Music Production Podcast

John Holt runs The Audio Journey, which teaches music production, especially for beginners. Though he covers some of the most basic concepts in entering music production, he also covers some more complex ideas and problems most producers face when it comes to advancing and finishing tracks. It's pretty obvious that John and I read a lot of the same books, listen to the same podcasts, and subscribe to a lot of the same philosophies. There's a lot of "yes! I love that book too!" moments. The result is a pretty extensive set of show notes to go along with this episode. We had a really nice conversation exploring some of the common problems producers of all levels face, and shared our different solutions with each other. Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Show Notes: The Audio Journey The Audio Journey YouTube Channel The Audio Journey Instagram The Audio Journey Facebook The Audio Journey Twitter Gary Vaynerchuk - for regular and swift motivational kicks in the @$$. Keith Mills - Ableton Certified Trainer and founder of Quantize Courses. Growth vs. Fixed Mindset - a great article about Carol Dweck's work on Brain Pickings. Impact Theory - Videos on unlocking human potential. Calm - an app for meditation. 10% Happier - Meditation without the "woo-woo" by Dan Harris. Man's Search for Meaning - a powerful work by Viktor Frankl Ryan Holiday - Author of The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy. Tim Ferriss - Author of the Four Hour Work Week and host of the Tim Ferriss Show Stop Trying to Make Money Online - "The first step in making money online is to stop trying to make money online."

Tom Frampton is a producer, mixing and mastering engineer, author, and plugin designer. Never Get Stuck Again is his new book that gives producers a road map of the production process and practical and technical tips and techniques to navigate that map. His website Mastering the Mix, has great production tips and is where he offers his extremely helpful plugins. Tom and I had a great conversation about problems in the production process and how to overcome them, as well as his own plugins and book. Lots of great insights in here! Tom is graciously offering listeners of this podcast a free 15-day trial of all of his plugins, plus a free chapter of Never Get Stuck Again. Click here to get it! Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Show Notes: Mastering the Mix - Tom's web page, featuring a helpful blog, his book, and some great plugins. Levels - A plugin that is taking track analysis to the next level! Expose - A plugin that will show potential problems within your mix. Reference - A plugin that allows you to compare you track to other tracks, and highlight the differences between yours and the reference. Never Get Stuck Again - Tom's new book, packed with practical and technical help to finish music. Decoding the Mix - Tom analyzes the top streaming song of 2017 19 Time Savers - A great list of ways to save time and energy in the studio. Special Offer - Get a free trial of all three of Tom's plugins, plus a free chapter of Never Get Stuck Again.

It has been one year since this podcast began. Happy Birthday, Music Production Podcast! In this episode, we discuss where we would be in a year if we started something new today. Whether it is a couple of small steps or something dramatic, add it up over the course of 365 days and the effects will likely be huge. We also talk about building the habit of always doing your best. It applies to life and to music making. Thanks for listening and inspiring me to keep making episodes! Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Show Notes: AfroDJMac Music Production Club - a new download every month to help you make music. 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson - lots of great, practical life advice, that applies to making music.

Rozalind MacPhail is a flutist and producer who blends effected flute, electronics, voice, omnichord and silent film. MacPhail creates music for film and live performance and has released several albums of original work. She explores new ways to combine image and sound, in works that speak honestly of place, person and the human experience. Rozalind recently took home an East Coast Music Award for Electronic Recording of the Year and MusicNL's Female Artist of the Year. MacPhail is sponsored by Gemeinhardt Musical Instruments I had a great conversation with Rozalind about her work as a flutist and electronic musician. We discussed everything from the technology, philosophy, and technical approach Rozalind uses in her music. Show Notes: Official Website: The hub for Rozalind's work. Bandcamp - Rozalind's releases. SoundCloud - More of Rozalind's music. YouTube - See some of Rozalind's Audio/Visual work. Facebook Twitter Instagram Gemeinhardt Flutes The RPM Challenge - Make an album during February. Robert Dick - World Renowned Flutist The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Eshan Khadaroo is a professional session drummer, producer, and educator. He producers tutorials and online music production courses on his site Push4Life. By applying his deep understanding of drumming, Eshan offers musicians and producers a unique approach to finger drumming and electronic music production. My conversation with Eshan ranged from all kinds of interesting topics. We explored his background and the wisdom he gained touring with Cirque du Soleil and a variety of touring bands. Many philosophical topics that apply to making music and beyond came up. It was a diverse and stimulating conversation that I think will provide us all with a deeper understanding of the pursuit of creative endeavors. Show Notes: Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Special Offers! Expires March 8, 2018! Eshan is generously offering a 20% discount to listeners of the Music Production Podcast on two of his course: Ableton Push 2 Composition Course and Finger Drumming Bootcamp Just use the code: AFRO at checkout. About Eshan - Eshan assembled a nice YouTube playlist about his work Push4Life - Stay up to date with Eshan's work Instagram - Eshan's Instagram photos Facebook - Connect with Eshan on FB YouTube - a wealth of tutorials and videos by Eshan Music Sound and Silence - Eshan's new podcast Session Drumming - Eshan's work as a session drummer Melodics Course - Check out Eshan's finger drumming course on Melodics Agile Software Development Scrum

Let's continue our #FinishFebruary2018 work! In today's episode, we talk about a couple of techniques we can use to move forward with our tracks. I'd still characterize these steps as the planning phase, but I think taking these extra steps will focus our work in the future, which will ultimately save us time. It's very easy to get lost in making music without any direction; these two steps will help focus our work. Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Support the Podcast on Patreon Show Notes: Warp 10 - A full and free video course on all of the updates in Ableton Live 10. Google Spreadsheet: Use this spreadsheet to categorize your jams and organize your thoughts on each one. My Spreadsheet - Here's what I did with my spreadsheet. I still want to add a few tracks from the previous year that will fit in with some of the jams from #Jamuary2018. My Jamuary 2018 Tracks - YouTube playlist of all 31 jams. Making Music - A guide to beginning, progressing, and finishing tracks, by Dennis DeSantis. About 1/3 of the book is available here for free. Freytag's Pyramid - Plot diagram.

Laura Escudé is a producer, performer, and live show designer. She performs electronic music as Alluxe, creating music that borrows from the classical and modern world. Her company, Electronic Creatives, is the brains behind some of music's largest live performance acts. Clients include, Kanye West, The Weeknd, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Herbie Hancock. She recently just ran a successive retreat for live musical performance and physical wellness. After her trip to the Grammys supervising Logic's performance, Laura sat down to have conversation about live performance, touring, and taking the time to take care of yourself. Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Support the Podcast on Patreon Show Notes: LauraEscude.com: Laura's official website. Alluxe: Laura's music Electronic Creatives: Laura's company, providing state of the art music performance services. Alluxe on Spotify Transmute Retreat: Music performance and wellness retreat.

January 2018 was spent creating a small piece of music every single day for the #Jamuary2018 challenge. It was a lot of fun and pretty challenging. Lots of people participated and there were a ton of really cool jams. Now we are going to do something with them! It's time to begin #FinishFebruary2018 !! The first thing I think we are all entitled to is a short break. Take a step back from your music making and assess what you have. It's probably pretty likely you've forgotten about some of those jams. After a couple days of rest, let's look at the situation. I've built a spreadsheet on Google Sheets to help categorize your jams. There are eight columns to fill out for each day. Jam Name: Give your jam a name to help identify it (this can change). Notes: List anything that might be relevant. Instruments used, style, groove, feel... anything that will help you identify the track. What still needs to be done? BPM: List the BPM of your jam. Key: What key is your jam in? Mood-Theme-Genre: What is the emotion of the track? Any interesting theme? The Musical Genre. Group: Label these with letters. If a jam is similar in some way to another jam, give it the same letter. It is ok to have multiple letters on a single jam if it has something in common with multiple jams. % Complete: Estimate how close this jam is to completion. Rating 1-4: How likely are you to use this jam. 1-Not likely, 2-Maybe, 3-Probably, 4-Definitely. Feel free to add your own columns. If you do, let me know what you added! You may notice that I added ten addition spots for jams after day 31 (A-J). I'm going to use this to add some unfinished ideas I've had over the last year that I think might fit in with some of the other jams. I encourage you to go back and pick 10 of your favorite unfinished ideas from the past year and keep them in mind as we go through the month. If you did not participate in Jamuary, that doesn't mean you can't do Finish February! Look through your unfinished ideas and pick your favorites and list them in the spreadsheet! Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Support the Podcast on Patreon Show Notes: Google Spreadsheet: Use this spreadsheet to categorize your jams and organize your thoughts on each one. Fact TV Against the Clock: Producers get 10 minutes to make a track. Very inspiring! My Instagram: Find my jams and thoughts for Finish February. Jamuary2018: Check out the work of everyone involved in Jamuary 2018! FinishFebruary2018: Here's a hashtag to follow on Instagram. My #Jamuary2018 Jams. These are the full-length videos, in reverse chronological order. Enjoy :)

Merlyn Silva is a musician, sound artist, and educator from Denmark. His work spans many different genres, with a focus on electronics and glitch. A background in drama helps Merlyn shape both his music and teachings. I had a great conversation with Merlyn, spanning a wide range of topics. He's got some great thoughts on being productive. I especially liked his "hats" method. In this talk, Merlyn shares his thoughts on making music, teaching, and his musical collaboration with a cup of coffee. Merlyn's enthusiasm is infectious. Enjoy this talk! *A little disclaimer... Unfortunately, there were some errors on my end of the audio. I believe it was merely a bad microphone cable that caused some bothersome clicks and pops. I actually found that adding a layer of vinyl record crackling helped to mask the glitches and make the listening experience more enjoyable. Although it's certainly not ideal, I don't think that it takes away from the valuable wisdom Merlyn shared with me. Thanks for your understanding!* Listen on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play Support the Podcast on Patreon Show Notes: YouTube - Merlyn's channel with some great performances and tutorials. Twitter - Merlyn's Twitter. SoundCloud - Listen to Merlyn's music. Warp Academy - Great tutorial by Merlyn on creating interesting vocal chops.

I am ten days into #Jamuary2018, and productivity is at a high. Jamuary is a challenge to create a piece of music every day. It doesn't have to be great; it can be a jam, loop, idea, performance... it doesn't matter. The point is to just make music. I've learned some valuable lessons in these first ten days. I've managed to create and put out a jam every day. It's become extremely empowering to know that it can be done. It's led to some important insights and discoveries. In this episode, I will tell you the story behind the experience and some of the specific things I've discovered, as well as some of the improvements to my workflow that have happened as a result of the Jamuary discipline. Plus I will let you hear some of the music. If you aren't involved in #Jamuary2018, it's not too late. Join in now! Start making little jams each day for the rest of January. You will be amazed at how much it will help! Enjoy! Support the Podcast on Patreon Show Notes: AfroDJMac Instagram - I'm posting all of my #Jamuary2018 jams here. COIN OP Ableton Live Template - Ready to go 8-Bit music Ableton Live Project. Gibson Ebow Ableton Live Instrument - This is the 2nd free Ableton Live Pack I ever made! World Collection - Isotonik Studios Music Reactive Visuals. Samsara - Customized Granular Looping Plogue Chip Speech - Incredible Singing Robot Plug in. Izotope Nectar - Vocal Suite Plug in. Fugue Machine - iOS MIDI Sequencer. Patterning - iOS Drum Machine. Figure - iOS Beat Maker. Samplr - iOS Sampler Audiobus - iOS Audio Router.