Music Production Podcast

Nate Beaudry makes music as Chef Elf. He is an incredible example of discipline and hard work. Nate has released a new track every day since January 1, 2018; that's over 400 tracks!  Nate and I had a great conversation about making music, staying productive, and finding ways to show up every day and get to work. Nate shares some tips he has discovered over the last year that has helped him keep wo...

Tom Frampton is the creator of Mastering the Mix, a site dedicated to teaching producers how to get the best mixes of their music possible. He recently released a new service called Bounce Boss that simplifies and streamlines the collaboration process. Tom also has a host of plug-ins that can help you create the best mix possible. This is the second time I've had a chance to talk with Tom. We disc...

It's episode 100! I felt a lot of pressure to make episode 100 something special. Soon the anticipation grew into anxiety and worry. It's very common for us to build things up so big in our minds that they seem insurmountable. In this episode, I retreat back to the same approach that got this podcast started in the first place and discuss how we can apply that to making music. Listen on iTunes or...

Mark Mosher is a Synthesist, Composer, Performer, Founder of the Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meetup, and hosts the Sonic Encounters Podcast. He has run his music production blog, Modulate This! (now merged with his MarkMosherMusic.com website) for about 15 years. Mark plays in a number of ensembles and has produced music and visuals for the stage, planetariums, and picture. Mark and I had an excell...

Francis Preve is a sound designer, journalist, and educator. He teaches synthesis and sound design at Austin Community College. His writings on synthesis, sound design and gear can be found in top publications such as Keyboard magazine, Computer Music Magazine, and CDM. Francis has contributed synthesizer presets to just about every major manufacturer of hardware and software synths. It is quite l...

It's time for another NAMM show! This weekend, manufacturers from around the world will gather in Los Angeles to showcase their latest gear. It's one of the most exciting times of the year for music makers. Perhaps there will be the announcement of that magic piece of gear that will finally enable you to release all that music locked up inside you... The truth is, you probably already have everyth...

Zaak Kerstetter is an Ableton Certified Trainer, producer and performer. He makes music as Zenotope, combining elements of glitch, ambient, downtempo, and bass with doses of classical and sci-fi. Zaak has worked at many different music production schools and is currently working and teaching at KMGLife.  I met Zaak at Ableton Loop in November, and we hit it off immediately. We talked about making...

Sahil Lavingia is a designer, writer, painter, and creator of Gumroad. Gumroad is a platform designed for artists to sell and share their work; it's what I use to distribute all of my own products. While still a teenager, Sahil was the first designer for Pinterest. Sahil and I had an awesome conversation about art, music, and the creative process. We discussed simplicity and productivity. I was im...

Cuckoo is well-known for his playful personality, fun music, and deep music-gear tutorials with the little circular mirror. Music Radar just voted him the best music tech personality in the world. I first came across Cuckoo in 2011 when he started producing some of the best OP-1 tutorials, which showed me creative ways to use the OP-1. Since then, he has consistently stepped up his game, providing...

Margaret Harmer is a trained percussionist and electronic music producer. She runs a professional recording and production studio called Shifting Waves. Margaret just finished work on Voices From Eris , a collaborative album featuring female electronic artists from around the world. Voices From Eris brings together women of all different backgrounds, and is made up of all different styles of elect...

Huston Singletary is the lead sound designer for preset creation at Ableton. He heads a team of sound designers that create the "sound" of Live. Over the years, Huston has done sound design and preset creation for numerous instruments, including Omnisphere, Novation Peak, Prophet X, and so many more. He documents a lot of his work and experiments on his Instagram page. Today, Ableton has released...

Claire Marie Lim is a music technologist, interdisciplinary artist, and live performance designer. A recent graduate of Berklee College of Music, Claire is a multi-instrumentalist who produces music as dolltr!ck. Claire has played an important role in planning and developing Berklee's new Electronic Digital Instrument program, which welcomes modern technologies such as drum pads, MIDI controllers,...

Evan Chandler produces music as Slynk. He's known for his unique blend of funk and EDM, and has an amazing collection of YouTube tutorials that dive deep into music production. Evan's work has a unique character and originality that has brought him much success as an artist. Evan and I had a pretty wide ranging conversation. I was excited to learn how he makes his music move with so much groove; h...

Dan Giffin is a musician, producer, and engineer, who runs the site Live Producers Online, which is a social membership site for learning Ableton Live. Dan's podcast, Ableton Live Music Producers Podcast , centers around learning Ableton Live, and features many exciting guests who share their own personal stories and experience. Philia is the name of Dan's musical project, and he just released a n...

ince Cimo is the creator of DataLooper, a hardware guitar-pedal-style controller, that makes live looping with Ableton Live quick and easy. We were joined by Vir McCoy, who was jamming with Vince to discover ways he could incorporate DataLooper into his workflow. DataLooper was created to simplify live looping, and Vince is actively seeking suggestions from his user base to make DataLooper the ult...

Neil "Nail" Alexander is a multi-genre, multi-instrumentalist from the Hudson Valley in New York. Neil's work spans just about every genre from jazz and classical to modern EDM and ambient. He is an avid live performer who incorporates both acoustic and electronic elements into his performances, and combines jazz sensibilities to electronic composition. Neil runs the Hudson Valley Ableton Live use...

I went to Ableton Loop in Los Angeles and it was an incredibly valuable experience. There were excellent panels, discussions, meet ups, and performances. But aside from the scheduled events, some of the best moments were the moments between events. I had the chance to meet and talk to so many interesting people. I finally got to meet 3-D, real life versions of tons of people I've followed and inte...

Ableton's Loop is a summit for music makers. It's an incredible get together for people in the music production community to meet and share ideas. The schedule of events is amazing, and there are opportunities to talk, face to face, with so many brilliant people. I was hanging around the Maker Zone, when Angelica from Ableton asked if I'd like to do a short presentation. Since I have a thing or tw...

We carefully budget our money, so why aren't we as careful with our time? In this episode, we Reflect on and Apply words of wisdom from the very first guest on this podcast, Ben Burnes. Ben advocates budgeting your music production time carefully for maximum productivity. By carefully scheduling your time, you can get more important work done and avoid wasting time on insignificant tasks. You can...

Jakob Haq is a mobile musician from Sweden. He all of his music using either iOS or other portable devices, no computer! On his YouTube channel, haQ attaQ, Jakob shares his accumulated knowledge from over 25 years of music making. Jakob specializes in what he calls "Docu-torials" on new iOS apps and portable music making gear. After crossing paths for years, I finally got a chance to speak with Ja...

This episode is the beginning of a new type of episode on the Music Production Podcast, "Reflect and Apply." Each episode will reflect on a lesson we learned from a guest on the show, and discuss ways to apply that lesson to our work. Today's lesson is about the importance of involving the body in our music production work. DiViNCi spoke about this idea in episode #33, and today we look at ways to...

Diego Stocco is a sound designer, instrument builder, and explorer of sounds. Diego is a master at finding music in places ordinary people do not hear it. As an imaginative craftsman, Diego has created a collection of instruments made from natural and found objects, and instrument parts. He uses his otherworldly creations to score films and trailers, design sounds for Spectrasonics, and create his...

Johan Sundhage is a developer at Klevgrand. For the last few years, Klevgrand has been making a huge impression on producers with their plug-ins for DAWs and iOS. Klevgrand combines a somewhat outside-the-box approach to their devices, centered around design and usability. Many of their devices manage to take complex audio concepts and present them in beautifully intuitive interfaces. I had the ch...

Jesper Nordin is a leading Swedish composer who has garnered considerable international acclaim in recent years. Jesper Nordin has also had huge success with his iOS app Gestrument that is based on his own composition technique. I sat down with Jesper to talk about his new app Gestrument Pro, which sits somewhere between composition and instrument. It's a beautiful app that makes excellent use of...

Lynden Williams is a producer from Salt Lake City, Utah, who makes music as Divorce Court. Divorce Court is a chill wave, lo-fi project electronic project inspired by Lynden's memories of youth and old home movies. I appreciate the consistent theme of faded memories and emotions, which the lo-fi nature of the music and his live visuals of old home videos bring to life. Lynden and I spoke quite a l...