Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee
Welcome to the Trailblazer FM podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today’s show, we have the one, the only, it’s not C-type, it’s DeType. Sam, mate, how are you doing today?
Sam
Hello, Lee. I’m doing good, thanks.
Lee
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Excellent. Fantastic. Well, welcome to the rebirth of Trailblazer FM, where we’re doing audio only, although I am gazing at all at your beautiful bald head and your glasses because we’re still at least on camera. It’s really good to see you and all of the branding as well behind you. You’ve got orange going on. Folks, I would highly recommend you go ahead and check out Sam’s website over on, I guess, detype.com, I’m now guessing. That’s it. Actually, I’m got it in front of me, but there will be links in the show notes. For the folks who don’t know who you are, Sam, could you just give us a little quick potted history of who you are, and then we’ll jump into some questions?
Sam
Oh, right. The quick version. Yes, so I started my journey in graphic design. I didn’t realise it was… Well, art was my foundation. I didn’t realise it was graphic design until I discovered Rave Flyers and got into DJ ing and all right, it’s graphic design, not graphic art.
Lee
Why is that most people’s journey into graphic design? It is Rave Flyers. I’ve heard this one before.
Sam
Well, yeah. Well, a little aside, I worked with one of my favourite of my plans this year as well, which was cool. Last year, hang on, it’s 2026 now, isn’t it? I went a weird route round. I went to college, didn’t enjoy the college course I was doing. It wasn’t really what I was suited to be doing. Took a job in the printers, learnt properly from the ground up, learning print separations, artwork the old-school way, which is a bit of a lost art these days. Rapidly grew from there, doing loads of freelance bits on the side, designing flyers, designing record sleeves, as they were back then. Then took the leap to go freelance, which was a real baptism of fire. Very luckily, through my music and DJ connexions, I met a guy who helped place freelances in different agencies. I got some really good experience quite early on working in different agencies around the West Midlands. Took a role in a brand agency for 18 months, I think it was. I wanted a bit of stability. You know, this freelance hustle is hard, right? And then, over the years, I’ve built up a bit of clients to really take the leap again and set up DeType.
Sam
And a big catalyst to this was meeting a group who had a PropTech group of companies. We went into partnership with them. They were my biggest client, but also a partner, and helped all grow from there. We then realised, hang on, we’re doing… As part of every branding project, we’re doing a web page design. And moreover, we’re not really designing brochures anymore. We’re designing digital brochures, anything like that. So I took the leap then into, I think it was iWeb was my first ever foray into into Web. I was playing with a flash and things like that back in the day. I was always intrigued by how they-Member Lane. I know. Hey, at least HTML5 is up to the scratch now.
Lee
That’s true. Finally.
Sam
Yes. But yeah, I was always intrigued with not only does it look cool, but it’s doing stuff as well. And then realising, hang on, there’s a lot infrastructure behind that and how does that work? Yeah, took the leap, finally to WordPress. I think I started with, what was it, 2012? 2012 theme or whatever it was then, and learned the hard way of getting manuals and blah, blah, blah. There wasn’t really any YouTube stuff on it. Maybe there was, but I was learning from manuals.
Lee
The hard way meaning you created some utter monstrosities before you finally worked on it and did it properly. Yeah, that’s how I did it.
Sam
Oh, absolutely. I think I spent probably two days building just a simple JavaScript slide, right? Which, who doesn’t slide anymore? But yeah, it quite rapidly changed from then to now. Web’s 90% of what we do. We still do branding content. Often a new website is a change in brand or repositioning or vice versa. So it’s… They’re going to go hand in hand, but Web’s absolutely the forefront of what we do now.
Lee
I find it’s actually rare to have agencies agencies that do branding still and Web. So I don’t know if you’re finding that at all, but a lot of web agencies are not necessarily design-led first, or at least not branding, which I think is different to web design itself. Somebody can do informational layout fairly well to a high degree, and it can look great, but actually creating a brand, you mentioned earlier about the layer of printing being a bit of a lost start. I’m wondering whether branding itself often becomes a bit of a lost start because people just put it down to, Oh, it’s just a logo.
Sam
A hundred %. And I think this is where we’ve really started found our niche in really be able to distil a person or a company into a digital presence. And this is my favourite part. I’ve got a branding background, so I led that way. And I think even back in the day when we’d design an example homepage, for example, you go to then a web development company. We looked at it What’s happened? Then we’re using Tohoma, not the brand font we picked, and they’re like, What’s going on? And I think this is a real catalyst of learning it myself, getting involved myself. Like, right, I’m going to learn this. I want to wrap my head around it, and I want to match what I’ve designed into what’s being built. Yes. And it is hard. They are different disciplines. And I realised within a couple of years, hang on, I need to hire some full-stab developers because this stuff’s hard. And you know what? I don’t want to learn PHP inside out. I just want to… Html CSS and the design angle all day long for me.
Lee
I do love that side of things. I love the front-end stuff because that’s what people touch, isn’t it? Yes. And you feel like you’re making a difference. I mean, obviously, I do PHP as well, and I do take great pleasure in making something happen in the back-end and then spit out the results. But the HTML CSS, again, that’s just what people see the most and interact with it. That’s something quite a pleasure. I guess that’s, again, why you’re also… You’ve got the design background as well, because, again, that’s what people see and engage with.
Sam
A hundred %, yeah. I mean, I’m really obsessed with it. I’m a proud perfectionist. My team probably hate me for it. But I want to make sure- You’ve never met one of those.
Lee
People usually apologise.
Sam
No. Well, I did for a while, but you know what? I embrace it. The way a button fades on hover, something like that, I’ll get that just right. It really matters to me. And it’s weirdly, a lot of the time, that’s what the clients will go, Oh, that’s cool. Never mind It’s a crazy API the team have built in the background. There’s these amazing stuff.
Lee
I like how that button fades.
Sam
Unfathomable stuff.
Lee
You have your full stack developers sobbing in the background.
Sam
What about me? But hey, it’s the harmony of the two, right? It’s bringing the two together. That’s good.
Lee
Now, I did have the pleasure of reading through your website, and I was absolutely gobsmacked by the heritage that you have, which I think has massively influenced that button, for example, and why you are the way you are. And that’s your grandfather’s legacy. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and the Jaguar DeType?
Sam
Yes, of course. Mike, so this is an interesting one. My grandfather’s father taught an unholy combination of maths and art. Great Yarmouth Grammar School back in the early 1900s. And that really translates into what he became. He was very much an artist, but he was an engineer. It was that weird, unusual combination of the two. He was one of these sickeningly bright people who aced his exams and got a scholarship into Loughborough College, where he learned automotive engineering. So this would have been, what, 1920s, early 1930s, when cars were becoming not just some fancy carriage. They were something exciting and racing. And there was a lot of community here. He was then took a role at Jaguar. From what we gather as a freelancer at first, to look at efficiencies. Previous to that, he’d worked at Bristol Aeroplane Company in the War, and a lot of his work was looking at streamlining bombers, things like that. How do we reduce the flair at night? They can’t be seen by the anti-aircraft guns. Little efficiencies like that. How do we make the engine quieter or more efficient or whatever?
Lee
I mean, your grandad’s a legend, by the way. Keep going.
Sam
This is amazing. Yeah. I mean, it’s crazy the stuff he got up to. In this time at Jaguar, he’s essentially hired. Jaguar wants to enter the racing scene. And we’re like, Right, we’ve got an XK120. It’s a hell of a car. How do we make this race ready? So he went about and started the C-type, C standing for Competition. So it’s the XK120 Competition. Yeah. Xk120 C. That was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. It broke a lot of records at the mum. I should have looked at this before this call of what the stats were, but it was coming first, second, third. It was wiping out the competition. Then, right, Jaguar was like, Okay, we’re serious about this now. We’re going to go full on to this. Then on came the D-Type Jaguar, which in my eyes, I think, was the most amazing of his creations. That also had down lock disc brakes, had the XK engines. There’s a whole lot of things came together, but it was super, super aerodynamic. The XK120C was more based on the XK120, so it was morphing it. The D-Type was a real pure racing car. It had a fin on the back for stability, which is what aircraft It was crazy.
Sam
And yeah, again, that just dominated the competition. It won Le Mans several years running with multiple teams. Yeah, I mean, that’s my favourite car ever, obviously.
Lee
Well, obviously.
Sam
Then off the back of that, they created the XKSS, which is the road-going D-Type. Everyone loved the car. I want to be able to drive it on the road, not just race it. They converted it into a road-going car. I thought, Hang on a minute, we’re on to something here. And then the E-type Jaguar came along. So that was what probably most people will have heard of the E-type Jaguar. Again, it combined aerodynamics and monoclonal design. But it had all the styling detail, it had all the extra fluff and amazing stuff to make it a beautiful car to drive as well.
Lee
And what amazes me is that folks did this with pen and paper.
Sam
Oh, yeah, 100 %.
Lee
That’s crazy to me. We’ve got computers, haven’t we? To calculate everything and draw things perfectly. They did it with pen and paper.
Sam
I know this is audio only, but I’ve got one of the slide rules he used.
Lee
Yeah, we’ll have to get a picture. That’s amazing. And I can see pictures of the D-Type as well and a model in the background as well. Again, sorry, folks, audio only, but we should probably load some pictures. Check out the website. I’m sure they’re on there. Links in, show notes.
Sam
So, yeah, I think that combination of… He was a great artist as well. I mean, that’s one of his paintings behind me. It was a unique combination of those things. I think I always… I like to just create and produce, whether it was graphic art or typography or something like that. I liked the form of it. And then actually, hey, with the website making it move, wow, okay, this is something special.
Lee
Well, you’ve just said what goes through your entire website, it’s like the beating heart of your site, which is form and function, the form and how it works, et cetera. When did that click for you then as a creative idea, and was that very much inspired by your granddad’s story?
Sam
I’m not really sure, to be honest. I think I’ve always been… I’m quite anal about how I label things and find things. In a Photoshop file, I’ll label layers correctly. Don’t just dash things in there.
Lee
You are my favourite person, by the way, as a web developer who receives Photoshop files, I would happily receive yours over anyone if you do that, mate, because I have no idea where half the stuff is.
Sam
I just feel if you can do something, do it properly. Hey, that said, I’ve got a folder on my desktop called desktop with three other folders called desktop within it with a lot of screenshots. That doesn’t matter. But when I’m producing something, it’s got to be spot on for me. I guess my print background taught me about proofreading. Hey, I made some mistakes in artwork that cost tens of thousands of pounds. You learn hard and fast that way. I think really this was just how I worked. I think it was reading Steve Jobs’ Autobiography, where, again, he was very obsessed with, if you open a Mac up, it’s just beautiful inside. It looks stunning inside as well as outside. It’s just a whole package. When you order, get an iPhone or a MacBook, you open it, the packaging, everything is so well thought out. It’s just a joy to use, to open the box even is a joy. I just love that aspect of it. I think, yeah, a combination of that and also reading more We’re working on some projects, actually, for Grandness Legacy. The successes of the D-type was very much form and function.
Sam
It was the most streamlined car ever created, but it had unlocked disc breaks, it had the XK engine. All these things culminated in the success. It wasn’t just the shape, it wasn’t just the engine, it wasn’t just the disc breaks. I think, well, actually, with websites, it’s absolutely that. The back-end has got to be absolutely spot on for performance. Performance is bigger than ever. Clients know about performance nowadays. It used to be us trying to make it fast. Now clients know about it. But if it’s built correctly and lean and efficient and looks great, you’ve got a winner.
Lee
Exactly that. And you’re not just installing a whole load of random plugins off the shelf and locking something together. You want it to work well. You mentioned Apple. This still works, mate. I think it’s the first-generation iPod Touch. Wow. Yeah, it is. I love my iPhone. Still on. I’ve got a dock right next to me and I put my music on.
Sam
It’s crazy.
Lee
And somehow the iTunes software still works with this and my older ones. Really? No way. And it’s not blown up Hey, built to last, right?
Sam
Exactly.
Lee
Not like nowadays. We sound old now, mate. But on this, we’re talking about Jaguar with money. We’re talking about Apple with money. You have got time to focus on form and function and make that a priority. So how can that possibly translate into smaller businesses like ours? How can we prioritise form and function without I don’t know, blowing the budget or having no profit?
Sam
Good question. I mean, hey, these things are investment, right? Yeah. Anyone could build a website, right? Anyone always could build a website. Unfortunately, true. Well, let’s be honest about it. You’ve always built to buy a theme. For 15 odd years, it’s built to buy a theme from Theme files. True. Anyone can have a go, but it’ll be loaded full of plugins. It’s built as a one-size-fits-all, not suited for you. I think more than anything, it’s an investment in yourself. Do you want something that’s going to be successful? Do you want to put the time and budget and energy to it? What we do doesn’t break the bank. I still think we’re very affordable in what we do, but it does need the care and attention. There’s a million and one WordPress developers out there who do fantastic… There’s a developer for every client and every budget, right? But if you want longevity, If you want results, you do need to invest in someone who’s going to take the time to look at the design, look at the messaging on the site. Again, it’s not just how well it’s built and how few plugins, whatever. Does it sing?
Sam
Does it work as a user experience, as a user journey? Yeah, I don’t know if that’s really answered the question, but I think you’ve got to invest enough for it to work for you. If It stung me out to buy a new MacBook last year. I’m like, God, they’re expensive now.
Lee
Oh my gosh, yeah. If you go on the website, you feel like you have to upgrade everything until they’re spending four grand.
Sam
Yeah, for sure. But hey, my last one was eight years old.
Lee
Yeah, true.
Sam
They stand the test of time. I think if you invest right and build with the right tools or the right team, you’ll get long-lasting results. We’ve come across so many sites. We took one on recently, actually, which had 120 plugins on it for a WeCommerce site. The first thing is like, Right, we are taking this to a dev site and chopping it. We’re cutting it to the bone. I think we’re down to about 40 now, and then some stuff we’re going to rewrite to make it leaner. But hey, that’s a two-thirds. Most of them were doing duplicate things or redundant. They’ve had all this people work on the site over the years. I think it’s probably a case of trying to do it cheap, trying to do some stuff themselves, ending up in a mess.
Lee
Yeah, I get you. I think what I’m hearing, though, especially small companies being able to prioritise form and function, is that if you prioritise form and function, it is going to pay dividends for you in a couple of ways, obviously, you’re going to improve your skills and you’re going to build a backlog of good quality plugins that you’ve used with other clients that you’ll be able to use with upcoming clients. So you’re building your stack. You’ve got your quality there. Then on the flip side as well, it means that the client is going to get that better experience. Again, they are going to continue to want to work with you because obviously, I presume you folks do the same. You’ll presumably sell maintenance as well on top of your website. So you’ve got your website. And for the client to want to keep coming back to you and get that maintenance, get those updates, security, all of that good stuff, they’re going to want to have had a good job. So it’s actually an investment as well in that future the conversion and the longevity of a client.
Sam
Yeah, absolutely.
Lee
That’s where more profit will come. The lifetime value of the client is worth a lot more, I think, than just turning a quick profit on just one website sale. Oh, 100 %.
Sam
Yeah, we have a start Our site concept, which is an upfront fee and then a higher ongoing monthly as well as the maintenance and hosting, because some of our best clients have started small and have grown with us. I think when you’re demonstrating the value, They’re growing, you’re growing, you’re help. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Symbiotic?
Lee
Holy crap.
Sam
What does that mean? That’s a big word. I don’t know what the… It’s amazing. I suppose Parasitic is the wrong word. But it’s where two things work together. Symbiotic is they need each other to survive.
Lee
I’ve heard people say it before, and I’m like, What does that mean?
Sam
I should probably Google it. It’s not parasitic, symbiotic. If we do a great job for the client, they’ll do well. If they’re doing well, they’ll come back to us for more. So that’s the dream, right? If we’re helping grow each other. This is good.
Lee
Let’s put you in a scenario. Deadlines are tight. Client stressed, everyone’s stressed. There’s a looming date for go-alive. What are the Non-negotiables for you when it comes to form and function to make sure that you’ve nailed regardless of the pressure from clients, et cetera?
Sam
The Non-negotiables, well, hey, we’re quite clear. If there’s stuff landing last minute, the go-alive date moves. We have It’s like 36-step go-alive process, right? There’s a lot to think about, a lot to consider here, and we need to make sure that is in place. We will, as soon as we can, call out and say, Do you know what? This needs launch right, not just by an arbitrary date. We’ll need to move the launch date, or we do a phased approach. Right, let’s go with phase one now, and we’re for phase two later.
Lee
Nice. And if the button doesn’t quite fade right, would you still go live because that’s lower down on the list, or would you stay up all night?
Sam
I have stayed up all night, more than I’d like to admit. But no, look, this is This is the extra, this is the ask you on the cake stuff, right? This is the stuff which does delight people, but it’s not the core, right? We’ve worked out over the years, actually, what’s the MVP? What’s the phase one? If we got a short deadline, right? At the very minimum, we’re doing this, and this stuff will have to wait.
Lee
Well, I think that’s what I was trying to get at, because I think people listening to you would be like, Oh, my gosh, I don’t go to this much detail, and I don’t sweat the fading button, et cetera. This all feels like more and more work. But what you are saying here is, okay, form is important and function. MVP still exists in your world being able to say, Right, let’s get the working product out. The Non-negotiables, I’m always going to assume, are it must function and it must be secure and stable and performant, et cetera. If the button doesn’t fade, that’s the nice sprinkle that you’ll add maybe later, even if it’s a few days post go-live date where you’re like, Okay, let’s just finish off that button now that everyone’s happy and make that fade nicely. So there is still that wiggle room and you’re not creating for yourself. I’m a post burn out bunny. So I’m thinking I would absolutely burn myself out if I was hyper focused on everything because I’ve done that before.
Sam
Yeah. We tend to approach it when we’re doing… When we go from visual to then first build of a homepage, we build out all the assets we can then. Primary, secondary, tertiary buttons, textiles, different modules on it. We’ll set that early on so those things are set then. It’s not a case of doing it wireframe and then adding layers on top. Do you know what I mean? It’s more things like, if anything’s going to hold up, go live, it’s content. I think that’s the only thing, or if we’re waiting for third-party information, APIs and all that.
Lee
Have you seen So I’ve noticed that because of lovely AI, which I don’t like, by the way, people can now, in theory, write content, but the content is shite. Pardon my French. So are you seeing clients go there, and are you pushing back at any point on people’s content?
Sam
Yeah, we actually developed, probably 12 months ago now, a guide template of how to approach your homepage, how to approach your service pages, how to approach your About pages, to give you some structure to it. Yeah, that’s good. And make sure, have you answered this? Have you thought about your value proposition? And we do have some guidelines in there for AI. Brilliant. Check for American spellings.
Lee
For M-dashes.
Sam
M-dashes. Hey, do you know what? I’m a massive M-dash fan. I’m a bit of a type name. That’s a shame. I know. And I don’t use them anymore. It kills me. It absolutely kills me. Actually, AI uses the longer M-dash.
Lee
So you could use the little hyphen instead.
Sam
Yeah. I like the long M-dash.
Lee
I mean, it’s just because it doesn’t have the quite.
Sam
This is a bit of a nerdy one.
Sam
In my freelance days, there’s a group of freelances who often meet up at different agencies, and we challenge each other for keyboard shortcuts in their design. This is next-level Nerdery. We learn all how to go the register symbol, things like that, and the M-Dash and so on that. We had real pride in ourselves doing that. Now it just looks like using AI.
Lee
God damn. Yeah, it does. That’s a shame. See, I don’t not use AI. I use AI to summarise documents and for ideation and stuff like that. But I’ll always try and be the core creator. Often I’ve worked with clients who are quite literally just copying and pasting whatever the output is of an AI without any checking. It’s checking and it’s feel awful.
Sam
I have seen someone who’s got flagged for just crappy content. Don’t do it, folks. What I do often use is I’ve programmed my own ChatGPT agent, is it? I can’t think what the term is.
Lee
Yeah, I don’t know. Part agent thingy.
Sam
And it’s trained on my content. I’ll get it as real tight parameters on how it should work. I’ll use it often, sometimes, for remixing content. So if I’ve written a paragraph like, something’s not quite right. I said, Right, give me a few different versions of this. That’s great because it can solve those little writer’s block moments. But it’s never a case of, Write me an article on this.
Lee
I think the difference there, again, is That’s something I’ve said before on this show, that you’re using it with your knowledge. So you’ve already written something and you’re essentially using, I guess you could say it’s a Grammarly tool equivalent, isn’t it? Yeah, for sure. Where procedurally the system is taking your existing knowledge and remixing it, and that’s totally fine because it is something that you’ve still created. I’ll use it for blog outlines as well. So I’ll have a topic I’ll say, Hey, I want to say this. My What’s the title is roughly going to be, and I want the end result to be this. Could you break it down for me into some key headlines? And then that allows me to write some content. So I’m not anti-AI at all, but I think I’m more anti the way people use it when they’re becoming lazy. And I know this is a complete tangent. I did not plan on talking about AI. It was just you mentioned content being the biggest ball ache.
Sam
But again, it’s given the care and attention things need, right? A The website is the digital reputation of you and your business, right? Don’t shortcut it. Amen. Yeah, do it properly. Yes, use AI where it’s needed to pad things out or check things through or sense check whatever. But having your voice and your authenticity, I’m seeing a massive, massive kickback on this now, which is great. The AI slop is out there in revenge of the humans.
Lee
Yeah, Well, it’s ruined YouTube for me now because I’m forever like, Is that a real person or is this AI? And even the real humans are talking like AI now. So especially when they’re doing all their prepositions, I’m like, You’ve put that script through AI, haven’t you? And you’re basically reading an AI script. So I know you’re human, but I’m not sure. Anyway, that’s a rant for another day. So for smaller agencies, freelancers, they’ve listened, they’re inspired. What’s one practical change that they can make that will instantly improve the balance between beauty and user… I totally read that question, but it’s true. What’s the one next thing that a small business could do? To improve things.
Sam
What can they do?
Lee
Without the overwhelm.
Sam
Yeah. I think just we’d look at a page, for example, a service plan like that. Does it make sense? I think people will often get lost in their own jargon. Is it simple enough to make sense but got the depth to mean something? And is it easy to use? Do you look at it and think, Yes, they know what they’re talking about. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, I’m interested.
Lee
All right, so the one next step you can take is just look at the existing work and say, Does this work?
Sam
Is this performing what it should do?
Lee
And is there anything needless in here? And I am one of those people who adds things for the sake of adding it because it looks nice, and I really need to start pairing things back.
Sam
Yeah, for sure. I do music production in what little spare time I have, and a lot of that is bring all the… Jam all the stuff together and then take the stuff out. And the space is what makes it work, right? And I think it’s the same principle. I’ll jam out a design, and then revisit it and think, Okay, Does that work? Is the flow right? Does it feel good? I think whether that’s a client, designer, developer, we put together. So many times I see content comes from a client. Has anyone checked it? Are there errors in the content? Does it make sense? Yes, they’ve provided it, but come on, we need to look at these things and question them. I personally will often make little tweaks to the copy to make it a little bit punchy or a little like that.
Lee
I’ll throw the odd M-dash in.
Sam
Take them out. But it’s our job as an agency is to deliver the best job we can, right? No matter what’s been provided to us, we need to query it, check it makes sense. Ask the question, Hey, someone’s happy with it? Great. That’s fine. But we’ve at least questioned.
Lee
That’s good. Now, you have I’ve absolutely answered another stereotype that many people have of WordPress folks. And that’s a question that me and Zack Stepek covered a few episodes ago. That episode actually goes live soon, mate. I think you’ll be interested in. And the question posed was, why are most web designers and WordPress aficionados also musicians? You just dropped it right at the very end there that you’re also into music. What is going on? Why are we all into music? I’ve got my guitar hanging I’m on the wall there. I’ve got my keyboard down there. I mix music, too. It’s fun. Why do we all do it? I wonder.
Sam
I don’t know. A couple of theories on this. I think we’re naturally inquisitive people, right? If I hear a tune… I used to play piano and guitar many moons ago. I went digital, but it was… How do they play that chord? I need to figure it out. I’m a person who take apart a toy when I was a kid to figure out how it works, right? Yeah, me too. I think there’s That innate curiosity, but also, I don’t know, I think we often have a need to create. And with music, there’s a great quote, I think it’s by Alan Watts. The purpose of the song is not to get the end, it’s to enjoy the experience.
Lee
That was amazing, mate.
Sam
It’s almost like we planned this question and we didn’t. And I think with music, it’s that noodling around, experimenting. I spend way too long on CodePen messing around with remixing things on there. I think we probably do all naturally pull from different tangents, different parts, left brain, right brain thing. Maybe the music is the outlet. That’s the creative outlet in a different way. That’s not deadline-specific.
Lee
That makes a lot of sense. Have you seen those live coding? Have you seen a few musicians? No, I haven’t. All right, so there’s something like, I think it’s Sonic Pi.
Sam
Oh, man, I’m going to lose hours on this. Show me.
Lee
If you really want to go down that tangent or Strudel, which is browser-based. I have seen Strudel. Yeah, it is so cool because you can essentially code your music. It’s like bridging the gap between developer and creative musician, and you can create your loops and everything and then just build up all of this music. It’s a DJ, I’ve forgotten her name on Instagram that I follow, and she’s just phenomenal music, and she live codes it. It’s incredible.
Sam
I mean, this is what I switched to Ableton because it felt more like, I don’t know, a It may be a coding UI thing. The other things like Logic, they felt very like a musical equipment. With Ableton and with the live, you can plug all different MIDI things in. It’s very much an exploratory thing. You can really go well with it.
Lee
I still wish I could use the old tools on the Mac. Is it Mac version 10? This was before prior to, what’s his name? Steve Jobs. We had Cubase running on it. It was still the version of Mac, which was monochrome, but it had coloured icons and stuff. It was colour, but lots of the monochrome design was still embedded in the UI. That was beautiful. That was late ’90s. I used Cubase and we had a MIDI controller and everything. Little Casio keyboard because this was at school. That’s where I fell in love with just music production and MIDI itself, and I’ve never stopped. I love MIDI. I know it’s old school nowadays, but I’ve still got my-I don’t know.
Sam
It’s still pretty prevalent.
Lee
I don’t know because I just do it for me. No one ever listens to it. This is my big old keyboard as well. Nice. I’ve got my M-Audio with my…
Sam
I’ve got a mini version of that.
Lee
This is a bit big, to be fair, but it fits in here. Anyway, we’re going off topic. So, mate, thank you so much. You are a legend. I’ve really enjoyed this. I’d love to have you back on the show again because there’s more questions I have for you. Maybe I can come and see you as well at some point because unbeknownst to us, we’re literally down the road from each other. So that’s cool. So, mate, thank you so much. What’s the best way for people to connect with you? And then we will kick you off the show.
Sam
Linkedin, just samsayerdetype or detype.com. That’s where I live.
Lee
Links are in the show notes, folks, and do connect with Young Sam because he’s a legend. And feel free, I’m sure, to ask him questions about the D type, Jaguar, E type, the C type, and his grandad, because they all sound really cool. And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing. Sorry, I’ve just set you up for that, haven’t I? So thanks, mate. Have a great day.
Sam
Thanks, mate.
Lee
And I’ll see you real soon.
Sam
Bye for now.
Lee
Bye. Cheerio..
