0:01

It used to take a whole crew to create

0:03

a pop song. You needed

0:06

a composer, a lyricist, an arranger

0:08

or orchestrator, a band, a recording

0:10

engineer, a sound mixer. But

0:13

today, in the pop world, a single

0:15

person can do all of that. And

0:18

that person is called the producer. Oak

0:21

Felder is a producer. A

0:23

really, really good one. I've won a couple

0:25

Grammys in my career. I literally have a

0:27

plaque upstairs that says that I sold 60

0:30

million records. None

0:32

of that matters in this room, because this is

0:34

where we create. And I

0:36

am serving the artist. In

0:38

this extraordinary episode, this Unsung

0:40

Science grand finale, we're

0:42

going to do something I don't think has ever been done.

0:45

We'll record the entire sessions

0:48

in which a professional LA producer

0:51

creates a new song start to

0:53

finish in real time. He'll

0:55

describe what he's doing and what technology

0:57

makes it possible. I don't think

0:59

you'll ever hear a pop song the same way again. I'm

1:02

David Pogue, and this is

1:05

Unsung Science. Hey,

1:13

Prime members, you can listen to

1:15

Unsung Science ad-free on Amazon Music.

1:18

Download the app today. Prince Harry

1:20

spent his life living in the shadow of his

1:22

mother's tragic death. But when he

1:24

falls in love, he realizes it's up to him

1:27

to stop history from repeating itself. In

1:29

our new series, Prince Harry, Windsor of Change,

1:31

we'll tell you how a prince without direction

1:33

became a duke who found a family. Listen

1:35

to Even the Rich on the Wondery app

1:37

or wherever you get your podcasts. Season

1:41

two, episode 25, grand

1:43

finale, a pop song is born.

1:46

So I'm serious about that grand finale

1:49

business. This is the final episode of

1:51

Unsung Science season two. Also

1:54

probably the last episode for a while.

1:56

I'll explain more about that later. But

1:59

before we talk about the future... future, let's

2:01

talk about the past. In

2:04

January 2020, I

2:06

reported a story for CBS Sunday Morning

2:08

called, What Makes a Hit Song a

2:10

Hit. We interviewed some

2:13

insanely successful songwriters and

2:15

asked them to identify the elements that

2:17

make a pop song pop. One

2:20

of those people we interviewed was Okefelter.

2:22

I've always said that music is a way to,

2:25

it's like a conduit of emotion

2:27

between the creator and the listener. It's the way

2:29

that you can make a person cry listening to

2:31

a ballad, or it's the way that you can

2:33

make a person shake their booty in the club.

2:35

You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I frequently shake

2:37

my booty. You frequently? Really? Oh, that's amazing, man.

2:40

That's amazing. This

2:42

guy, man. He's won two Grammys.

2:45

Apple has used his songs in two of their ads.

2:47

He's written songs for a

2:49

few people you might have heard of. Nicki

2:52

Minaj, Alicia Keys, Mary

2:54

J. Blige, Miley Cyrus,

2:57

Rihanna, Usher, Ariana Grande,

2:59

Alessia Cara, Kelly Clarkson,

3:01

Demi Lovato, Lizzo, Jennifer

3:03

Lopez, and John Legend.

3:06

Oke wrote songs like, Sorry Not Sorry

3:08

for Demi Lovato. And

3:20

here for Alessia Cara. It's

3:41

safe to say that more people

3:43

recognize Okefelter's songs than would recognize

3:46

Okefelter. But he is

3:48

pretty recognizable. Man, I'm 6'5

3:50

and 300 pounds. That's 6'5, not

3:52

including the Mohawk. All

3:55

told, he's written hundreds of songs,

3:57

maybe thousands, and yet he

3:59

doesn't call because

6:00

people tend not to understand

6:02

how nuanced it is. There's

6:05

the starts, the stops, the pivots, the

6:07

oh, this is not such a good idea, and

6:09

I messed up recording this

6:11

one part. So I

6:13

think it's brilliant that you had this

6:16

idea. It's pretty cool. I'm not gonna

6:18

lie, I was astonished that you said

6:20

yes. Yeah. Because you produce some really

6:23

high level songs, you would think that

6:25

this was a potential for risk for

6:27

you, for embarrassment. No,

6:30

I have two kids, they embarrassed me enough

6:32

from time to time, so it's all good.

6:35

We met in his studio in the

6:37

mountains overlooking Los Angeles. Not

6:39

a bad spot. All right. Like famous people

6:41

have sat here with you and

6:44

worked through a song together, right? Yeah. The

6:46

way you explained it to me last year is typically

6:49

you'll start by just talking. Yeah,

6:51

for sure. Like therapy style. Yeah, for sure. I

6:53

think it's important to be able to pull the

6:55

emotion into the song. Songs that

6:57

are based on real emotion, I think tend

6:59

to transfer better to the audience. Okay,

7:02

well that's great, because I have real

7:04

childhood problems with my mother. Okay, all

7:06

right. Let's go, we're diving into the

7:08

deep end. No,

7:11

no, I kid, I kid. But what I

7:13

did do to save us time is I've

7:15

written three complete

7:18

lyrics, three radically

7:20

different styles of songs. So I thought maybe

7:22

I let you read them. You haven't seen

7:24

these, ladies and gentlemen. He has no idea

7:27

what's on these pieces of paper.

7:29

No idea. All right, so here's the first one.

7:32

This is the breaking up with a narcissist

7:34

song. It's called You Do You. Here

7:37

you go. You

7:39

have like a full lyric here. I

7:41

didn't know if you were gonna be like, this isn't how I

7:43

do it. I'm not gonna lie to you. There

7:45

aren't people who are usually as organized

7:47

as this. You

7:50

can use the word anal, that's okay. Okay, yeah, sure.

7:52

We can use that word. All right, all right. Let

7:54

me read these to you, I'll check it out. You

7:57

spend less time with me than you spend on your hair.

8:00

When we hang out together, you're not even there.

8:02

Your favorite pickup line is, Guess

8:05

how much I'd lift? Your soul religion

8:07

seems to be that you're God's gift.

8:10

That's really cool. There

8:12

actually is no podcast, ladies and gentlemen. I

8:14

just wanted to get Oakeselder saying that I'm

8:16

cool. This is your shot, man. This is

8:18

your shot. Okay,

8:21

going on with the cold reading. This

8:23

look, you do you, your head over

8:25

heels for you. You do

8:27

you, you've got all the feels for you. You

8:31

do you, finally, we can agree. You

8:33

do you without being. I

8:36

like this one a lot. Okay, cool. Can

8:38

we look at the other two options before

8:40

we make our selection? Yep, yep. So this

8:43

is the second one. This is based on

8:45

a true story. So I'm imagining she is

8:47

singing to him before they have to be

8:49

separated for a year. And

8:51

she's saying, we'll survive, we can

8:53

make it. But you can

8:56

tell that she really doesn't think it'll

8:58

last. No, no, this is

9:00

a ballot. This is obviously about it.

9:03

It's only a year, baby. It's only a year. And

9:05

then I'll be there in the spring. It's

9:08

nothing to fear, baby. It's nothing to fear.

9:11

A little break won't change a thing. You

9:13

said you don't know, baby. You said

9:15

you don't know how to feel while

9:17

we're apart. Give it a go,

9:19

baby. Please give it a go. Aren't you listening

9:21

to your heart? You know what I

9:23

like about this, by the way? Side note, I

9:26

like how the font that you've selected to write these

9:28

out are a little bit very

9:30

like something that you would see on a

9:33

really thought out, like Hallmark card or whole.

9:35

Oh, the italics. A lot of love and

9:37

care went into that one. All right, so

9:39

here's candidate number three. Already? This one proposed

9:41

by my daughter Tia. She's like, if you

9:44

want to reach the youth today, they

9:47

think the world is going to hell. So

9:49

maybe you do something on all the way.

9:51

The world sucks. But the chorus

9:53

is like, but at least you and I

9:55

have each other. Yeah. If I look at

9:57

the news these days, I start not feeling.

10:00

feeling well. Yeah, I can name a thousand ways

10:02

the world has gone to hell. The

10:04

CO2, the equine slope,

10:06

the species that we've lost, the

10:08

dying bees, the plastic seas, and

10:10

how much groceries cost. The violent

10:12

cops, the dried up crops, the

10:14

heat waves in the fall. But

10:16

I say, oh but even so,

10:18

my headline tops them all. Of

10:21

course, I've got you, you, you.

10:23

You make it all somehow make

10:25

sense. Yeah, you, you, you're

10:28

my current of events. I don't

10:30

know, I like all three of these. I

10:34

think the you do you idea is really cool. Yeah,

10:37

I think that's cool. All right. Okay,

10:40

so at this point, Oak turns

10:42

to his huge computer screen, which

10:44

is angled slightly backwards on his

10:47

desk. There's a keyboard right under

10:49

it, as in a piano

10:51

style keyboard. And then his

10:53

computer keyboard and mouse are below that

10:55

on a pullout tray. For

10:58

the rest of this episode, you're going

11:00

to hear the musical creation process with

11:02

minimal interruptions. I highly

11:04

recommend listening with headphones or earbuds

11:06

or good speakers if you can.

11:09

Anyway, on his screen, he's running

11:11

Logic Pro, software that can

11:14

display hundreds of parallel bands that represent

11:16

the tracks of the song you're making.

11:19

You know, one track for bass, one for drums

11:21

and so on. Like a pro

11:23

version of Garage Band, I guess. Like

11:27

I have a lot of different instruments that are sort of

11:29

in it that either I would install it, it already come

11:31

with the program. This particular

11:33

piano, it's called Keyscape. Great

11:37

sample piano. And it

11:39

sounds like a real piano, which

11:41

is why I like using it. And just

11:43

to be clear, the musical keyboard on Oak's

11:46

desk is called a controller. It's

11:48

not a synthesizer. It doesn't make any sounds

11:50

of its own. It's only a trigger,

11:52

you know, so when I press the C note, the

11:55

sound isn't actually coming from the keyboard.

11:57

It's telling my computer to

11:59

tell the keyscape plugin that's

12:01

in Logic to generate the sound that

12:03

a piano would have generated if the

12:06

C key on an actual piano were

12:08

played. That's awesome. Finally, it

12:10

was time to start actually writing. He

12:13

set the metronome to 93 beats a minute.

12:17

Alrighty. I

12:20

think 93 is a good tempo. Okay,

12:22

so this is a darker concept. So

12:25

right now what I'm doing is I'm opening another plugin

12:27

that's going to give me yet another sound. I

12:30

need like a low rolly bass, I think. Alright,

12:35

metronome. Alright,

12:41

so now

12:45

that I have my bass, my basic chord progression.

12:54

So starting on

12:56

this minor chord. Good call. Good

12:59

call. Because it's a darker feel. Yeah. Up

13:03

to the major to kind of give it a

13:05

little bit of light but then it's like, bring

13:07

it back down. Okay,

13:13

so now that I've figured out what my chord

13:15

progression is going to be, I'm just going to

13:17

play the bass line. And when I press record,

13:19

if you hear this, that's my metronome. I

13:22

mean, it is already cool enough that I feel like we should

13:25

have the conversation about the

13:45

royalty split. There you go. She's

13:47

learning, ladies and gentlemen. I

13:51

have a vocal idea. I think

13:53

this is going to end up being, if I'm not

13:55

mistaken, I think this feels like a female vocal. Yes.

13:58

Yeah, okay. Alright. different

14:00

artists, you kind of have to

14:02

really get a sense of them because every artist has

14:04

a different sonic,

14:06

what I call a sonic palette. There

14:08

are sounds that I would use for

14:10

Demi Lovato that I would never use

14:12

for say, Tidalisone. There are sounds that

14:14

I would use for Selena Gomez that

14:17

I would never think to use for

14:19

Anne Marie, the UK artist Anne Marie.

14:21

So that while I'm creating and while

14:23

I'm adding sounds, usually they'll be sitting

14:25

back on the couch right where you're

14:27

sitting going, that's fire. Oh,

14:29

that's dope. That's amazing. When that

14:31

doesn't happen, that means I'm really

14:33

bombing it. So right now I'm

14:35

creating another sound here. This

14:37

is called a Rhodes keyboard. Oh, I had

14:40

a Rhodes. Oh man, these are the classics.

14:42

Yeah, absolutely. A little bit of reverb. Oh

14:48

my gosh, that's cool. And then I'm

14:50

going to add something called wow and

14:52

flutter and it basically takes the sound

14:55

and makes it sound like it's coming off of

14:57

a really old school tape. Hear

15:01

it? It's

15:04

sort of emulating what like worn

15:06

tape would do or like a

15:09

warped vinyl. Believe it

15:11

or not, they use a lot of that in

15:13

music. Are these standard? Is this red and blue

15:15

in your paint box? Are these things you use

15:17

all the time? No, because in

15:20

my mind, the lyrics here, you're criticizing

15:22

a person for being a narcissist, but

15:24

it's not spoken. If the artist somehow

15:26

insinuated, yes, you think you're all that

15:28

and you think of God's gift to

15:31

everything, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

15:34

And you know what? You do you.

15:36

That to me is so cool. The

15:38

insinuation of how awesome I believe myself

15:40

to be to let go of your

15:42

egotistical ass. And somehow I think that

15:44

that energy needs to make its way

15:46

into the music. Wow. And flutter is

15:50

instant cool. So I'm going to add that.

16:04

I should mention by the way that

16:06

while I'm working on this Keith and

16:08

Alex are working on accompanying Sonics to

16:10

go with this. Ear

16:12

candy, extra chord progression stuff.

16:15

He's talking about Keith Sorrells and Alex

16:17

Nice who've been working in the same

16:19

room this whole time with headphones on.

16:22

Keith and Alex are Oakfelder proteges, talented

16:24

young producers in their own right. Shout

16:27

out to Oscar Lindander, he's my assistant

16:29

engineer. Oscar was recording this whole session

16:31

on separate tracks so I could make

16:34

a podcast out of it. Okay,

16:36

right now my voice is going through auto tune.

16:40

Right now, I have

16:43

auto tune on my voice. You

16:45

in T-Pain man. Me in T-Pain.

16:47

All right. Yeah. Okay,

16:51

so I know that the

16:53

word you is going to feature very prominently

16:56

in this song. I

16:58

want to give a little bit of foreshadowing to

17:00

that earlier in the song. Okay,

17:13

I have a little bit

17:15

of reverb and this particular reverb is

17:17

pretty big. It

17:19

kind of sounds like I'm in a big cavern. And

17:22

then I have a little bit of wow and flutter on this track

17:24

as well. Those things put

17:26

together kind of create almost like a very

17:29

vintagey sounding samples

17:31

of vocal. I'm going to

17:33

add a snap right quick just to kind of

17:36

set the rhythmic tone. On two and four? That's

17:38

exactly right. I have a

17:40

library of sounds. I have sounds. On

17:43

the screen he's got like 75 clicks. I

17:46

make the joke that a producer's life is

17:49

looking for sounds. You wake up, you brush your teeth,

17:51

you look for sounds. You get dressed, you go to

17:53

work, you look for sounds. You

17:55

get to the studio, you sit down, you look for sounds. Like

17:58

that's just a producer's life. life looking

18:00

for sounds. I

18:03

want something not too crispy. Something,

18:08

maybe that one. I

18:10

like this sound, but I think it's a little too low. And

18:15

this is what it sounds like after pitch shifting it upward. Oh,

18:19

it's cool. I'm

18:31

going to add one more instrument here. Something

18:34

to add just a little bit of buzziness. First

18:36

I'm going to find the sound that I want to use to layer. Again,

18:43

looking for sounds. Here

18:45

we are. Welcome to

18:47

my life. So

18:51

now we have this initial sound. So

18:56

I'm going to layer it. I've created a duplicate

18:58

track with another instrument, and I've just taken the

19:01

data of what I've played and copied

19:03

it down. And

19:05

so now there's a second track playing this. Blade

19:11

Runner. Very much. Matter

19:13

of fact, the

19:16

instrument that this plug-in emulates was

19:18

used to make the Blade Runner

19:21

sound track. Oh, really? Totally. That and Stranger Things.

19:26

You put those two together. So

19:33

it kind of creates a little bit of a menacing

19:35

feel. Because it's

19:37

scathing, right? I can see her delivering

19:39

it in a very sort of pleasant,

19:42

poisonous smile. Very poisonous smile vibes here.

19:44

Because this is exactly what happens while

19:46

you're creating a production. You're thinking about

19:48

all the emotions, and you're trying to

19:51

figure out a way to represent those

19:53

emotions sonically. In a lot of ways,

19:55

creating a pop song is you're scoring

19:57

the lyric that it accompanies. Alright,

20:03

so now I'm going to create an alternative section.

20:05

My man! Okay, so Alex just sent

20:07

me some stuff to add. This

20:09

is what Alex just added. Come

20:13

on, bro. So

20:22

these

20:26

are all of the tiny details that

20:28

go into a production that make it feel

20:30

so much richer. At that moment, Keith sent

20:32

his stuff to Oak over the network. Some

20:35

fancier drum work. So he sent

20:37

you his stuff now? Oh, yes he had. Oh,

20:40

okay. Oh my god. Let's go,

20:42

bro. And

20:47

it was here for the first time that

20:49

Oak started thinking about a melody for the

20:52

song. He'd come up with the

20:54

vibe first, and then the chord

20:56

progression, then the arrangement, and

20:59

only then the tune. I can

21:01

hear a melody for the verse. Right?

21:07

These sounds. This

21:11

is called a swish. This

21:16

is called a swish. It's

21:31

all of the tiny details that go into a

21:33

production that make it feel so much richer. At

21:35

that moment, Keith sent his stuff to Oak

21:38

over the network. Some fancier

21:40

drum work. So he sent you

21:42

his stuff now? Oh, yes he had. Okay.

21:45

Okay. Okay. Okay.

21:48

Let's go, bro. And

21:52

it was here for the first time that

21:54

Oak started thinking about a melody for the

21:56

song. He'd come up with the vibe

21:58

first, and then the chord progression, then the melody. the chord

22:00

progression, then the arrangement, and

22:03

only then the tune. I can

22:05

hear a melody for the verse. You say,

22:07

you spend less time, you spend

22:09

less time with me when you

22:11

spend on yours. When

22:15

we hang out together it's not

22:17

even. Your

22:20

favorite pickup line is just how much

22:22

I live. You

22:25

say, you spend less time with me when you spend less time

22:27

with me when you spend less time with me. Right? These

22:31

sounds, this is called a swish. It happens a

22:33

lot in music. It's like

22:36

a build up release. So this

22:39

is going into our pre-chorus, and our pre-chorus is a little

22:41

bit of a drop off of energy. Then

22:43

we go into our chorus. Yeah,

22:55

exactly. That is

22:57

exactly right. And then we go into our chorus. I'm

23:00

going to lay like a quick idea of what I think the

23:02

melody of this should be. Now,

23:05

here's the part that really blew my mind. We'd

23:08

both envisioned this song for a woman to sing to

23:10

a man. Now he

23:12

was about to lay down a rough scratch track

23:14

of the vocal line as a man.

23:18

And as you are probably aware,

23:20

most men's voices have a lower

23:22

range than women's voices. So

23:24

get this. He transposed

23:26

the key of the song down for

23:29

his own song version with

23:31

the intention of shifting it back up again

23:33

later. So

23:41

what I'm doing is I'm pitching it down. I'm

23:44

going to sing it pitched down. Then

23:46

when I pitch it back up, my tone will have

23:48

shifted to be a little bit more representative of what

23:50

a female vocal would feel like. with

24:00

a unique feature, as his

24:02

son Ross Jr. explains in this

24:04

YouTube video. This is the tape

24:07

recorder, and what it was able to do that

24:09

none of the other things could do back in

24:11

those days is actually switch speeds.

24:13

You could actually change the

24:15

speed so that then my

24:17

dad spoke like that. Yeah,

24:20

when Bagdasarian Sr. recorded his

24:22

own singing voice normally... Wanda,

24:26

please, the loo-loo

24:28

me I want

24:32

Ooh-la-hoo and

24:34

then sped the tape recorder to

24:37

its faster speed, voila! Alvin

24:39

and the chipmunks were born. Ooh-la-hoo

24:46

Ooh-la-hoo And

24:51

now, 65 years later, Ochfelder

24:53

was about to perform the same

24:55

trick digitally. Not to make

24:57

himself sound like a rodent, but to

24:59

make himself sound like a female vocalist.

25:02

Here's his original performance. You

25:05

spend less time with me than

25:08

you spend on your bed And

25:12

we hang out together, you're

25:15

not even dead And

25:18

then he did the same trick with the pre-chorus,

25:21

a melody that he made up on the spot. You

25:24

must be chilly, bitter,

25:27

faint, color, ice

25:30

And then, with harmonies added on successive

25:32

passes You must be

25:34

chilly, bitter, faint,

25:37

color, ice You

25:40

must be chilly, bitter,

25:43

faint, color, ice And

25:46

then, here it is after chipmunkization,

25:49

introducing Ochfelder, female

25:51

vocalist. And

26:02

finally, the moment of truth, the

26:04

chorus. The hook! Super

26:07

creepy, super earwormy leap to the

26:09

ninth of the scale. So

26:35

there's my rough scratch of where I think the verses

26:37

are. Can we do a crowd stack? You

26:40

guys the crowd? You have a

26:42

crowd too! You're in it? Yeah, yeah! Alright!

26:45

Come on now! We're all the crowd.

26:47

We're all the anacromoroyalties now. There you go, exactly. Hey,

26:49

you can go get that after check. Yes,

26:53

we were about to do a crowd stack,

26:56

also known as a gang vocal, also

26:58

known as being backup singers.

27:02

So let me explain for people who can't see what's

27:04

going on. We're crowding around a microphone,

27:06

getting ready to record what's called a

27:08

gang vocal. I like

27:10

to do my gang vocals outside of the booth.

27:13

And basically, anytime you listen to a record that

27:15

I've done or somebody else have done, you

27:17

see here a whole bunch of people shouting

27:19

in the background. One good example is Cheers

27:21

by Rihanna. Cheers to the frickin' wickin' I

27:24

drank to that. Everybody singing

27:26

with them and her. And

27:42

it's like 15 people all at the same time.

27:44

More often, it's actually three or four people recorded

27:46

numerous times to make it sound like there's more

27:49

than three or four people in the room, just

27:51

like we're getting ready to do. Listen,

27:54

you would record a gang vocal. I find

27:56

that a gang vocal is a way to inform

27:58

the audience of what to see. Because

28:01

if they're listening to a song and they hear a

28:03

group of people singing, your natural inclination is to want

28:05

to join and sing along. And

28:07

so it's sort of an instruction that

28:09

tells the audience, now this is where you sing.

28:11

So that's what we're doing right now. It was

28:14

Oak and his assistants and me.

28:16

He sang the lick for us a couple of times. All

28:18

right, so fine. Ooh. I thought

28:21

it. Ooh. Two

28:23

more. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.

28:26

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.

28:30

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. I

28:33

appreciate y'all. Ooh. Ooh. I

28:37

need a little bit of tuning. That sounds great. To

28:41

tune this, I actually have a program called MetaTune

28:43

that will tune anything. It'll tune

28:46

all of the voices simultaneously. Oh.

28:49

Wait, wait, wait, wait,

28:51

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No,

28:55

no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going

28:57

to stop the beat for dramatic effect. Oh,

28:59

yeah. Right there. Oh,

29:01

my God. That's so good. That is so

29:04

good. Gotta tell

29:07

you, the

29:09

mood in that room was

29:11

getting electric. We

29:17

were creating something from nothing. Well,

29:20

yeah, that's the process for the most part,

29:22

at least the writing portion of it. Yeah.

29:25

Then there's part two, which is the recording portion where we

29:27

get to the vocal. And

29:29

that's a little bit different. It kind of requires a little bit of

29:32

a switch and mentality. Yeah. You know what I

29:34

think we should do? I should book

29:36

a vocalist to come in and sing this. Because

29:39

my vocal wouldn't stay on the recording. I'm not a singer.

29:41

But once we get a vocalist to come in and knock

29:43

it out and nail it, it's going

29:45

to sound fantastic. Honestly,

29:47

that was my secret fantasy for this thing from

29:49

the beginning. I mean, LA must

29:52

be full of amazing singers. And

29:54

Ochfelder probably knows a lot of them. After

29:57

the ads, you'll get to hear how that

29:59

went. Then at the very very end

30:01

of this episode, you will

30:03

finally get to hear the next

30:05

final finished masterpiece, You

30:08

Do You. The

30:30

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30:32

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December 31, 2023. Terms

30:57

at etsy.com/terms. The

31:05

writing session you heard before the break,

31:07

where Ochfelder wrote a song in real

31:09

time, took place in October 2022. All

31:13

we had left to do was get a great singer to

31:15

record it, but getting that lined up

31:17

took nearly a year. On

31:19

top of his regular songwriting duties,

31:22

Ochfelder started winning awards, writing more

31:24

movie scores and traveling a lot,

31:27

and of course, I live on the wrong coast.

31:30

But finally, in August 2023,

31:33

our stars and our schedules aligned.

31:37

Oak invited an up-and-coming vocalist to

31:39

record our masterpiece. Her

31:41

name is Lex, she's 24,

31:43

she's from Anchorage, Alaska, and as

31:45

far as I can tell, her

31:48

voice can do anything. She

31:50

went into the vocal booth off of Oak's studio,

31:53

where Oak could direct her over an intercom

31:55

setup. Mike, check, Mike, check, can you hear me? I

31:58

can. How are you feeling, my friend? I'm

32:00

feeling great. Happy to be here. Wow, you

32:02

sound awesome right now. Thank you so much. Thank

32:04

you. Can I tell you

32:06

how I expected the recording session to go? I

32:09

assumed that Oakes folks had sent the song

32:11

to Lex ahead of time, so she could

32:14

learn it and rehearse it. Maybe

32:16

they'd even written it out as sheet music. I don't know.

32:19

Well, boy was I surprised.

32:21

Upon her arrival at the studio,

32:23

Lex knew nothing about the song. She

32:26

didn't know what was called or even how it went.

32:28

And she had no expectation that she would know. So this

32:31

is what we're going to do. I'm going to loop the

32:33

first eight bars of this for you. Thank

32:35

you. Yeah,

32:42

so usually the process is, I

32:44

just loop it section by section, she cuts it section by

32:46

section. She's going to learn it

32:48

and then we're going to get multiple passes. You're

32:51

doing line by line? Yeah, we're going to cut it line by line.

32:54

That's normal? Yeah, typically

32:56

about 60 percent of the time

32:58

that you do. Oh my God, that's so different

33:00

from what I expected. But

33:03

Lex wasn't just recording each line once.

33:05

She recorded each phrase over and over,

33:08

even though each one sounded perfect to

33:10

me. Fantastic

33:13

pass. Love that one. Give me that one. Beautiful.

33:18

Great tone, homie. Give me like three more

33:20

passes, I think we got it. Fantastic.

33:26

Next two passes, give me a little bit more motion. Beautiful.

33:32

One more, one more. And the reason you're

33:34

doing multiple passes is because I'm going to

33:36

have maybe like six or seven takes here

33:38

and I'll be able to cut

33:40

between each of them to get the best parts of

33:42

them to create one performance. So

33:44

you might take one syllable from take one, one

33:46

syllable from take four. That's exactly right. Yeah. And that's

33:49

what comps are called. That's what comps are. So

33:52

essentially like like this lyric here, you spend

33:54

less time. I take a word from each

33:56

pass. You spend less

33:58

time. chance look

34:00

up Billie Eilish comp. Have

34:02

you ever seen it? 80 passes. That's

34:05

not an exaggeration. Literally

34:08

a syllable from each pass.

34:10

Google that. I did. It's

34:12

on YouTube. It's a clip from the

34:15

Netflix show My Next Guest with David

34:17

Letterman and Billie Eilish and her brother

34:19

Phineas are showing Letterman the tracks she

34:21

recorded on the screen showing

34:23

him how the finished vocal

34:26

line was cobbled together from

34:28

individual pieces of dozens

34:30

of different takes. Here is the vocal

34:32

take for Billie's song Happier Than Ever.

34:34

So do you see all of those

34:36

lines? Those are all

34:38

separate audio files that have been

34:40

put into one take. We got up to like 87

34:42

takes. Pay

34:44

attention. Different take.

34:47

Different take. Different

34:50

take. Different take. Different

34:53

take. Different take. And

34:56

you would never know. And so that's how

34:58

Lex recorded the song. One phrase at

35:00

a time, six or seven times a piece. Sometimes,

35:04

Oak, the composer slash arranger

35:06

slash instrumentalist slash sound engineer,

35:09

also gave her performance notes. One

35:11

thing I want you to focus on here. Your

35:14

soul religion. What's your enunciation there? I want

35:16

to make sure that the L is there.

35:18

Otherwise it's going to sound like you're so

35:20

religion. Yeah, one more time. You

35:23

sound amazing my friend. You're

35:25

a musical director too. Gotta

35:28

be. Because the thing is, is

35:30

that being

35:32

in the booth and recording a song is like being too

35:34

close to a mirror. Like

35:37

you need somebody with a further away vantage

35:39

point to kind of give you a pointer

35:41

on what it is that they're doing wrong

35:43

or doing right. Fantastic, my friend. Let me

35:45

get two more and I think we got

35:47

it. Okay. Let's go. Throughout the afternoon, Oak

35:49

introduced me to new recording techniques like

35:51

stacking. So we're stacking. So

35:54

that basically means I'm getting her to overlay the vocal

35:56

that she's already done to make

35:58

it sound like there's multiple versions of of herself. I

36:01

usually stack four times and then pan them out to the

36:03

left and right to make it sound whiter. I

36:06

can't believe you say usually. This is a

36:09

well-known thing that everybody does. Oh, totally, man.

36:11

But the consumer, the listener, has no idea

36:13

what they want. They have no idea, yeah.

36:15

There are so many technical things that happen

36:18

that I think that the listener takes for

36:20

granted. Yeah. But to be

36:22

honest with you, if we're doing our jobs

36:24

correctly, then they should. Sometimes

36:27

it's part of the art of making it sound great,

36:29

and you don't want to necessarily think about why it

36:31

sounds great. Yeah. People who

36:33

go to amazing restaurants don't necessarily care

36:36

how the chef made this compote taste

36:38

so good. You know what

36:40

I mean? It just tastes good. That's all

36:42

they care about. I also noticed that he

36:44

usually made up one harmony line while Lex

36:46

was recording the previous one. Sometimes

36:49

he'd sing it into his phone into voice memos

36:51

so he'd remember it a minute later. One

36:54

more. You think it is?

36:57

Harmonies, yeah. We're going to have

36:59

one. Yo, get it? Kick. Can

37:01

I get a harmony right quick? Yeah. Since

37:04

you won't ask me? Can I get it over here fast?

37:06

Since you won't ask me? Here we go. Since you won't

37:08

ask me. Let me get a harmony there, too. Since you

37:10

won't ask me. I'm sorry. Can I get

37:12

it? Can I get it? Yeah. Can

37:15

I get it? Yeah. Can I get it?

37:17

Yes. Since you won't ask

37:19

me. I'm sorry. Since you won't ask me. Can I

37:21

get a harmony there, too? Can I get it? Can

37:23

I get it? Listen. Can

37:25

I get it? Can I get it?

37:27

Beautiful. Thank you. Lex, you

37:30

sound incredible, my friend. Thank you so much. You already knew that,

37:32

though. You know what? I like hearing it every now and again.

37:34

You know what? I'm mad at you.

37:36

The reassurance is great. I love that. The

37:38

reassurance is very important. You

37:41

know, I think the worldview, Oak, but she

37:43

sounds a lot better than your demo. She definitely sounds

37:45

a lot better than my demo. And

37:50

I learned about punching in, where

37:52

the software plays back a full

37:54

line of what's already recorded, but

37:57

re-records only a note or two of

37:59

it. couple of seconds that

38:01

you've specified in advance. Punching

38:05

is really cool because I get to

38:07

just dip in and out of

38:09

a performance that she's already done. Like

38:11

let's say she does a pass that sounds amazing and there's

38:13

just one word that's kind of out of place. I

38:16

get to have her just jump in on that one word

38:19

and leave the rest of the recording unaffected. And

38:21

is that better than having her do the whole

38:23

take and you... Typically I prefer a whole take

38:25

because it gives you a more natural performance. But

38:28

sometimes when the performance that you have feels

38:30

amazing and you just need it to be

38:32

technically correct, sometimes it's

38:34

better to focus on technicality

38:37

in a precise way. I see. As

38:40

opposed to trying to redo the whole thing. So

38:42

tell you. Okay. Fantastic.

38:45

There you go. Thank you. I

38:47

appreciate it. Masterclass with

38:50

Oak Filder. Masterclass with Oak

38:52

Filder. You know what

38:54

else was in his masterclass? This

38:56

little bit of sneakery. And

38:58

then the very last line. Okay. This

39:01

one right here. Got to deliver it with a lot of attitude. You

39:03

do you without me. Nice.

39:06

Crazy. Brought them. Jeez.

39:09

Baby you do you without me. So sometimes without

39:11

knowing, I'll just record them like

39:13

I'm doing right now. She thinks

39:15

she's practicing it, but

39:18

I'm actually recording it. Because sometimes you get cold

39:20

that way. Hell yeah. And it's

39:22

a way for them to record without the pressure of

39:24

worrying about getting it right. Which

39:27

makes you get it right more often. Baby you

39:29

do you without me. Just

39:33

for the record, Lex didn't get paid anything for

39:35

this. None of us did. For

39:37

Lex, it was all about working with Oak. Hoping

39:40

to sow the seeds for a big career. Regardless

39:43

of this podcasting, you will work with

39:45

a total unknown, a young promising person

39:48

just because like it's investments that

39:50

they might become somebody big. Absolutely.

39:53

Absolutely. Especially if I believe in it. I mean to

39:55

be fair, it takes a little bit of delusion

39:58

to be in the music industry. to begin

40:00

with, you kind of have to believe that

40:02

unlikely things are likely to happen, right? But

40:05

to be honest with you, I wasn't even in

40:07

a space where I wanted to like, like develop

40:09

an artist or anything like that. And

40:12

I was skeptical at first, I was like, okay, whatever.

40:14

And then she went in the booth, and

40:16

her voice is its own character, which is

40:19

wonderful. And

40:21

that's how it went. Oak crafting the pieces

40:23

of the song one snippet at a time,

40:25

feeding it to Lex in the booth, while

40:28

somehow keeping the bigger picture in his head.

40:31

Oh, and we got to do another

40:33

gang vocal. So the note is, we're

40:36

going on. Shall

40:48

we do that? Fantastic.

40:57

Yeah, give me four more. Oh,

41:05

fantastic. The you do you crew. Finally,

41:08

after only a couple of hours, it

41:11

was time to give the whole thing a listen.

41:17

Fantastic. Lex, come on out for one second,

41:20

my friend. So I had no idea how

41:22

much of all this is real time. The

41:24

two of you are like making stuff up as

41:27

it goes along. Oh, so not

41:29

what I would I come

41:31

from where you have a piece

41:33

of sheet music with the whole orchestra and

41:35

everybody's parts and everybody's rehearsed. And I mean,

41:37

Lex, I can imagine you walking out of

41:39

here and not being able to sing the

41:41

song. Really? Well, because because

41:44

you've only done it in pieces,

41:46

right? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of times

41:48

where I forget what I did as soon as I leave

41:50

the booth. But then, you know, after a while you kind of hear

41:52

it back. Once it's top 40, and you

41:54

hear it coming out of every radio, then you'll know

41:56

it. Right. At that point, we've all delivered. Yeah. Somebody

41:59

stops. you in the grocery

42:01

store. Right. When I

42:03

can't even go to the grocery store anymore. That's

42:05

when I know that I've delivered. The singing

42:08

was over, but there was a

42:10

little spoken part that I thought might make

42:12

this song extra juicy. And

42:14

Oekfelter himself volunteered to be

42:16

the voiceover artist. I'm

42:19

going to put our outro here. I think

42:22

that's a good way to cap off the song in my opinion. Now

42:25

let's make this vocal sound really personality

42:27

disorders found more commonly in men. Symptoms

42:30

include an excessive need for it. I'm

42:32

going to make my voice a little

42:34

bit lower. Fistic personality disorders found more

42:36

commonly in men. There is

42:38

no cure. That's

42:40

cool. Oh my

42:43

God. That's pretty

42:45

fun. And finally, the grand

42:47

reveal. We all sat

42:50

on his couches, listening, grinning and

42:52

bopping as we played back the

42:54

rough cut. Okay.

42:58

Let me do some leveling here and then we can play it down. You

43:03

spend less time with me than you

43:05

spend on your hair. When

43:08

we hang out together you're not

43:10

even there. If

43:13

I would pick up the song, I'm not going

43:15

to spoil it for you. You will hear the finished

43:17

thing in just a second. But when

43:20

we finished listening, it was like... The

43:23

sense of a time that there is

43:25

no cure. Amazing.

43:28

That was fun. And

43:32

the you do you crew. David

43:35

and the you do you crew. David

43:39

and the you do you crew. David and the you

43:41

do you crew. David

43:45

and the you do you

43:47

crew. And the you do you

43:49

crew. David

43:51

and the you do you crew.

43:53

That's fantastic. I love that. That's...

43:57

I really don't fall. Definitely.

44:01

Okay, so I'm gonna be 100% honest with you. So

44:04

when I was like set

44:07

to the task of creating this music, it's like, oh,

44:09

you know, he's got these lyrics written. He wants you

44:11

to write the song to it. My initial

44:13

reaction that I had to suppress out of fairness

44:16

was, uh, I don't know.

44:19

You know, you never know if it's going to

44:21

be dope. Like, it's kind of a

44:23

coin toss and it's like a 60% chance

44:26

that it's not going to be good. And

44:29

this came out incredible. It

44:31

came out really good. When

44:34

the public hears these songs, your songs, hit

44:36

songs, they say, Oh, have you

44:38

heard that new Demi Lovato

44:40

song? Right. When it

44:42

really was your song. Does that bug you? No,

44:45

not at all, man. I'm a servant. I'm

44:47

making the song for them. If I walk into

44:50

a situation saying this is my show, I've already

44:52

failed because it's not, it's

44:54

not my show. Like, I'm not

44:56

used to that approach in the arts, in the creative

44:58

arts. And by the way, I make the distinction of

45:00

saying that producers are not

45:02

artists. I don't consider myself one. What?

45:04

Oh, come on. Absolutely. 100%. Okay. This

45:07

interview is over. That's ridiculous. I'm

45:09

dead serious. Every second of every

45:12

beat you were making artistic decisions.

45:14

I'm making artistic decisions, but collaboratively

45:16

with the other people that are

45:18

involved. Somebody throws an idea to me.

45:20

I say, that's dope. I have an idea. I toss it

45:22

in there. You get what I'm

45:25

saying? No, because I saw you write

45:27

the song, arrange the song, orchestrate the

45:29

song and sing the scratch track of

45:31

the song. That's right. And

45:34

then when this song is a hit, somebody's going to be like, hey,

45:36

play that new Lex record. That's what I'm

45:38

saying. Nobody's going to say play that new Oak Creek. Nobody's

45:41

going to say that. And rightly so. No,

45:43

no one should say that. Like, like you

45:45

created the rhythm, the harmony, the melody. Well,

45:47

here's the other thought process, Dave. You got

45:49

to think of it in this way, man.

45:52

Under today, I don't have to think

45:54

about this song anymore. But if

45:56

this song is a hit, Lex is going to have to sing this

45:58

record for the rest of Seriously,

46:02

this song becomes a part of her

46:04

legacy. It's gonna be appropriate for someone

46:06

to say, oh, it's that new Lex

46:08

record, because it embodies, she embodies the

46:10

performance and the performance embodies her. All

46:12

right, well, I'm not kidding you guys. I had

46:14

no idea this is how it works. Man,

46:17

the ideas flying back and forth

46:19

in real time. That is

46:21

not how we did it on Broadway. Oh

46:23

man. Everybody shows up with sheet music, the

46:26

charts are done, the tempos are frozen, and

46:28

you start at measure one and you finish

46:30

at measure 64 and you go home. I

46:33

mean, this is much more like a, you know,

46:35

almost like a jazz improv thing. Oh

46:37

yeah, it's improvisational creation. And

46:39

the truth is, is that before we started this process,

46:42

this didn't exist. And then someone did something

46:44

and then it did exist. It's

46:47

the biggest rush when you do it and you do

46:49

it correctly. I feel like we did that

46:51

today though. After

46:53

the recording session, we all went our separate ways.

46:56

Oak spent a little more time with the

46:58

song, mixing all those tracks into the final

47:00

version, and you're about to hear it.

47:03

But I feel like the climax of

47:05

this episode should be the grand reveal

47:07

of the world premiere. So before we

47:09

wrap up here, I've got two small

47:12

notes. First, remember how I

47:14

wrote the lyrics for three songs for Oak

47:16

to choose from? Well, I

47:18

posted all three of those lyrics

47:21

at unsungscience.com. If

47:23

you're a songwriter yourself, oh, sorry,

47:25

a producer, and

47:27

you feel inspired, feel free to set them to music yourself.

47:30

Send me what you come

47:32

up with. My email address

47:35

is pogueatme.com, pogueatme.com. If

47:37

I get a couple of good submissions, I

47:39

was thinking maybe I'll feature him in a

47:41

future Unsung Science episode. And the

47:43

second big note, as I hinted earlier, we've

47:45

come to the end of Unsung Science season

47:48

two and the

47:50

beginning of my book break. I'm

47:52

working on a new book for Simon & Schuster,

47:54

the coolest idea I've ever had for a book,

47:57

but it's a massive project and I've really got

47:59

to. buckle down and get the thing done.

48:02

So if you haven't picked up on it from

48:04

the warm, honeyed tone of my voice over the

48:06

last three years, this is

48:08

my chance to tell you officially how

48:10

much I've cherished your listenership. Your

48:13

reviews, your emails, your greetings

48:15

and airports, it's been a thrilling

48:17

ride and I've loved every minute of it. Thank

48:20

you to you and to the teams at CBS

48:22

News, Simon & Schuster Audio, and

48:25

PRX, who made unsung science

48:27

possible. If you haven't heard

48:29

all 40 episodes, go back through the

48:31

archives. There's some great stuff in there. Meanwhile,

48:34

here's a tip. Don't unsubscribe. Okay,

48:38

and now, enough teasing.

48:40

I am proud to introduce to you

48:43

the world premiere of a new song

48:45

by Ochfelder and David Pogue performed by

48:47

Lex, recorded by Oscar L'Anander, co-produced by

48:49

Keith Sorrells and Alex Nice. Ladies and

48:52

gentlemen, you do you. It's

49:06

not time we need any stung on

49:08

our hair. We

49:11

hang out together, not even. If they pick

49:13

up on us, that's

49:16

how much I've cherished your readership. Hey,

49:55

do you, if I'm

49:57

me. The

50:00

way you turn me on is getting

50:02

kinda lame And

50:05

after all this time your friends

50:07

don't know my name You're

50:10

such a one-trick pony, love's

50:12

so vain I

50:15

should've figured out that sweet

50:17

blackhead and now I'm all

50:19

in vain I

50:32

should've figured

50:39

out that

50:42

sweet blackhead and

50:44

now I'm

50:47

all in vain I

51:00

should've figured out that sweet blackhead

51:02

and now

51:06

I'm all in vain At

51:30

MassMutual, we believe in doing the right thing

51:33

In having each other's backs and driving progress

51:36

And we want you on our team If that

51:38

sounds like a future you want

51:40

to build, explore careers.massmutual.com Together,

51:43

we move forward I'm

51:45

CBS News correspondent Major Garrett, host of

51:47

the podcast Agent of Betrayal The double

51:49

life of Robert Hanson During the Cold

51:52

War, FBI agent Robert Hanson traded classified

51:54

secrets to the Kremlin In exchange for

51:56

cash and jewels In the podcast, you'll

51:58

hear from Hanson's family closest friends, family

52:00

members, victims, and colleagues for the most

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comprehensive telling of who Robert Hanson really

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