Episode 46: Flowing Horizon - Bozic Debut

In this episode, Justin Hochella and Rich Bozic discuss Rich's new Single “Flowing Horizon” and discuss its inspiration, meaning, and DIY production. Rich describes the track as an old-school rock homage with modern elements, inspired from an acoustic guitar chord progression and centered on appreciating and accepting love from others. He details producing in his home studio using Logic Pro’s Drummer with deep customization and layering, creating bass with Logic patches, recording vocals with a Townsend Sphere using an LD 2 51 emulation, and using a Yamaha MODX8 for piano and synths. Mixing and mastering were done by Burak Yildirmaz with Rich observing and providing feedback, along with Justin’s input, and Rich shares release challenges like branding, Canva design, and a logo by Michelle Coelho; the song is on all streaming platforms and updates are at www.bozicmusic.com and @bozicmusic on Instagram.

00:00 Welcome and Intro
00:40 New Single Announcement
01:42 Song Meaning and Origins
03:12 Influences and Mindset
04:33 DIY Production Overview
05:22 Drums and Rhythm Building
07:31 Bass and Vocal Recording
09:21 Keys and Sound Palette
10:22 Mixing Mastering Lessons
13:32 More Music Coming Soon
14:52 Modern Release Challenges
17:15 Branding Art and Collaboration
20:48 Where to Listen and Follow
21:35 Closing and Song Outro

Listen to Flowing Horizon:

https://linktr.ee/bozic

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Justin 0:21

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Hochella. Joined here as always with the eminent Rich Bozic. Rich, how are you doing today?

Rich 0:33

Hello? Hello. I'm doing well. It's great to hear your voice again.

Justin 0:37

Likewise. Good to see you, my friend. So listeners, you heard something a little bit different there at the beginning of the episode. Usually we're playing our intro music. You're hearing Rich's voice, but today you heard his voice in a little bit of a different context. Rich, can you tell us more about what our listeners just heard opening up this episode?

Rich 0:59

Definitely, I'm very excited to announce that I have a new single out called Flowing Horizon. So you just got to hear a little snippet of that at the beginning.

Justin 1:12

Excellent, and it's an awesome song. I am so excited that this song is out for people to listen to. It's awesome. I just wanna say congratulations, rich, on this incredible song. I absolutely love it.

Rich 1:27

you so

Justin 1:28

you're welcome. I've had the privilege of getting to hear it come to life throughout, like the writing and mixing and mastering cycles. So you've let me in early on the process of flowing horizon, come to light, which I'm really appreciative of. And how would you describe the song and what did you draw inspiration from when you were writing it?

Rich 1:49

Excellent. Lemme get into it. first off. So glad to be able to do this and to announce this song. It's been a long time coming. I've been meaning to release some solo material. I got my hand in a lot of other projects but I've always had this, vision of bringing to life some of the songs that I've, been working on in the background. And it's a pleasure to share. So I wanted to make this debut song to be kind of a nod or an homage to the rock of the past. that. At least a lot of people in my generation grew up with. So it's got that slightly old school rock feel with some modern elements to it. the song was first conceived on an acoustic guitar, actually. although there is no guitar in the song I heard a melody in my head. I picked up a guitar that I had sitting around and immediately got to work putting some chords to that melody, and then the lyrics quickly followed. It's basically a song of appreciation and acceptance of the love others give you. whether it be from a lover or a friend. I typically tend to write songs that are a lot darker. I wanted to ride this wave this new inspiration and see where it took me.

Justin 3:11

Excellent. I'm curious are there any particular artists that inspired you or, or or maybe that listeners could identify with when they hear this song?

Rich 3:22

It's hard to pinpoint. It might be, too hard to go into that kind of thing 'cause there's like snippets of all kinds of things. I have a lot of influences. A lot of stuff I listen to is metal. So this kind of came outta nowhere this kind of song.

Justin 3:34

Well, I find that really interesting like the fact that you are inspired by metal. Like I think about a song that I did that was like this eighties bubblegum pop kind of thing. And it's the furthest thing than, from what I usually do, which is this dark industrial kind of thing. So it's interesting to me that as musicians, like we're. We're not pigeonholed into a specific thing just based on what we listen to, inspiration is inspiration, right? It just, it just happens.

Rich 4:01

Yeah. Yeah. And my vision with this whole. Endeavor is just to be open-minded, to take whatever comes and see if I can make something of it. There's some things that are very clear that I wanna express, and there's some things that just happen.

Justin 4:16

Yeah, it's really testament to the fact that music is such a deeply personal and expressive art, and there's not really any rules to say like, well, you listen to these bands, so your music has to sound this way. It's an art form and what comes out and it's beautiful. So thanks for that. as our listeners well know at this point, this podcast is all about DIY audio. And I'm curious, can you tell us about. The more technical production aspects of Flowing Horizon. Was this song approached in A DIY way? What can you tell us about that?

Rich 4:50

For sure. Yeah. It's been a long time coming to be able to write and record. All my own stuff and my own home studio. I spend a lot of time doing other people's stuff. So I figured it's time to bring the creations to life using my own gear at my own leisure, in my own home studio. So what was cool about this one is as I was saying, it's like got some of the classic elements, but with some of the modern, influence of the way things are done. The drums were really fun putting together. I used the tools in Logic Drummer. I found it really fun. I was able to get into the weeds with it. And be able to customize exactly what I wanted down to the fill. What's cool about Logic Drummer is they have the of almost like a wave form version of the drums and you could convert them to MIDI and get in there and tweak the midi directly. So it was fun being able to. Go in there and move things around. And also depending on how you chop the wave that changes things. So there was a lot of customization. I really went deep with this to get it exactly to my liking down to the fills. of detail work. And it was great to have so much control over that aspect of things. 'cause a lot of times you work with a drummer, as you would defer to them to do. thing, right? And you could if you're a decent human being, there's only, you know so much you can, get them to

Justin 6:24

Right.

Rich 6:24

Sounding like someone who's just like a control freak. But when you're working with, something like Logic Drummer is just, you have that creative control and even down to the sounds that was cool to be able to the individual, sounds of the drum kit as well.

Justin 6:41

Yeah. Now you have that electric drum kit did you perform some of the drums and then compliment that with Logic Pro Drummer, or did you use Logic Pro Drummer pretty exclusively and then tweak the drums, like the fills and the patterns and stuff like that it was providing you?

Rich 6:57

So I did basically that and then there are, there is some like layering of the drums. played out some of those drum patterns on the keyboard. I have this MPK mini on the desk here, and I played out some stuff in real time, and then it

Justin 7:17

Yeah

Rich 7:17

what what I had in

Justin 7:19

and that has like drum pads on it, right?

Rich 7:21

Yeah, that's like how that came to pass for this song.

Justin 7:24

Yep.

Rich 7:24

I do plan on using the drum kit in various ways for other things, but that's how this one came to

Justin 7:30

Cool.

Rich 7:31

The bass. I don't own a bass. I'm hoping to acquire a bass at some point, but at this point I didn't have a base and so I just used the Akai as well to play the bass line and react to everything I had. Using the Logic bass patches, which I think are amazing.

Justin 7:49

Oh yeah.

Rich 7:50

so many choices. It's. A huge library. So I found something that fit for the vocals. I wanted a very lush sound for the vocals, so I, and to create like a big tapestry of sound. So I had my lead vocal line, and then I layered in a lot of backup vocals. I did all the singing on the track. And I just wanted to capture a more kind classic kind of sound classic, I dunno if classic's the right word, but I wanted to have that rock, raw rock feel. So I abstained from any kind of auto tuning for this one. know people use that a lot to be able to minimize takes or to be able to just make it perfect. I wasn't worried about things being. I'm okay with imperfections, basically I used the Townsend sphere and I picked the LD 2 51 emulation for that. It's a tube mic. I wanted a warmer sound. That mic in particular seemed to give me the sound I was looking for. So I don't know how familiar you are with mics and whatnot. I'm learning a lot about. Different mics actually through the presets in the Townsend sphere mic collection with the UAD,

Justin 9:02

Yeah.

Rich 9:03

in conjunction with the Townsend Sphere.

Justin 9:05

That's what's so cool about that microphone in particular, right? Is it's not just a single microphone. The Townsend sphere can actually emulate. I don't even know. Dozens of microphones. Something crazy like that, like Yeah. That's awesome. And then to round it out, you've also got keyboards in this song, right? What can you tell us about that aspect of flowing horizon?

Rich 9:28

Oh yeah, I'd love to talk about that. one of my favorite pieces of equipment in my studio is the Yamaha, MODX eight. I just call it the Mod X.

Justin 9:37

YES.

Rich 9:38

Great piece of equipment. Actually, Burak suggested that keyboard to me a few years back. And I'll talk more about Burak's involvement in a second here. But the. Mod X I used the concert grand setting on that. And then when we got to the mixing stage, we actually doubled the piano sound with a I think a plugin from the Kontakt piano collection as per Burak's suggestion. All the synth patches were from the Mod X as well.

Justin 10:05

Awesome. Yeah, it's a great sound and I think it's a really nice blend of instruments. It gives it that kind of rock feel that, I think the patches you selected, the piano, the bass, drums, vocals, that all really came together nicely.

Rich 10:19

Thanks.

Justin 10:20

Yeah, you're welcome. you mentioned Burak our fellow colleague in RJB music production that we've talked about on this podcast before. Good friend of ours, good friend of the podcast. But what can you tell us about the mixing and mastering process and what were some of the unique challenges that you faced in that?

Rich 10:39

It was such a pleasure to be able to tap into the vast resources of RJB music production for this project. I did ask Burak Yildirmaz those of you who might not know his last name, he is located up in Norway and we've met via Muse and I asked him if he would. And master this track for me. I acted as an assistant and basically observer and learner in the process. It was a really, a great learning experience for me. I want to get deeper into mixing and mastering. I see myself more as a recording engineer at this point. I feel like I'm still building my skills as a mixing and mastering engineer. and he allowed me to sit in for the whole process, which was great. He answered all my questions and I got to give him all my feedback as an artist right away as he was doing things, which made it go really smoothly and quickly. the biggest challenge I have to say was getting past rethinking my conception of the track because I had this track for a while. And When you're listening to a demo, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about here. You're listening to a demo for a while, and eventually your ears start to get used to what you're hearing and you're like, oh, I'm okay with this. But, you know, it's not okay. It's unmixed, right? Uh, You kind of overlook things or accept some things and you're like, oh, that won't be in the final version, and you stop hearing it,

Justin 12:06

Yep. You get used to it. Yeah.

Rich 12:08

Oh yeah. So that was like a I guess for me, a. wake up moment and also a moment to allow set of ears to listen to it. And actually Justin, you had a hand in that too. We had the whole team going here 'cause Justin actually listened to the track as well and would give me feedback and. Bounce the ideas off of him to bring it to a better place. So yeah, so that was, I felt like to me that was the biggest challenge. And getting a team involved in a second set of years was important.

Justin 12:39

Yeah. I think that's a really important aspect of bringing the best version of the song to light, is to let other people hear it and get their. Their feedback, people you trust. I think that's really important. People whose input you value versus random strangers on the internet. But

Rich 12:59

Yeah.

Justin 13:00

I like getting input and feedback from trusted colleagues or friends that, that, I value. I'm glad I was able to be a part of that and I'm glad you opened up this track for us to hear and contribute to in that way

Rich 13:13

I didn't have any uncles to

Justin 13:15

No, no,

Rich 13:15

For this one, so like

Justin 13:17

No. Rich uncles,

Rich 13:19

rich uncles to consult.

Justin 13:20

no.

Rich 13:21

guys are the

Justin 13:21

Next best thing. So this is a terrific track, really so happy for you that it's out there for people to hear.

Rich 13:31

excited. I'm excited.

Justin 13:32

And can we expect more music from you in the near future? And I'm curious, will it be similar in nature to flowing horizon?

Rich 13:40

Yes, more music is coming out. I have a lot of things waiting to be mixed and mastered in the background

Justin 13:47

I.

Rich 13:48

and I are actually getting to it with the next. Song as we speak. but the next few songs are going to be completely different. This music project is very exploratory. I feel like it's a boundless kind of thing where I'm willing to try all kinds of stuff. I have many ideas. Across many genres and styles. But I can't say I wouldn't do something similar to this again, it's just I know that the next few songs are not gonna be like this.

Justin 14:15

Yeah. That's exciting to hear. And I know you and I have talked about this kind of concept of your music project outside of the podcast where there aren't necessarily boundaries or restrictions. I think that's really cool that you're saying like, Hey, whatever the muse inspires me to do or create or write whatever, I'm gonna put it out there. And so I think that's really cool and we can look forward to. Some interesting new tracks from you. It sounds like, maybe later this year at some point. So it sounds like you've got some in the can, ready to go. You're just, needing to finish 'em up.

Rich 14:51

Oh yeah,

Justin 14:52

So rich outside of the music itself, what other challenges or considerations did you face debuting this single and yourself as an artist?

Rich 15:03

Oh, yeah yeah. There's a lot of things of the reasons I wanted to do this not only to get into releasing my own stuff. Put my stuff out there to share with people. I wanted to also learn about how things are done in this modern landscape as well. 'cause and I we remember the old days where you would, and I'm sure some of our listeners remember, and for the young youngins who are listening, used to, record the demo.

Justin 15:31

To cassette tape usually.

Rich 15:33

Yeah. Hand them out to people

Justin 15:35

Yeah.

Rich 15:35

Cassettes and CDs and whatnot. this is a different world. We've talked about these things but I wanted to try my hand at it. I know that there's hundreds of thousands of songs being released weekly. Settled in my life. I know how I'll put food on the table. It's not about that. It's about creating and sharing and being part of that big family of artists out there. Already on social media, connecting with other musicians and hearing what they do and just it's pretty cool. But the challenges. You ask about the

Justin 16:11

Yes,

Rich 16:12

Please feel free to add to this as you know about these things as well.

Justin 16:16

yes, of course.

Rich 16:17

so I'm learning all kinds of new skills. So first of all, Canva, love and Canva, by the way, love and Canva. I've heard people talk about Canva through the years. I think Justin, you brought it basically on board and you were like, this is great. We should use this for stuff. So it's fun learning how to edit things

Justin 16:35

Yeah,

Rich 16:36

Canva.

Justin 16:36

like robust graphic design platform, right?

Rich 16:39

Yeah. Yeah. And it's great for someone who's just getting into it. I'm sure there's probably more advanced stuff out there that people are

Justin 16:45

yeah.

Rich 16:46

are in the know who like know right.

Justin 16:48

I like that about Canva. It's accessible. If you're not super familiar with graphic design, it's still like doable for somebody to come in and make some cool stuff. But it is extremely sophisticated to your point, for people that are more in the know. So yeah, that was cool to see you get into Canva like that.

Rich 17:03

Yeah, I'm still learning. But it's all a creative process. I'm trying not to be overly picky about everything. I'm trying to be way more open and let things go as they may and as they come. So that was one thing. And then for the logo. For the logo, I was gonna do my own logo. I started getting into all of that. But then I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, there's people out there who know how to do this and there's actually people I know who know how to do this, who are good people, who are creative. And so actually I wanted to give a shout out to Michelle Coello, who basically designed my logo. She was great. She is a fellow. Musician, a fellow singer, a fellow music lover, and actually one of my students,

Justin 17:45

A fellow New Jersey eight.

Rich 17:46

a fellow New Jersey. I,

Justin 17:48

Yeah.

Rich 17:48

right in the area. She came for voice lessons and then I found out through our sessions that she does graphic design and I just, like her taste in music and how she is as a person. So I'm like, this is someone I wanna work with. So I approached her with some ideas and asked her if she would do me the honor of, working on my logo. And she was like, definitely. And so that's the logo you see when you look at all of the pages and

Justin 18:15

Yeah,

Rich 18:16

her.

Justin 18:16

she did a great job. But yeah, it looks awesome.

Rich 18:19

Thank you, Michelle. Yeah so letting go of some things letting go and allowing other people in to help out in areas where may not have complete mastery or expertise. But also, maybe I could have thought of something eventually, but I thought I found it fun working and having people on board.

Justin 18:39

Yeah,

Rich 18:40

it's cool,

Justin 18:41

it's a different, it's like a collaborative thing. I think that can be fun, leveraging somebody who has expertise in something specifically like Burak with mixing and mastering and Michelle with the, graphic design and logo creation and you're still involved in it, right? Like you're still contributing in a creative sense. You're just not necessarily hands on with every little thing. So yeah I think it, it yielded some great results.

Rich 19:02

Yeah, she did great. And even like when we were talking about the, the, some of the sounds in the song in this, in the bridge section Justin, you had recommended a certain plugin for us to use on the vocals. All those kind of things it's it's fun. And you could, as artist Don't have to take every single thing that someone suggests, but. If you back off a little bit and you allow for that kind of influence, sometimes it'll enhance the whole thing, having that second opinion.

Justin 19:30

Yeah.

Rich 19:32

but anyways and then the profile pic and like the branding pic that I'm using for stuff basically I took a picture of myself. And then I drew on the picture 'cause I like drawing. I'm not, I'm okay. But I have creative ideas, I have things I wanna try. So I drew the pic myself and then you had the idea of running it into Canva and enhancing it through Canva. So that was cool to try. And I had, it gave me more ideas of things to do. And also with the album art. As well. Being able to design that album art and kind of thinking of what you want for it and how it'll reflect the song and getting personal with it. I used that were close to me and familiar to me for all of those things.

Justin 20:17

Yeah. It's so interesting to, to reflect on. All the different elements that go into a song other than the song.

Rich 20:25

Yeah.

Justin 20:26

There's you gotta write your bio and a profile pic and get social media started and, all these different things going on. But you've done an incredible job on all of those fronts and I'm excited for people to engage with you on all these different platforms. And of course we'll include links to not only the song, but to your social media so people can connect with you and, and check.

Rich 20:47

Great.

Justin 20:47

you out. So Rich, thank you so much for sharing more about the new single flowing horizon that at this point is now on all streaming platforms. And how can people find out about, the new songs that are coming out what should they do to make sure they're plugged into all things Bozic.

Rich 21:07

You can find all of the, more detailed information on my website, which is bozicmusic.com. So it's just my last name, B-O-Z-I-C music.com. then of course on Instagram @bozicmusic on Instagram and Bozic on Facebook. Thank you for taking valuable podcast time to allow me to share

Justin 21:29

Of course.

Rich 21:30

my song release. And I had fun talking about this.

Justin 21:34

Awesome. Thank you so much, rich, and to close this out, here's a little bit more of flowing horizon. Thanks everybody.

Rich 21:41

Bye.