WBCA Podcasts

WBCA Presents: Rory

On this episode, host Zach Bennoui interviews blind musician/producer Rory McDonald. They play a selection of tracks from his debut album "Awake and Alone" and talk about various aspects of the music making process, from recording and production to the various challenges Rory has faced as a blind producer. The episode concludes with a brief look at the production of “True Love All The Time” Rory’s latest single.

Duration:: 50m
Broadcast on:: 09 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Hello and welcome to WBCA Presents. I'm your host Zach Benway and my guest today is someone who I've known for several years. We went to college together and honestly, he is like the brother I never had. All the way from Canada, this is Rory McDonald. Say hi to everybody, Rory. Hi, how's it going? Yeah, pretty good. So Rory is a singer/songwriter. He's a really talented musician. He plays a lot of instruments. He's a producer. He's an engineer. He's all the things. And today, we're just going to have a conversation about music and production and life. And one of the unique things about Rory is that he is completely blind. And I am as well. And we met at Berkeley, college of music about five years ago. And he was the first blind person I met when I started at Berkeley and we started and ended at pretty much the same time. So yeah, this is really exciting. I'm really happy that we were able to do this. And yeah, Rory, do you just want to maybe start by telling people like how you got into music? How did this passion for creating stuff start? And what music styles like genres are you into? Yeah, well, it's been going my whole life pretty much when I was about three or so, probably a bit before that. A friend of my, my mother's gave her a plastic sea harmonica to give to me and well, that's pretty much it from there. And then a year later, around a year later, I was doing piano lessons and somewhere around there was when they discovered, you know, my perfect pitch, which I only point that out because it helps with that. I can't read music, so that sort of helped me out along the way. And you know, I started performing around six and then it's been sort of continuous since then. And I picked up various instruments and was largely self-taught from everything. Piano was sort of the exception and trumpet in school, from middle school to high school. I did trumpet, but everything else was, you know, learning by year and trying to follow what I heard on records and stuff. Nice. Cool. So what is your primary instrument that you play the most involved in? The primary guitar, I would say, I went to Berkeley as a guitarist and, you know, I auditioned on that. That's what I was playing as my principal instrument as they call it. So that's sort of the one I'm most comfortable with and most proficient on, I guess you could say. Nice. Cool. So today we're going to be doing several things, but I want to start by playing a track from your debut album that came out, I believe it was last year. Yeah, it's called, yep, it's called Awake and Alone, the album, and it's on streaming. And this album is really cool. It's got a lot of like sort of, I'd call it like sort of Beatles influences in a way, sort of like 60s rock type stuff. And do you want to maybe just quickly go over like sort of the thought process behind this album and kind of just really like brief overview of what went into making it? Well, yeah, I always had the vision in my mind when I started Berkeley and then throughout it that I wanted to do. I wanted to go there to be better as a songwriter and to actually get better at producing myself because I, you know, I wanted to play all the instruments and record myself and, you know, know how to make myself sound good without having to involve anyone else just for fun, I guess. And so the album sort of came about from that, you know, I wanted to end at Berkeley with the album produced because the major I had involved a capstone project. So I decided to do an album and, you know, do it independently as independently as I could. Nice. Cool. All right. So do you want to introduce the first song that we're going to play here? Oh, yeah, this one is Beauty Queen, which was the second single, but also the one that was, first one I recorded, I had Berkeley and really got the album sessions rolling more than the previous one did, but this is a song that I'm really proud of, professional wise and everything else. Cool. All right. Well, here is Beauty Queen on WBCA. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That was Beauty Queen here on WBCA Presents, and we're hanging out and talking with Rory right now about his debut album, A Week and Alone, and some new stuff that he also has recently released. So, yeah, that song was really cool. It's got sort of a, like I said before, sort of a 60s rock type vibe to it. In terms of like your main like musical inspirations, I know you really like Prince, but are there any others that inspired you specifically with this, with this album that you want to mention? Well, yeah, I mean Prince definitely handed it, but for this song specifically, I would have to point out Mack DeMarco, who also was Canadian, and sort of does the DIY thing, but the main thing is, I was really listening to a lot of his stuff around the time that I recorded that, and one of the that synth line coming out of the first chorus, and the intro was inspired by stuff he was doing with the Roland D50, and then like on the level is a song that I heard that, and I kept for months before thinking I got to get that sound, I need that sound, but I couldn't find it. I didn't have a good software synth to do it, so I eventually got a friend over and used a hardware synth, but that's sort of the point is that Mack DeMarco was sort of the main and was for that song, and also one of the inputs for the album overall because of the fact that I was using minimal gear as he was doing in his early career, and you know, Tamar Paolo is another one Kevin Parker, another. Tamar Paolo, yeah, for similar reasons. Yeah, yeah, and just for those who don't know, the Roland D50 was a synth released by Roland in the, I think like the late 80s, and it was very popular at the time because it was one of the, you know, one of the first like digital synths that was able to actually reproduce like acoustic instruments, you know, in a sort of primitive form by today's standards, but you know, it was pretty revolutionary, there's, there are definitely sounds on there that are, that are pretty iconic. So that's really cool, man. Yeah. I use the DS, I use the Roland Juno DS 61 for that. Nice. But the only unfortunate thing is now for live shows, I can't, I haven't quite figured out how to replicate it. Oh, yeah. I've gotten close. Nice. Nice. Cool stuff. Okay. So moving right along, let's, let's go to another track here. What's the next one that you want people to listen to? Let's check out ghost town. That's all right. This is one of my favorites personally. Yeah, cool. This is track one on Awaken alone. All right. Now here is ghost town by Rory on WBCA presents. Thank you very, very few years ago. Before I look travel on the road, and do a ditch of confusion. Where we're not, not quite together, lost time around, lost all of our dreams, emotionally fragmented, glass broken, candles unsetted. Yeah, we were living in ghost town. We were finally out to battle home. I'd rather not be the sweet surprise, I'd do it and stop it. I'd love to turn to the road, but not anyway. Dreaming of where we were before, until we went across the door. Communication. Questions, drift without answers and have to dance, hope turns to favor the separate forms, 'til one day we had the instant container. Now we were living in ghost town, but we're finally out to battle home. I'd rather not be the sweet surprise, but we're still here. I'd love to turn to the road, but I'd love to turn to the road. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] All right, and that was ghost town on WBC presents by Rory. Cool. Okay. Yeah, that was a really good one. I like sort of it's more leans towards pop, but it's still got the sort of like vintage tones and stuff too, which is really cool. So am I correct in saying that you played pretty much everything on this album? Yourself, you produced it yourself, you mixed it yourself, you mastered it yourself. Yeah, the only other person involved, like I didn't do the artwork, but everything production and all the instruments I did by myself in my dorm. Nice, nice. Yeah. I think it's cool because you managed to capture this sort of like DIY aesthetic, but it's it's it's It's very like set in in a certain time period, which I think is really interesting. It sounds like it could have come out of the like maybe early 70s or like late 60s, but it was recorded in a bedroom in 2023. So I mean, that's that's cool. That's really cool. All right, so next one. Next track that you want us to play. This is I'm stoned. It's another favorite of mine. All right, lose one. Nice. Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, here is I'm stoned on WBCA presents. I'm stoned. So I'm not the love of you. Yeah, I'm stoned. So I'm not the love of you. You have access to nothing. My heart is yours. I know I'm stoned. You got me feeling something. Something I can't wait. Yeah, you got me feeling something. Something I can't wait to scream. If it's ever just a little longer, I don't like to start with your love. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Yeah, I can't get nothing done. You want my mind all the time. I can't get nothing done, want my mind all the time. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Yeah, I'm stoned. Stoned on the love of you. Yeah, I'm stoned on the love of you. [Music] I'm stoned by Rory on WBC Presents. Cool. All right. Now, I want to move away from music just for a second. And I want to talk a little bit about how you actually go about making music. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we are both completely blind and we went to Berkeley and we actually got the same major. We majored in professional music, which essentially lets you kind of combine various majors and minors from across the college and essentially create your own in a way. And you get a certificate and stuff at the end. So I want to talk a little bit about your journey with music production because I think it could maybe be helpful for some people potentially watching this. So do you want to maybe talk a little bit about how you got into it, what challenges you had along the way and how you overcame them? Yeah, well, it started because I got a Mac and GarageBand is on pretty much every Mac and I always had it in my mind that I wanted to record myself and do it by myself. So I always had it in my mind to do that, but I looked at GarageBand way back in the day, like 2013 or something like that. And when I got the first Mac and I didn't know what I was doing, I don't know what this looks confusing. It didn't look accessible from a screen reading point of view, and so I kind of put it away for a few years and somewhere along the line, somebody or somewhere online, I discovered that Pro Tools was accessible and I didn't really know much about it, but I figured, well, that's the one I got to get. But I couldn't, you know, the problem with blind people and learning production is all the YouTube tutorials are very visually, you know, click this icon on the file menu and, you know, you can see the tracks color coded and stuff. Well, I can't figure this out. So, I actually only really started being able to successfully record myself and, you know, produce things when I got to Berkeley because of the help of Jacob, who was, I guess, I would not be doing it without him. I know I wouldn't be doing it without him, but he's a blind professor at Berkeley who, you know, he also created scripts for Pro Tools to make it faster for blind users, but he also taught me everything I know regarding Pro Tools and even Logic Pro and Reaper a little bit. And he just got, it was easy once I was learning from someone else who had the same problem to overcome it. And, you know, one of the coolest moments at Berkeley was doing the class with him and then in October, he said, okay, go to a midterm and produce a track. So I was like, I'm free now, you know, yep. And so, you know, I used Pro Tools pretty regularly for my whole time at Berkeley and occasionally would use logic and Reaper. And it was easier once I had started with Pro Tools and once I knew now the basic general understanding of signal flow and other general audio things that I could figure out other dogs myself because it's like a language once you want to know the fundamentals of production. Absolutely. You can do it anywhere. Yeah, that's true. And just for people who don't know, a DAW stands, it's an acronym and it stands for digital audio workstation and that's the software that people use on their computer to do music production and Pro Tools and Logic and Reaper are all various DAWs and they all essentially allow you to do the same thing they allow you to record and edit and mix audio but they differ in the ways that they the workflow, they differ in the workflow. So the initial challenge which I, you know, getting into it was a big one, you know, just how to do it in general but once I learned from Chikim and was studying at Berkeley. Yeah, it was challenges became general challenges of audio but then also another big one that a lot of people maybe don't think about is plug in accessibility is separate from the DAWs themselves so you know, I wouldn't say half the plugins because more of them are now but a lot of the plugins out there are not accessible and then some of them, you know, if you don't know anyone that's tried them is blind, you're kind of, it's kind of trial and error and so that was kind of a challenge because, you know, everyone online is always saying, oh, you want to get this tape echo that I recommend this analog tape echo from somebody and, you know, you either pay for a plugin or download a trial and then you find out you're all excited and you download a scan your library and you can't use it and it's like, well, how am I going to, I need to find something, I want the sound I want, I can't get it so, you know, you gotta find alternative methods but I sort of made peace with it pretty quickly and you can't really, you just have to find workarounds and yeah, so that's sort of one of the big ones. Yeah, and that's a really good point, you know, I struggle with the same thing too. What I tend to do these days is I will simply just use the stock plugins and just for people that don't know again plugins are essentially add on pieces of software that you can add to a dog that can add various instruments and effects. Yeah, effects are instruments and it's basically equivalent to gear in a studio is, you know, how you can roughly think about it is a plugin is essentially a software version of, say, a compressor in a recording studio or something like that. And I didn't get there yet, but Ableton live, which I use now, I don't use portals anymore, I switched when live 12 came out with new accessibility for us, wine folks but right now you can't use any third party plugins in it, which normally would be bad but Ableton has good stock stuff. So, you know, I largely use stock stuff and in terms of EQs, I never bothered using anything else because I've never had to, you know, and I'm very similar as well. I tend to use just stock plugins because it's easier. Absolutely. Yeah. And the cool, the really cool thing about Ableton and we're going to get into Ableton in just a second. But the really cool thing about Ableton is it's so modular. So if there's a plugin that you want that Ableton doesn't have, you can usually, not always, but you can usually use the individual sort of building block plugins that they've gotten Ableton to essentially make it. And people have done some pretty incredible things with adding plugins to Ableton, in a way, plugins and quotes that Ableton doesn't have just by combining the various devices like audio Lego, essentially. And I tend to stick to what I what I know. Yep. Yep. I have a certain sound I go for on edge too. Yep. I don't play around. Absolutely. Yep. And it obviously depends on the genre and who you are as a musician and what you want to do. But it's really cool that Ableton is one of the few programs that really gives you that power to do very interesting things. Now, speaking of Ableton, the next song we're going to play. And the last song we're going to play is your newest track that just came out. When did it come out? It was March. It was May. Yep. So it came out a few months ago. Anyway, 2024 for sure. And this one is called True Love All the Time. And it's very different to what we have been playing. The signature is a little bit different, same kind of genre, but it's got its own sort of personality. And this was, I believe, and, you know, to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this was the first song you produced and put out that was produced using Ableton. Yeah, I basically moved on to Pro Tools at that point. Yep. Okay, cool. So let's hear this. And then we've got something kind of special that I want to do after this song. Alright, here's True Love All the Time on WBCA Presents. ♪ ♪ You are the body of loving and shock ♪ ♪ That's what you are to live ♪ ♪ If love itself wasn't live by a song ♪ ♪ Well, I just know it will ♪ ♪ You've got a few things that I really find with ♪ ♪ I really feel for you ♪ ♪ And I know that's something you've figured out too ♪ ♪ Oh, girl, I've come around ♪ ♪ All I want is a hole to get closer to me ♪ ♪ All I mean is your heartless mind ♪ ♪ And all I feel when I'm left above you ♪ ♪ It's true we are by the time ♪ ♪ Oh, every second of my body's taken ♪ ♪ It's taken of your bed ♪ ♪ Is that just your body ♪ ♪ We don't mind the spirit ♪ ♪ Then I so desperately quit ♪ ♪ Listen to me ♪ ♪ All I want is a hole to get closer to me ♪ ♪ All I mean is your heartless mind ♪ ♪ And all I feel when I'm left above you ♪ ♪ It's true we are by the time ♪ ♪ Oh, baby ♪ ♪ I really feel for you ♪ ♪ I know it's a day in my mind ♪ ♪ I know you feel for me too ♪ ♪ We'll be together and down ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Now that I've got you ♪ ♪ I feel a plan ♪ ♪ You're everything I need ♪ ♪ I am so grateful to be counting your mind ♪ ♪ You're everything I need ♪ ♪ I feel so glad to hold you every night ♪ ♪ I'll be with you every night ♪ ♪ We'll have our problems ♪ ♪ Where we solve it quickly ♪ ♪ Girl, it's time to love me again ♪ ♪ My son, baby ♪ ♪ All I want is the heart you're better close to it ♪ ♪ All I need is your heartless mind ♪ ♪ All I feel when I'm left above you ♪ ♪ It's a true love all the time ♪ ♪ All I want is the heart you're better close to me ♪ ♪ All I need is your heartless mind ♪ ♪ All I feel when I'm left above you ♪ ♪ It's a true love all the time ♪ ♪ True love all the time ♪ ♪ True love all the time ♪ - And that was True Love All the Time on WBC Presents by Rory. All right, really good, man. I'm a big fan of that one, and I remember texting you when you sent this to me saying that it sort of reminded me a bit of Rod Stewart who I really like, and yeah, very different to what we've had up until this point for me. So, cool stuff. Now, one thing I want to sort of try, I thought, would be kind of fun, is since you did make this in Ableton, and you've got Ableton kind of open right there with you, I was thinking maybe you could just quickly take us through some of the tracks in the project and maybe explain just a little bit about maybe a few of your favorites, like any sort of memorable experience while recording it or something like that. - Yeah. - And yeah, we won't spend too much time because we're nearly out of time, but let's go through a little bit and see what you've got. - Yeah, I could show this. So this is the first time I put out in Ableton, but I had been experimenting for a few months by this point, and I'm well out of Berkeley by now, so I have a home setup in my bedroom. I work pretty fast on songs, so just to go through this here, I got minimal gear and I mix as I go, and I sort of, I see the room that I record in as instrument, and the DAW itself, Ableton is an instrument, and you get a record. I use like two mics on the drums, and I use the kick, which if I sort of minimal, and if I get this sort of, this one fat mic as I call it, it takes up the majority of the kick. - Nice. - And I like to see the drums as one element, largely, and you know, aside from the fact I don't have enough mics or space to do the whole kit, I don't always, I wouldn't care to probably, and probably need half the mics anyway. - Yep, it also forces you to deal with less, less choices as well in the final mix. - It forces you to get it right at the, you know, I like to, I said sort of before, I like to mix fast as sort of, as I, I hear the full song in my head. I don't, recording it for me is just so I can show people until I can hear it. - Sure. - Cause I'm always like, I want to hear this song. - Yep. - So I don't, I like to get it right at the source. - Yeah. - And not spend time checking phase or adjusting mics. I have everything set up. So, you know, I got these drum group here, if I, I just got to, I just got to, did that, but, everything else is, do you know, I got the, whirly, which actually how I started it. - Yeah. (piano music) - And, of course, the context. (piano music) - But the unique thing about Ableton, which actually I should have done this originally, but I started out, because I knew the song, and I always go into recording doing what I want to record. - Yep. - If no experimenting, it's just sort of laid down. - Sure. - But I like to, Ableton has the session view, which I use conveniently to, lay down each section and work out each section of the song. You know, the verse, the first chorus, second verse, second verse. You know, it just takes sort of the pressure off and mapping out, you know, it's eight bars long, and then you just sort of go through. - Yep. - So, you know, I would do each section. (piano music) And then it would, you know, eventually put it together. - Yep. - I'd do a DI for guitars. I don't think I released anything with an amp. It's just bought the beam, and I like to shape the tone directly in with the DAW. - Yep. So you record directly in, and then do the processing after? - Well, I don't really do it after. I kind of, everything like guitars and stuff is all, I know what sound I want, so I put the plugins on, and then record so that I can feel like I'm playing the song, and not, everything I do is for the song, so it's just one process. It's, you know, recording, and pretty much half the mixing is done when it's being recorded. - Nice. (piano music) - And then go on. (piano music) (piano music) - You know, that's it. You've got this, (piano music) - Oh, I froze it. - Yeah. - That's right. (piano music) - We might see the impact on free stuff. That's a good word. - Yep. (piano music) - Well, I'll have it crash, mid-drum take, which actually happened on this song. - Oh. (laughs) - You mentioned experiences. That was one of them. I was recording the drums, and I was like two takes in, and I was feeling pretty good, and then I heard the screen reader say it was, you know, log in and then I was thinking about the session. - Oh, no. (laughs) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) - Yeah, and you know, (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) - Oh, no. (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) - I just sort of do drums last night, do the vocals, and I do them, you know, line by line sort of, or, you know, section by section, you know. (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) (piano music) - And we just sort of, you know, if you do it, vocal section by section, you don't have to do about punchings. You can just focus on the enunciation of each line and so forth. - Sure. - And again, with the vocal, same as the guitars and bass, I don't put it processing on where I'm doing it, but I do, you know, send it to the reverb and everything else. - Yeah. - Spatial stuff. - Yep. Reverb delays all that. - Yeah. - Yeah. You gotta have the, you know, the pictures in my head, I gotta, it's for the song and I gotta feel like I'm singing the song and not tracking. - Sure. - It's a performance, whether you're in the studio or on stage, so you gotta, you gotta do whatever you can to get in that performance mindset and for the song you're performing. - Sure. - Lay it down. - Absolutely. - As quickly as possible. And if you take the spots with your brothers at the instrument. - Yep. - Do you have anything specifically you want me to show you in here? - I think that's, I think that's good. I'm just being mindful of the time here as well, but that, you know, that was great. You know, and definitely I agree about these sort of, you know, serving the song type of thing. I work in a similar way. I have things usually now. Sometimes I will go in and I, I use Ableton as well. So we use the same exact software. And I will some, I will sometimes go in an experiment because Ableton does make that really easy to just kind of jam. But for the most part, it's, it's very fun, especially if you do, if you don't really have a game plan in mind, you can just kind of go in. - I think I like, it's that unlike, I always felt like with Protos, I had to go in with an idea. - Yeah. - I had to, but with the session view grid, you know, you can always just loop with drum machine thing, you know, Prince would always need two bar loops. I just do the same thing. And then I just play around and there's no limits. - Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's one of really, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the really cool thing about it. It's sort of, put you more in the production. It sort of reminds you to have fun with it and don't be too hard on yourself, but also you should still be on it at the end of it. You're putting together a song. - Yep. - So you put together a song and get it done. - Yep. - Still, you know. - It takes a bit of the pressure off in the beginning stages of like, you know, you don't have to necessarily know exactly what you're doing today. But when you do what you're doing today, then they can get serious too. It also takes it off because, you know, you might not have lyrics fully developed. And, you know, for me, I always record the song, you know, bass first or whatever I do first and singing in my head. But if I don't have all the lyrics, I can sort of, if I know what the sections are, it should, I don't think I can do the sections, you know, come back and sort of top line it easier. - Sure. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, man. Well, that was great. And, yeah, it had a really good point, especially about sort of serving the song and, you know, always keeping that in mind as the final goal. - Yeah. Get it right at the source and you won't have to edit later. - Absolutely. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. That was great. And hopefully this inspires, you know, maybe somebody watching who might be a musician or who might be into production to kind of, you know, get out there and just do it, you know? The really thing, the really nice thing that I admire about Rory, that is, that's not really a treat that I actually share. It's just going in and doing it and not overthinking. And I tend to overthink, especially when I'm doing vocals and things like that. I will do take after take after take because I'll hear little things. I'm like, oh, no, I don't like this. And my rationale for it as well, if I can hear it, someone else will surely be able to. One line said is, will they notice? Probably not. - Sure. - And then, you know, is this all good overall? They're not going to notice the pedal squeak or whatever. - Yeah, absolutely. - Superstition has that all through it. - That's true. That's true. Yep. And it's a very holistic way of thinking about it because you're like, well, in the context of everything else, you know, does it matter? - You also have to think, do you want to sound like yourself or do you want to sound like everybody else? - Sure. - I can quantize anything. I don't pitch correct anything unless I'm doing somebody else's music and they want me to. - Yep. - You know, you're human, so little imperfections make it your own music. - Absolutely. - Yeah. Wow. Cool stuff, man. Well, hey, listen, this has been great. Can you maybe tell people where they can hear your music and how they can keep in touch? - Yeah, you can check me out on all the streaming services, you know, Spotify and app music and everything. I just go by Rory and the album is awake and alone. And that song was true level of time. And that's a single, that's the newest one. - Yep. - So far. - Cool. - And thanks for having me on here. - Absolutely, man. This has been great. And yeah, definitely. So go check him out on streaming and make sure to actually type in the album title as well because there are like five or six different people named Rory. So you're going to have a fun time trying to... - Well, not enough yet. - No, not quite yet. But if you do look up Rory awake and alone on streaming, you should find it immediately. And yeah, man. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I'm sure those who are watching have gotten some valuable info and entertainment out of this. And yeah, looking forward to more music in the future. - Yeah, thanks for having me. - Yeah, man. All right. This has been WBCA Presents. I've been Zach Benway and I really appreciate your time and taking the time to watch us talk about music and play some stuff for you today. And yeah, have a good rest of your night.