, but I don't know, I feel like it gets fed into the AI engine the moment you upload it. But it'll finish the track for you. So it'll add really a section to the end of the track for you.
And it's pretty fascinating because it'll use elements of the track you uploaded to then create this.
Yeah, I could easily see producers using that for like inspiration, trying to see like. Okay, I like this. I don't like the sound.
I do think, like, I went to this music software conference in Toronto. I think this is this year, earlier this year or maybe late last year. And they had all these plugin companies, you know, like Fab Filter was there, all these, like, Universal Audio. They're like, all the big guys were there. And then they had this room kind of a little bit tucked away that was like the AI software room. Right. And that software room was almost like there was like a little bit of stigma. Like, musicians are like, I don't want to use this. This is going to like, destroy music, whatever.
But the presenter that was introducing the rooms, he said something interesting. He's like, make sure you check out the AI room, because in the next five years, that's where all the innovation is going to be. Like, that's what music production is going to turn to. Like, it's coming. You might as well get used to it and learn it, embrace it, because if you don't, you're gonna get left behind.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Do you know, have you ever. Swami.
Do you just want me. Swami was one of the biggest UK producers.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: He produced Apache Indian stuff as well. Oh, no way to arrange Marriage. Don Rajan, all those.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Well, there were two brothers, diamond and Simon and Diamond. So I was speaking to him the other day, just. Just the episode before this podcast. Right, right, Two episodes, yeah. Because the next one's coming out, so two episodes before. Check him out. See, he. He's one of the greatest musician, greatest Indian musicians from. From the UK ever. He's. He's phenomenal. He's phenomenal. What I mean is phenomenal. He. He wasn't classically taught rags, but he.
Yeah, he knew about the. The English girls and he adapted his style to pick up the rag, even the patterns of the rag. I'm not. I'm not sure whether you. You're familiar with how rogues work, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, you've got the rug and we. The ascent is different. The descent is different.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Adapted that and he adapted it into his own music stuff. Like, it's fascinating, fascinating. But he's big on ar. He's part of this AI board somewhere.
I can't remember very cool where it is, but he's really big on AI, so he's. That's super cool.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to check that out. Like, I. I'm.
Yeah, Like, I think AI is not going away, so we better learn it and see how to use it in a responsible, sustainable way.
I think the Folks that are resisting it are going to be left behind. Sadly.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: I think they're the purists, aren't they? Like sort of saying, no, you've got to learn this way, you've got to do this, this, this way.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I mean that's fair. I think if you're learning as a musician, for sure. I'm talking more about like the production side.
Like we spend so much time vocal comping.
I feel like AI is just going to do that for you in like two seconds. Like you'll find the right take, it'll patch it up.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: That's a fantastic thing you just said there because, because I, I do a lot of vocal comping, but what I do slightly different, but I can see how that would be so beneficial to me.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Totally. It's like you just sing it three or four times. Especially if you're a singer first, producer second. Maybe you don't have a producer in the room, you're just self recording.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: I don't know. There's probably an AI tool that's just going to say, hey, give me five takes. I will analyze the right. Which one is the best one because.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: The pitching as well, like sort of the problem, problem I have when I'm recording, right. Say I do. Say I do three, four takes of it. I record slightly different these days. But say, say I do the takes. It sounds all right to me there. Then it's only later on when you go back to it, think, man, I'm off there.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: You know, and then you go and do it again.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Oh, 100. It's also kind of like as a singer, I'm sure it's interesting because singing on stage is so much different than singing in the studio.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: And on stage it's like you can almost, you can almost kind of be off key a little bit here and there and it's okay as long as the vibe is right. You know, like show's all about the vibe in the studio, man. It's like you are under microscope.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Every, every shot is a close up. You know, like actors are typically like a bit afraid of close ups because they're like, okay, I have to like be really perfect. The studio. Every shot is a close up. So yeah, I think AI will help there.
It's already really helped in the podcast world, Adobe.
So yeah, it's interesting. I mean, as I've shared with you, like I'm very tech.
Tech heavy, right. Given my background and what I do for work and production side. So like, yeah, I just Find AI is like, scary but exciting.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Great topic. Yeah. So anyway, let's move on. What about your.
Your influence in music, your inspiration?
You mentioned Bollywood, your dad.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: So it was anything else or. And how. How influential is Bollywood in your music anyway?
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.
So I think with any artist, like, a lot of the foundational stuff you're exposed to when you're younger tends to have ripple effects in your creative compass. Right? So, yeah, growing up, a lot of Bollywood at home. But the Bollywood we were listening to was like.
It was like the golden era of Bollywood, right? It wasn't like the.
Not to say that I feel like every era kind of turns into the golden era after whatever X number of years. It's all nostalgic.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: The 80s was. The 80s was rubbish.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: But you never know. Like, in 2016, people could be like, the 80s, Bollywood was the greatest. Whatever, you know.
But what I'm trying to say is, like, there was a lot of Kishore Kumar. It was a lot of like Muhammad Rafi. It was a lot of like that era, you know, like open a year, like that kind of stuff.
And the thing is, music back in the day, it had to have a certain standard, right, like, of musicality. Otherwise the audience would just reject it. Right? Like, to me, a hit song is always a reflection of the audience at the time. So if there's a hit song in the 60s, that's because people largely liked that song. I mean, there's some marketing influences and stuff, right? Of course, like, which was marketed more, which wasn't. But in general, it reflects the. The sentiment of the folks at the time. So, you know, 6070s, that's what it was in like 10, 20 year, post independence India, right? Like, there was still that, you know, tracks had to be very musical and they had to be very melodious. They could not just be like drums and bass, right? Because largely, like, people didn't even have, like good sound systems. It was like a transistor radio is like, tiny, right? So good luck with your drums. Nothing's gonna translate. So that I was. I was really exposed to that kind of stuff. And I think that's where I get my melody sense from.
Sense for what melodies are going to work, what's not going to work. Because I was so melodious, I also listened to a lot of.
I don't want to say disco, but like the hits of the west that my parents liked, you know, so we used to listen to a lot, a lot of Bony M. I don't Know if you've heard of Bony M? Yeah, we heard a lot of Bodie M. Right. At, like, Bodium is interesting because it's like disco pop. It's like Euro disco pop.
And it kind of, it's, it kind of combines, like, so many different things into one. Because it's disco. It's got disco beat. It's got, like, the disco strings. But then it's got this, like, the main, the, the male voice. I forget. I think it's Bobby. I forget it. I forget his name. But, like, the male voice is, like, so, like, raspy and different. Right? And then the female voices are, like, there, there's three of them, I believe. And so, like, they're always, like, harmonizing and stuff. And it's always upbeat.
So listen to a lot of Bony M. And I also listened to a ton of.
As I got older, started listening to a lot of, like, what was called at the time techno. But it's really just dance, electronic dance and big beat. I don't know if you heard of big Beat, the genre.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: I haven't. No.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Big Beat is a cool genre. Like, do you know, like, Fat Boy, Slim Rockefeller?
That's big beat.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I'll be listening to it. I didn't know what it's called.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: I just, I just class that. Yes.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: So it's like, it's like a classic record. Right? And even, like, Crystal Method. I don't know if you're the Crystal Method. Prodigy. Those kind of.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: I used to love Prodigy when I was a kid.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I, I, I went to the library in grade four and I got this, like, cd. Music cd. I, I signed out this music cd, which was like a Digimon soundtrack. Like, some, like, cartoon soundtrack. And it had a Rockefeller Sync as one of the tracks. And I just remember, like, listening to that song a thousand times. I'm like, man, this song is so cool because it had these, like, sampled beats. But then it had, like, live guitar and had, like, sampled, like, vocals. Almost, like, not the singing vocals, but, like, just spoken vocals. Right? Sample, like, the funk soul brother. Check it out now, like, and then it, like, comes back again again.
And I'm like, man, like, how did you make, like, what is this? Like, what even is this? Right?
And so a lot of that, I think, influenced me, which was this, like, melodies and musicality on the, on the Indian side, on the Bollywood side with, like, some of these legendary records that were all taken in, like, one shot in some studio in Bombay in the 60s.
This disco vibe, Euro European disco vibe.
And then this, like, electronic sampled, like, big beat style.
And that's. That's, like, more foundational. And then as I grew up, obviously, like, big into hip hop. Like, hip hop was huge in North America, right? Like, we're talking 50 Cent dance hall, like, Sean Paul. That stuff is huge. So just listening to a lot more, like, the centric stuff, the. The mainstream stuff. And so if you listen to my music today, I think you.
I think I, like, subconsciously bring those influences in, right? Like, a lot of my, like, the bossary melodies on some of my tracks, like, they're more of that older Bollywood style, right? But then I'll often, like, sample people's spoken word. Like, I sampled, like, Ravi Shankar when he was introing a tabla on stage at a concert in London. Like, I sampled him talking about what a tabla is. And I put that on Double O Flex, right? So, like, a lot of that, like, sick track. Thanks, Ed. Thanks, Ed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I sampled a commercial. There's like a. There's like a tea commercial where Zakir Hussein and there's a tea commercial in India that was, like, talking about, like, Taj Mahal Chai.
Like, sample that, right? Because I was like, in the commercial, he's, like, doing a tabla solo, and then the lady is like, wow. St. Bah. So, like, just sampling that kind of stuff that's like the more big beat influence, right?
And then, like, the groovy basses and the groovy, like, rhythms and stuff. Like, that's coming from that bone vibe, right? So it's a. It's a pretty eclectic thing. I. I don't know if this is, like, a common palette for producers. I feel like a lot of producers, like, yeah, I grew up listening to rock, still, like, classic rock, and then went into, like, punk rock. And then now I produce pop. Like, you know, for me, it's like Op Nab and like, Mama Duffy mixed with Bonan mixed with, like, Fat Boy Slim and Jay Z.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: You're a man. From my own own heart, honestly. Because what you've just described is how I identify myself with music is in the sense of that I love melody, but it has to be modernized to the modern.
Yeah, modern audience, totally. Because album looks 60s, 70s, as you said, like, and also 90s Kumaran, you know, all those yeah. Songs. Do you know, I mean, that. That's my era, you know, and if you. The key thing about that, that era and all the eras we just talked about was. Was melody. It was just so melodious. Which I find.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Exactly. Because it had to be like, you know, I wasn't just joking about, like, music reproduction limitations as a driver for sound. Because if you have a tiny transistor radio all over India, the only thing that's gonna stick is a melody and lyrics.
Like, that's why these tracks had like barely any music. And the music they had was like one instrument kind of right in the front a lot of times. Right. Because that's all. That's all you could hear. You couldn't hear, like the whatever stuff in the back. You just couldn't. And nobody had. Nobody had headphones. Nobody had, like a big studio.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Hi, guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify, on Apple Music, and add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank you.
It's a bit like today in India, where I suppose this is the other side of it. Most music's listen to you on. On your smartphone now, isn't it? Just like.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Exactly. And yeah, 100%. So you have to adapt to that. Yeah. Like, what's gonna stick? It's not gonna be like a baseline usually. It's gonna be like lyrics, vocal style and melody. That's what's gonna come through.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really interesting. Really interesting.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. You almost gotta think of like, how is this being consumed? Right? And that's where the product management mindset comes in. Because that's what. Like, that's what I'm trying to do at Google. Like, how is this feature being consumed? Who is actually using this? How are they using it? What are they doing with it? Apply the same mindset to music. It's suddenly so much bigger than your studio, right? Folks in India are listening to this track on a bicycle, on the. On the phone speaker.
Like, do they care about, like, the bass wobbling? No, no, no. Like, they care about, like, feeling cool. Like, you know, that's why I think, like, Honey Singh, a lot of Honey Singh stuff, like hits. Because at the start it's like, yo, yo, Honey Singer. Everybody's like, okay. Like, I feel like, let's. This is cool, right? You know, like, you almost don't even need music in that.
Yeah, exactly. It's like, yo, like, you could just play that.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: On a doggy, like a daddy beat, and it would.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: It would hit like, you know, that's really interesting, bro. Honestly. Oh, cool, man. So let's move on. I could talk to you for ages, by the way. I'm.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah. We should keep talk. Yeah, yeah, we'll keep it going.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: You know, you mentioned sort of your favorite genres and influences at the moment, so let's move on from that. What about your work with Bell Media?
Tell us a bit about that and how, how you got into that and. And the difference as well from your production and that. We sort of touched on it earlier as well, but so love to hear.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So the Bell Media work is. It's kind of like. It's basically production music. So Bell Media is like a big TV company. They have 63 channels, TV channels, TV stations. And if you think about that, 63 TV stations means every hour they need 63 hours of content.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: So every, every day they need like thousands of hours of content. Right. So they're. They're massive. They're just producing content all the time, they're choosing content all the time, they're putting it up, etc. Etc. And they have their own music team, essentially, and they have their own music library that they pull music from to produce this content very quickly. Like, think about it. If they're like, okay, we recorded a news broadcast today. We need music for it, like now, in like five minutes, because it's going to go on air, right? Or, hey, we did like a breakfast show.
There was like a. There's like the sequence where this person brings this thing into the room.
We need music for it, like now they're not going to have time to like, go source a producer, give him a cue sheet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, they're going to pull from their library and they're just going to use it, right? So to feed that library, there's a team of producers, I think there's like 15, 20 of us, and we write music to feed that library.
And so I've probably done like 50 tracks for them, I want to say. And it's just different tracks of different flavors. Like, I did a full, like, Indian package for them, which was around like, Diwali time. Like, if they wanted to use any Indian music. And like during Diwali or Bandit Chordivas or Holi Laurie, like any of the big Masaki, any of the big, like, Indian Punjabi festivals.
So, like, I delivered a package for them. It's like 20 tracks around. Just every track was like, Indian, but it was a different vibe.
They're not like.
It's like. It's like building blocks of music, right? So there'll be like section A, B, C. The editors can like chop it around how they like. There's an intro and an outro and it was really cool because I got to, I got to basically just like think of it like a sparring. Like if you're a boxer, like the real, real battle will be like going to like, like a MMA fight. This was more like sparring. So it's just like practicing.
Sorry, one second. I think my camera's lagging. Give me. Just try to fix this a little bit.
I don't know.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see the lag.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: I don't know what's going on my camera. But anyway, yeah. So super fun. I had a blast doing it. I still do it sometimes time to time, but my focus right now is more around creating great work for Soda vine, like releasing it under Sodomine.
And that's taken a lot of reflection. I want to make sure I'm delivering quality, but it's also like trying to figure out social media and trying to figure out, okay, like how is it going to get out there and actually be consumed as you know, man. As for an artist, it's always, it's an ever moving target because culture is ever moving. But. Right.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: I think the hardest thing for me as a musician, I don't know whether you can relate with this is not doing the music, producing music that was getting it out to the people, getting to the right people, the right time. That's just, it's, it's selling. How, how do you sell your music basically?
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Yeah, 100. 100. It's. Well, like my approach to this is like the music, firstly, the music needs to have, needs to have something about it. Right. Like the music itself needs to be of a certain quality. I don't want to say good because good is subjective. The music needs to have a quality that appeals to a certain audience. Let's just leave it at that. Right?
So that's like a table stakes. You need to do that. That's required almost right now with the marketing side, I find like you can strategize it all you want, but in reality you just have to try a bunch of different approaches until you find one that like works.
So like some artists will be like, okay, my strategy for the next three months is I'm just doing short form video and the next three months I'm going to do long form video. The next three months I'm going to do Instagram ads. The next three months I'm going to do Facebook ads. It's like or you could do each one of those for two days, find the one that works the best, and then do that one for a week, and then find the area in that one that works the best, and then do that one for a week. Like, you know, you, you almost have to, like, think of yourself as an entrepreneur and, and making, like, really tiny adjustments. MVPs, like, you know, like, hey, I'm going to try this short form video idea. Okay? This totally bombed. All right, let me not do that. Let me try this other short form idea. Maybe, like, evolve it a little bit. Oh, this one got, like, more to it. So that in itself is a whole thing, you know, and oftentimes it's frustrating because artists, like, we don't. We're not marketers. No. Like, we like to make music, you know, we're not trying to, like, be like, the next marketing power.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Unfortunately, you have to learn it, don't you?
[00:46:19] Speaker B: He says, yep, you do have to learn it.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah. You need to know a little bit about it.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Or like, I, I would even say, like, you cannot.
I think some people think that you can outsource this and just get somebody to do it for you. I don't think that's true. I think the real marketing has to. It has to be led by the artist's vision. Like.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: I agree, I agree.
When I first got back into music, I remember I went to a marketing agency to market my music and quoted me at astronomical price.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Okay, okay.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Astronomical price. And number two, it was just, just the astronomical price. All they were going to do is pitch it to some radio stations.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: I asked them, I said, well, what's your. Yeah, you might be a, A marketing media company, but what's your strategy? What are you going to do with the song? Oh, we're going to give it to this radio station. I can do that myself.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. And the pitch will probably be a little bit more like, like, higher quality if it's coming from the artist. Right?
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. It's got to be led by the, by the artist.
[00:47:36] Speaker B: I. I do think, and I said this earlier too, like, people are not stupid. Like, people know.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Like, our brains are so, like, the audience is not dumb. They know when it's a legit thing and they know when it's you trying to sell something.
Right. And think about it. Like, you go on Instagram Reels for 20 minutes, you're probably seeing like a hundred ads, or maybe not 100, but you've seen a lot of ads. So you're tuned Your brain is tuned to know in a microsecond if this is an ad, if something's trying to sell something or not.
So the moment you go on and you're like, selling, even if it's not an ad, you're gonna get skipped immediately. Right? Like. Like, sorry, when I said even though it's not an ad, even though it's not a paid Instagram ad, even if it's just a video of you trying to sell, folks will know immediately.
Like, our brains are so attuned. So this is gonna be skip, skip. So you have to, like, legitimately be delivering something that is, like, entertaining that people will actually want to see, not just like, yo, check out my new track. I can work once in a while, but that's not the.
Like, Charlie XCX is not doing that. You know.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: That'S really cool. So let's. Let's move on to the next part. Was your. What's your creative process like?
Yeah, workflow when you tune the track?
[00:49:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a good question.
Honestly, it's pretty eclectic. I oftentimes start with.
I start with an idea in my head. I try to bring it to life. Like, I'll have an idea, like, you know, walking around the city or, like, in the. In the shower or something, and I'll try to get it into a voice memo, and I'll just talk to myself, be like, okay, this is how I see the bass going. This is how I see the thing going. Okay, then this section, that section, blah, blah, blah. I'll try to record that. That works sometimes.
Other times, what I have to do is I have to, like, get inspiration from a sample or some kind of, like, musical idea. So, like, I'll try to find a sample that I'm like, okay, this is really cool. I could use this. Or a musical idea that I'll play on the keyboard. I'll be like, oh, yeah. Like, that chord progression is really cool. Or that sound is really cool. Like, the timber of that sound is. Is really interesting. It's like, that can also be the start of. Of a. Of an approach.
But once you kind of have that spark, I. I think the objective is to, like, keep that spark lit. Because it's so easy to just get stuck in a rut and be like, okay, I'm just gonna work on drums for the next 30 minutes. And then you've lost track of, like, any inspiring parts of the track. You're just like, I've heard a thousand kick drums. What was the idea again? Like, what Are we making. It's like all I know is kick drums now. So you almost need to like, once you have the.
I should talk in first person. Once I had the technical skills on how to create a record, I then almost had to like take myself out and just put the foundational pillars in and just say like, bass like this. Structure is like this. Vocals are like this. Melodies like this. Okay, does this add like almost like sketching a painting first? Is this even good or is this like crappy?
And once you know it's good, maybe taking a step back, then you start going and start doing the details. Then you start to like, really polish it all up.
And sometimes the sketch itself is incredible and you're like, holy crap. Like, this is already so good moment I polish, this is going to be even better.
But yeah, like, that the process is really. That's ideally what happens.
Sometimes I just get like way too far into it and I'll have this like incredible intro section that sounds super good. And then the rest of the track is like garbage. And I'm like, okay, well that's.
That's pretty top heavy. Or like vice versa. Like, intro's terrible and like the chorus is incredible.
But I will say, like, last thing I'll say on this is the faster you can do it, the better.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Usually that makes sense.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's like one cohesive idea rather than like a thousand ideas.
And so like some of my records, like Sithar Flex, that record was made in my grad school dorm. Well, not dorm room, but like my apartment in grad school where I did not have a studio.
It was made in like 30 minutes because. Really? Yeah, because I had this other. I had these other three tracks on the EP and I was like, these are pretty good. But like, he's like an intro song, like, and a three track EP is kind of like weird number. So let me just make another song. I'm like, okay, let's make it a long intro because I want it to be an intro to the ep. And then, yeah, let's put a big drop in there. Cool. All right, nice. This, this sounds cool. Bring it back another drop. Okay, cool. Nice. Let's. Let's vary the second drop. Cool. Done.
And it worked. It was like people like messaged me about that song all the time. They're like, dude, how did you do this? I was like, dude, it was just like a sprint. Honestly.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: Eight minutes.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: Anyway, challenge is like, produce a track in one hour or 30 minutes or something.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I would Love to do that. Like, I think I would love to film myself for an hour with a camera that's not this laggy and. And.
And, like, send it to some editor and be like, hey, look, I made this beat in an hour. Can you, like, compress this into a.
And find all, like, the juicy elements of the production? Compress it into a minute.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: That's a great idea. I'm nicking that for me.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: Go for it. Go for it.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:49] Speaker B: If you find a good editor, if you get. If you find a good editor, let me know. Yeah.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: My wife does my editing, so it's all.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: She dealt with anything so well.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: Hey, man, it's. It's.
Yeah, it's been a pleasure chatting with you and talking about music. It's been a blast. Absolutely.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Before you go, I know we're taking up time.
The podcast is about musical excellence. What advice would you give to the audience and how to pursue musical excellence?
[00:54:27] Speaker B: I think the best advice is the simplest advice.
I think the best advice is advice that you can apply immediately.
So my advice is going to be very simple.
You have to.
You just have to do music.
Just do music. Don't think, don't analyze, don't strategize, don't watch, don't sit on the side.
Get on the field and just make music.
There's a reason my band teacher said to me, they said this to me when I was younger. He's like, nanak, we play music, okay? We play music. It's called playing music because it's play. It's fun.
If you're not playing, you're not doing music.
So my advice to excellence is just do music, play music, get hours in making music. That's it. Don't worry about this, like, strategy, music industry, tech stuff, buying the right plugin, doing the right thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that matters. Just getting the music into the. Out of your head, into the thing.
You know, Kanye west did three beats a day for five beats a day for three summers or something. He's, like, very proud of that. Like, do that. Do five beats a day for three summers. You'll come out of that, and you'll be incredible. I promise.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: Awesome. Okay, so thanks for that. Where can listeners find your work and where can we catch up on you with you?
[00:56:08] Speaker B: You can find me.
You can find me on social media. So divine. I. I have the Sodivine handle on basically all social media, which I'm really lucky. So that's my last name. S O D H I V I N E so Divine.
You can also find me on sodivine.com you can email me at info divine.com Spotify, Apple Music.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Please go check it out. And the one thing I do love is when folks reach out to me and they say, hey, I love this track. And then they tell me about how they found it or how they liked it or what they think of it. That's like. That's to me, is like chef's kiss. Like, great. This person liked it enough to actually reach out to me. Amazing. Amazing. And you can also sign up for my newsletter on my website. So if you give me your email, then I'll send you any new tracks that come out straight to your email.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: I'll do that now as well.
[00:57:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, do it up. Do it up. Yes.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: So, guys, this was the logical podcast. This was so Divine. Make sure you check him out and please leave a review. If you see it on social media, this clip, make sure you go and follow it.
Follow so Divine on his socials. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you check him out as well. And please leave review. Drop a comment. So I'm going to put stop on this and I'll just resume the conversation just behind the scenes for a minute or so because I've taken a lot of this time. So bless you all and see you next time.
