Music Production Podcast

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...

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 b...

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 h...

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 liv...

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 mus...

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...

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 k...

During the month of January 2018, I will be participating in #Jamuary2018, and I encourage you to do the same. The challenge is to create and share a piece of music every day. It doesn't matter how good or complete it is, the point is to create music each day during the month of January. Feel free to share ideas, grooves, jams, musical explorations, full songs... whatever you come up with for the...

Dustin Ragland is a musician, educator, and engineer. He teaches at the Academy of Contemporary Music at UCO in Oklahoma City. Dustin creates music under the name Young Weather and is an Ableton Certified Trainer. He owns and operates Mir Studio in Oklahoma City. In this episode of the Music Production Podcast, Dustin and I discuss a wide range of topics related to making music. Dustin shares his...

Josh Spoon is a musician, producer, and Ableton Certified Trainer living in Los Angeles. His music pulls inspiration from hip hop and alternative rock. Think Dr. Dre meets the Flaming Lips. Josh runs the site Producerskitchen.com, where he shares his deep knowledge of music production and live performance. In this episode, Josh and I talk about staying creative, losing yourself in the moment, and...

Sam Gribben is the founder and CEO of Melodics, as well as the former CEO of Serato. Melodics teaches people how to play MIDI pad controllers, electronic drum kits, and now keyboards. What makes Melodics unique is that it uses aspects of video gaming to teach the discipline of practice. Melodics makes practicing fun and productive in a few minutes a day. I've been using it for finger drumming for...

Kristoffer Lislegaard is an electronic musician, producer, and sound artist from Norway. He is one half of the duo, Sgrow. Sgrow combines influences from pop, ambient, and club music. They've just released their new album, Circumstance.  I wanted to speak with Kristoffer after hearing the new album because I was intrigued by the interesting palette of sounds made from a combination of real world i...

What is the most important lesson? If my students remember just one thing, what would it be?  Check out AfroDJMac.com/podcast for the full show notes, featuring some very useful videos and links.  Support this podcast on Patreon and by shopping the AfroDJMac Store !

Ableton has just announced Live 10, the latest development of the popular DAW. It's currently becoming available to beta testers now and will be released in early 2018. I've had access to Live 10 for the last few months and have quite a lot to say about it. In this episode, I discuss some of my favorite features and devices. There are some sound examples to help demonstrate my points, as well as s...

Francis Preve is a synthesist, journalist, and educator, amongst other things. He is one of the industry's most in-demand sound designers. In fact, it seems like every time I investigate the names behind some of my favorite synths, apps, and plug-ins, I find Francis Preve. His writing can be found in popular magazines such as Keyboard, Computer Music (UK), Future Music, EQ, and Music & Computers....

Francois Benner producers music as the artist Roisner. He recently released his latest album Rhombes Timber 25000 BC . For this project, Roisner sampled hundreds of instruments that date all the way back to prehistory. He then reached out to me to create Ableton Live Instruments so he could use them and his samples to create his newest album. In this episode, Roisner and I discuss the production o...

Chris "MAYDAY" Rucks doesn't want you to make the same mistakes he made. He wants to save you time and prepare you for the journey. Most producers make the same mistakes as producers before them. To help combat this, Chris Rucks has written Don't Make Beats Like Me - 24 Powerful Laws to Guide You Towards Success As a Music Producer . The book breaks down a host of challenges most producers will fa...

Cooper Anderson is a mixing engineer and producer with a pretty impressive resume. Undoubtedly, you've heard some of his work. Cooper's credits include work for artists like Fun, Kanye West, Ghost Killah, and John Legend. Cooper and I had a chance to speak about his work and experience. I found Cooper to have some nice insights into what it takes to find success in the music industry. Enjoy!  An a...

Mark Towers is a fellow Ableton Certified Trainer from the UK. He is the creator of the Arcade Series, a collection of retro video game inspired Max for Live sequencers. Mark teaches music technology at Leicester College.  I've been a huge fan of Mark's work for quite some time. Being a fan of old school video games, the Arcade Series is one of my favorite collections for Max for Live. In this epi...

DiViNCi is a producer, composer, and educator from Orlando, FL. He is known for his high energy, mind-blowing finger drumming skills, his group Solillaquists of Sound, and his work for Lauryn Hill. He travels the world performing and giving music production workshops.  I had a chance to attend one of DiViNCi's workshops at the Ableton User Group in Brooklyn at The Brooklyn Home of Music. Just as d...

I just released my newest EP, Country Punkin . It's a collection of 4 to-the-point no-nonsense rock songs, inspired lyrically by country music and musically by punk rock. There are no intros, outros, interludes, solos, or instrumentals. Every song begins right away with only the core meat-and-potatoes parts of the song. Recorded entirely on the Teenage Engineering OP-1's four track, using a Shure...

LoopLabs is a cloud based music studio that allows you to compose music using its huge selection of loops. Everything gets tempo and key matched, so it always sounds good. It's a great place for beginners or for experimenting with ideas.  Craig and I sat down for a nice conversation about his vision for Looplabs, the music industry, and the role future generations will play in music making.  Defin...

It is a wonderful day and age in which we can create, write, and record music all by ourselves. We have the technology to do every step of the process on our own. While this can afford us plenty of freedom and releases us from the struggle of coordinating schedules and ideals with others, if we never work with other people, we are really missing out.  Collaboration is one of the best ways to learn...

We all strive for the best gear, highest quality samples... but lets not forget that you can make beautiful music from unexpected places. This episode is all about challenging yourself to create music from sources you wouldn't normally think you could.  You have a homework assignment! Create some music from a source or sound that you wouldn't normally use. Maybe it's a terrible preset, an old toy,...

Erin Barra is a musician, songwriter, teacher, and performer specializing in the convergence of music and technology. She has created music curriculum for students of all ages, including Beatz for Girlz, which specializes in bringing music production to young women and Berklee College of Music. She's worked with Grammy-winning artists and is a powerful voice in the world of music technology and ed...