Thinking in Sound: Taste and Technology with Antfood's Zac Greenberg

Zac Greenberg is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound designer, and all-around sound artist. Greenberg’s sound work has provided him the opportunity to collaborate with mediums ranging from music, film and TV, installations, dance, immersive content, and culinary.

LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?

Zac> When looking at a new brief, I find it helpful to break the project down into intentions. Giving every choice intention adds up to meaningful sound. Sound being one of the most abstract arts and senses, it’s easy to become undirected and aesthetically focused. Letting the core principles of the project, brand, collaborators, campaign, larger work, or whatever the big picture is, be the north star can be a helpful guiding light for intention.

LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?

Zac> Collaboration has always been a big part of my work. Musically I come from jazz, blues, and psychedelic rock. Improvisation sets a foundation for trusting your fellow musicians and striving for a level of hivemind. As my career has developed, composing and sound design have come to the forefront of my work. Taking the skills I developed in creating deep artistic connections with my fellow musicians has been indispensable in collaborating with other mediums. My favourite projects are when sound is part of a larger artistic goal. Working with dancers like Charlotte Katherine & Co, filmmakers like Francis Corby Ceschin, and installation artists like Pam Kravetz has not only been some of my most fulfilling and enjoyable work but also taught me how to dive deeper into intention in my more industry-based client work.

LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?

Zac> The most satisfying part of my job is probably seeing my work and the work of my collaborators out in the world. It’s not just about the success of seeing it in the wild, it is knowing that at Antfood we strive for creativity and innovation. When something is completed, it's not just because the client is happy with the product, but because we are as well. Seeing positivity towards a creative approach and being part of that mission is very satisfying.

LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?

Zac> Two big and constant changes are taste and technology. These are independent but also tightly connected. A big one at the moment is AI in all sorts of ways, generative and machine learning being two of the biggest. This will change not only how music is made but also the taste for what is used where – clean and accessible music will be much simpler to make at volume, and there will be a large space in the advertising world for this work. But I also think there will be a reactionary response where people and companies will be hungry for unique, handmade music and sound. I’m excited that Antfood is in a position to explore and be at the forefront of both sides. 

Another big change in the industry through taste and technology is how media is consumed. With VR, AR, and beyond, blossoming, exciting and new ways to explore experiential sound become more readily available. I think this will be an important part of the modern advertising era we are moving into.

LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why?

Zac> Music and audio heroes are diverse for me. I have to start with Jerry Garcia, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, move quickly into Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, and Charles Mingus, then round out with Raymond Scott, Steve Reich, and Debussy. Genre wise it’s a wide breadth, but I guess the why is the connective tissue: innovation and experimentation. All of these artists mastered the expected and searched endlessly for the unexpected. Music and sound were able to be bigger than just music and sound for them. It was an accessible way for them to be pioneers of a final frontier.

LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, whether sound design or composing, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?

Zac> I find a lot of my thoughts around sound nowadays bring me back to growing up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was lucky to be a teenager at the tail end of LES being the mecca of the “downtown” and “free jazz” scenes. I was able to see, hear, learn from, and work with greats like Marc Ribot, John Zorn, and Mark Dresser. Seeing the greats of these movements and how exploring sound went beyond exploring their instrument, technique, or traditional concepts. Freeing themselves from traditional constraints allowed creativity to be limited only by intention and mindfulness.

LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music (let's say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?

Zac> I find I need to rotate sound and no sound in my work schedule depending on the work, time of day, and what the rest of my day has looked like. Generally, mornings are windows open and nature sounds: the birds and gentle white noise of the distant 101 are beautifully soothing. If I'm working on passive tasks it's helpful for my brain to have reruns of things I’ve seen a million times and often are shows about being at work: Bob’s Burgers, 30 Rock, Trailer Park Boys, etc. For more thoughtful work, ambient music is helpful for focus but is a fine line between being distracting and helpful. A big thing as well is how I listen. Oftentimes when I need to deeply focus I put on my big open-back studio headphones. I think this finds a balance of some obscurities in my life. The open back allows me to still hear the sounds of nature coming through my windows, relieving the feeling of confinement while having headphones on gives me a sense of comfort found from countless hours in the studio and practice room.

LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound in has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?

Zac> Whether or not listening mediums affect workflow brings me back to the importance of intention. Deliverables are not nearly as simple as they used to be. EQ, compression, perceived volume level, gain structure, effects, master chain, and stereo width; these are all a part of small decisions constantly being made along the creative process to actualize work by the most effective means possible for final consumption. The intention behind every decision is of the utmost importance in achieving final deliverables that you, your client, and your audience are happy with. 

LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?

Zac> Generally, I pick a vinyl to start my day with the night before and have it on the turntable ready to go. Usually mellow ambient, classical, or jazz. We mainly listen to records at the house, my partner and I have a fun collection. On the morning and evening dog walks I usually listen to an audiobook. I find the “hot medium” interaction of audiobooks, balanced with the sounds of the Silver Lake hills, one earbud in and one out, to be like a brain massage. It’s helpful to get focused for work and to cool down from work. After my walk, we usually play records as we cook dinner and go through the rest of our day. These days, I’ve found a love for public radio while driving. The usual rotation is KXLU, KJazz, and KUSC. SoCalSound will have some fun stuff from time to time but my favourite is late-night listening to George Noory’s Coast to Coast.

LBB? Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?

Zac> For non-listing, I love field recording, but let's focus on listing here. For listing, I’m a big vinyl nerd. I started collecting in college – I was in school in North Carolina for a few years and there were a couple of great record shops my friends and I would haunt. We could find a lot of great obscurities cheap compared to the picked over and more expensive big city stores. This was also the days before a lot was on streaming, so as jazz kids, we were hooked on finding records that you couldn’t find on CD. I always spent a lot of time in LA, NYC, and travelling the world. I'd make it a point to explore record stores and instrument shops. Record collecting and record shop communities have always been a safe haven.

LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music (e.g. history buffs who love music that can help you travel through time, gamers who love interactive sound design… I mean it really could be anything!!)

Zac> I grew up with Colorado as a home base. I think it was in the mountains that I fell in love with movement and flow. Starting to ski at two years old and race motocross at three years old shaped my perception of the world and how to navigate it. In the last 30 years, my love for movement and flow has saturated my life. Biking, running, climbing, rafting, muay thai, jiu-jitsu, dance, and yoga are all examples of movement that are ever present in my day to day. But the saturation has soaked deeper than how to just navigate physical space. Jazz taught me to translate flow from movement to concept. Physical movement has become an irreplaceable inspiration for how I approach sound. Influence from dance, extreme sports, and martial arts is as much a part of my decision-making as my musical heroes.

LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?

Zac> I love to travel and grew up travelling a lot. One of the most inspiring activities I do is field recording. I started field recording with my uncle when I was very young, but I started thinking about it in a very different way when iPhone mics started to be decent. I had an early Rode mic that was pretty durable and I could keep it in my pocket. This really helped shape my critical listening at an early age. At first, I was just recording obvious stuff, ambiance in a forest, waves on a beach, animals in the jungle. Slowly my ears and creativity started to grow and I found myself observing the word in a different and more detailed way. Suddenly every movement had a sound, every object had a voice. I think one of the great gifts travel can give is perspective on observation and understanding the depth of each of our senses. 

LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?

Zac> I grew up in a family that absolutely loves music. My first concert was a Grateful Dead show at three months old, from there concerts and musicians were normalised in my life. My uncle is an amazing recording artist and was always close with some very cool and important musicians. I grew up side stage of countless iconic shows. Though I always loved music, it was never really mine. It was just part of life and part of my family. It wasn't until middle school that I found music for myself. My two best friends wanted to start a band, I ended up on bass, and we became obsessed with punk rock. We played everywhere we could as much as we could. We rehearsed every day during and after school. We wrote music, we learned music, we listened to music, we took lessons. Being in a band was who we were and what we did. I carried this part of my life with me through college. The genres came and went, the projects came and went, but the core was always there. Being in bands with friends and performing as much as possible. Then as I was entering my final year at NYU everything changed. One day I was just over the hustle of performing and the tediousness of holding bands together. My last year in school shifted almost completely into composition. Being in the studio replaced live performance. I discovered sound design and a new perspective on my field recording. Covid happened and that cemented my shift into post-production. I’m excited to find space in life to support my love for live performance, but I’m grateful for a career maturing into the controlled chaos of post-production.