Music Production Podcast for DIY Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
If you're searching for answers on topics such as: what is mixing in music, how I can learn to mix music, how to start music production, how can I get better at music production, what is music production, or maybe how to get into the music industry or even just how to release music. Either way, you’re my kind of person and there's something in this podcast for you!
I'm Marc Matthews and I host the Inside The Mix Podcast. It's the ultimate serial podcast for music production and mixing enthusiasts. Say goodbye to generic interviews and tutorials, because I'm taking things to the next level. Join me as I feature listeners in round table music critiques and offer exclusive one-to-one coaching sessions to kickstart your music production and mixing journey. Get ready for cutting-edge music production tutorials and insightful interviews with Grammy Award-winning audio professionals like Dom Morley (Adele) and Mike Exeter (Black Sabbath). If you're passionate about music production and mixing like me, Inside The Mix is the podcast you can't afford to miss!
Start with this audience-favourite episode: #175: What's the Secret to Mixing Without Muddiness? Achieving Clarity and Dynamics in a Mix
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Music Production Podcast for DIY Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
#109: Track Swap Reaction: Music Production & Songwriting | THE PRODUCER'S PUB
Ever scratched your head trying to figure out how to write a catchy song? Constantly search for expert songwriting techniques? Need help finding inspiration for songwriting or how to start writing a song? Then check out EP 109 of the Inside The Mix podcast.
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Book a seat at the Producer's Pub: https://bit.ly/3rBcYv6
Unlock the door to musical mastery in this episode where we blend minds and melodies! Join me, along with a dynamic ensemble of skilled producers and musicians, as we dissect, deliberate, and exchange invaluable insights into music production and the artistry of songwriting.
In this episode, every participant brings to the table a 30-second snippet of their musical creations, setting the stage for a rich tapestry of feedback, reviews, and constructive critiques. It’s a unique opportunity to witness the fusion of diverse musical minds, all coming together to refine their art and elevate their craft.
Whether you’re a seasoned musician or just starting your musical journey, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge and inspiration! Dive deep into the nuances of composition, explore the intricacies of sound design, and glean innovative songwriting techniques that can transform your musical narratives.
Why Listen?
- Refine Your Craft: Elevate your music with diverse perspectives and expert insights.
- Expand Your Knowledge: Discover new techniques and approaches to music production and songwriting.
- Boost Your Creativity: Spark your imagination by exploring the creative processes of fellow musicians.
Don’t miss the chance to enrich your musical palette and ignite your creative spirit! Plug in your headphones and immerse yourself in a journey of sonic exploration and collaborative learning.
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Click here to follow DreamCommander: https://dreamcommander.bandcamp.com/
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Okay, folks, welcome back to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener or viewer on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so you get notified whenever there's a new episode or we are live, as we are right now on YouTube. And also if you're a returning listener, a big welcome back, as always. So today, this episode, rather, is an episode of the producers pub, so we have returned after a summer break. If you're unfamiliar with this format, basically I have some guests artists, producers with me today and we are going to play a 30 second snippet of a piece of work of theirs and then just talk about it afterwards Before we dive into that.
Speaker 1:If you would like to join me and my fellow guests if they return, which I hope they will on an episode of the producers pub, you can click on the link in the episode description and sign up. Alternatively, you can head over to insidethemixpodcastpodiacom or insidethemixpodcast and you can get signed up there. So, without further ado, I'm just going to check YouTube and there's no one there at the moment. That's usually how it starts, but hopefully it will increase. We are going to start with our first song and we actually have a joining us from two separate locations, but we have both members of Beat Bakery and that is our first song for today, so take it away, mike. Well, what can we expect?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Classic Mike from Beat Bakery with my co-producer and co-founder, hypnotist. Thanks for having us on the show. So today we have sent you our track boxes featuring Michelle, suzanne, and. It's your typical house piano, house club banger to get everybody up on the dance floor and get everybody raving.
Speaker 3:And the song itself is about when someone meets. When you meet someone who ticks all of the boxes that you are seeking in a relationship.
Speaker 1:Very cool, very cool guys. I love the description of a club banger. That's always good. Now, just for the audience listening. I don't listen to these songs. Well, I listened just to the beginning, just so I know there's actually audio there. So this is always new to me as well. So I haven't heard these either. So here, make sure I play the right one as well. That would help.
Speaker 4:Here we go ś Open my eyes and check my phone ś ś I can't wait to see your message ś ś Every reply just goes to show ś ś.
Speaker 5:You're not trying to keep me guessing. Ś ś. I fell so jaded by the games ś ś People play. Ś ś, oh, oh, oh, ś ś. You came along to make me feel ś. Some time away, you're taking all my boxes.
Speaker 1:Taking all my boxes. Where have you been hiding all my life? I'm thinking that I got this. Didn't see this plot twist. You met me on my level. Now I can't get you off my mind. Get you off my mind, my mind Now. In the I I. It was a bit longer there, folks, than 30 seconds, because I wanted it to get to the chorus. I didn't want to stop it abruptly because obviously it's that's what we want to hear. I could definitely hear the house vibes going on in there. You've got that classic house bass going on, with that sort of bass sound which you'd find on like a Korg M1, and also with the piano as well. You've got those stab, stab chords going on there. Really, really cool. How did you find your vocalist, by the way? Is that someone that you knew Very good vocalist? Is that someone that you sort of? Is that a top liner that you commissioned, maybe on something like Vocalizer or something?
Speaker 3:No, we're actually good friends with Michelle. We met her through a networking event in 2020 and we talked a lot about collaborating and then, finally, two years later, after the madness in the world had finished, we decided to actually create something, and this was the first one we finished.
Speaker 1:Amazing and just out of interest, those I mentioned, the bass sound and the piano. What VSTs are you using for those, or is it the same one? I mentioned the Korg M1. That's the one I use for that sort of sound.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we actually use the Korg M1 for the pianos and I have a few pads from that Korg M1 as well and then I use Serum, or we use Serum, sorry for the bass sound Very cool, just so that we could give it a little bit more automation and modulation movement than the M1 allows.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, whilst I've got both of you here because you're joining me from different locations. How, just really sort of briefly, how do you go about the creative process of songwriting? Does one of you take the lead and then send it to the other one, or is it a case of like use of back and forth ideas?
Speaker 2:So usually I'll start out with a rough basic idea. So normally I'll come up with maybe a chord progression or I'll come up with the concept for the song idea, potentially, and I'll then pass it over to Hypnotist to just to work on it a little bit more and we'll bounce ideas back and forth until we get it right. I mean, we often go, we often sit down and work over FaceTime or we'll meet up at our studio down in South London and just go from there. But we always combine and bounce off each ideas off each other and we tend to think along the same composition style. We both have similar influences and we both play all our instruments as well. So, hypnotist of Ray Tarranty, pianist, I play drums and guitar and I love drumming house tracks just because it's so fun.
Speaker 1:Amazing. You're quite blessed, then. Really, you've got sort of like this melting pot of different musicians, which is always nice to have, and being close to each other is quite helpful as well in the big smoke of South London and being there in a while. To be fair, I will sort of spread it around. Eric Dream Commander, what are your thoughts? Do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 4:Yeah, first of all, let me get my mic up here. I just wanted to say that if you're going for like a high energy kind of feel, you've definitely nailed it on this one, and I'm not really that much of an expert on the genre of house music, but it sounds like it's. It sounds like you guys know what you're doing and it's pretty solid, I'd say, for the production side. As far as like a creative kind of input. I don't know if you want it or need it, but it might sound cool if you added a little, maybe more pad in the chorus section to kind of like open up the vibe, or maybe you could do that in like a future chorus to kind of build on top of what you already have. But yeah, other than that, I'd say you guys are really doing well with that track in particular. And what part of the UK are you from? We're both in London.
Speaker 3:Oh, nice, awesome. I'm actually Irish, but I live in London.
Speaker 4:Right on, man, right on. Yeah, it sounds really cool, thank you.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thank you, eric. Yes, london is about two, two and a half three hours, I think, from where I am. Well, I would you a visit. Yeah, yeah, as always, I'll probably be dragged there at Christmas. To be honest, christmas shopping, that's generally what happens. I was there recently, actually for a podcast festival. It was quite interesting. Actually, I tell a lie, I might be there in London. I think I was planning on going there next month to the Dusk Wave Synth Fest in London.
Speaker 3:Oh, that sounds interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to slap myself on the wrist now because I cannot remember the day. I think it's the 14th. I'll put it in the chat, actually after the episode. But if you guys are available strongly and if you've got any up as well, thomas, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 5:Yo hi, yeah, I think Sonnet is very well produced and it's really some Kegas style, is the forward sounding folded baseline. You know the synth and I think this can be a good club song for playing in club music. I think those songs are written for club music, like playing in the club, for dance floors, and I work as DJ too, so sometimes I play such music, although it's not my personal sound or like listening to in my private scene. But I think this production could work on the dance floor, definitely For my years. For us we're well produced, very clean, and this is a mastern that's drawn, definitely. So I think it was quite good. I wanted to pass to this folded synth sound he used at the end of this snippet came in, like when the main bass like how do you do that? Because I tried to get those sounds in my track sometimes too. But yeah, which which plug in you use for that?
Speaker 3:do you mean the main bass sound?
Speaker 5:it's not, not the kick drum that the synth yeah, maybe we can hear you in the last 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:Again, I can show you whether it's possible, join me to play the last 10 seconds again. I can quickly do it. So we get a bit of context. Here we go first.
Speaker 3:I'll play the last, thank you yeah, yeah, of course I'll play.
Speaker 5:I'll play it from about 40 seconds okay, yeah, I mean, I mean the bass synth sound, not the kick drum okay the years in the upper frequencies, just those forward light distorted, we say in Germany we say we say Knot to that and I know that what the English translation is for that?
Speaker 3:yeah, we're actually using so that's the serum synth and then I have a chorus on it and I'm distorting the chorus, which is probably what you're picking up on. You use a chorus effect. Yeah, I'm using a chorus on a it's kind of like a classic house bass, as Mark pointed out earlier, with a bit of FM oscillation, and then I'm using a distorted chorus, layering it on top of the bass to make it super wide, because we really love Joel Corey and he has that kind of sound okay, that's interesting cool excellent, I will try it next time.
Speaker 3:I highly recommend it yes, a new technique.
Speaker 5:Never heard about it great, fantastic.
Speaker 1:That's the. That's the benefit of this particular format, of this particular show is that you can like magpie, if I do it all the time. This is the benefit of me hosting this every sort of month is I can still idea some other people and it's great, you know, and it's a really, really good because you're always learning with music production, which is the great thing about it, but be bakery fantastic. So we'll now move on to our next singer. I'm just gonna say singer, then I think this week I, if you could just mute your microphone's voice, I can hear someone sort of furiously typing. It's okay, so we'll move on to the next one, which is dream commander Eric. What have we got coming up?
Speaker 4:yes, hey, how's it going? Well? This song, it's called actual malice and it's part of a EP. I've been working on that. I hope to finish soon in the near future.
Speaker 4:So my, my brand of music is kind of more instrumental, focused, more kind of mood driven and almost kind of soundtrack. He and this song in particular, I think I was kind of inspired by like Harold Falter, meyer and the kind of 80s stuff like Fletch. That soundtrack Axel F is kind of like the one that everyone knows, but I'm kind of a big fan of like the Fletch theme, so that kind of that, and kind of like a mystery detective kind of vibe influence this track. But then I kind of have my. It kind of goes into another section. That's kind of a little more of my standard sound. But yeah, I don't know, it was pretty fun to make and it was like kind of focused heavy on drum programming, which is not really a lot of my tracks don't really focus that heavily on drum stuff, but I am a drummer so I should probably maybe go that direction. Anyways, I'll let you guys check it out fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thank you, eric, and you're in good company. There's been a number of producers on here who echoed the Harold Falter Meyer, notably Russell Nash, who I know is a massive fan, has a lot of them are anyway, so let's give it a go. I can immediately hear the the Harold Falter Meyer in that in the beginning. You know, I listened to it and I can. I could picture it being played in one of the in, like I filmed, akin to Beverly Hills Cop, which is obviously Harold Falter Meyer, but you can definitely hear that and you've got this quite interesting sort of almost jazz, this jazz-esque sort of composition going on there. It's quite quite yeah, an interesting sort of choice of sounds and how they're into playing. It's really, really cool. What? How are you going to take that forward? Is that something that? Is that how this whole song is going to progress, or is it going to be a bit more uniform?
Speaker 4:yes, so that's a that's a good question. So I actually did have the finished track kind of completed and it kind of goes in a lot of different directions. To be honest, it kind of bounces around and kind of ends off in a weird place. But I think, yeah, there's definitely like a jazz influence in that the form is kind of open and not necessarily too too strict to any kind of formula, just kind of feeling based on what this part sounds like. Maybe try to build off of that to another vibe. But I don't know, I kind of mess around with different approaches for each song. So, but thanks for your feedback.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's the best way to do it, and it's kind of like, the more I get it playing around in my head, I can picture it. You know those movie scenes where there's like the the cop who is like doing a stakeout or like breaking in somewhere. You've got that quite weird sort of not jazz again, but jazz, that sort of sound and like composition going on. It's quite like an unnerving sort of sound. I think it sounds really cool and it's different to what I've heard from your other stuff, which is which is great as well thanks, yeah, I'm always trying to kind of stretch out and do different things.
Speaker 4:But yeah, like heart, like harkening, what to what you're saying about the jazz, whatever you call it influence, I think there was like a fusion movement in the 80s that was kind of, you know, influencing a lot of the score composers and they were trying to kind of push the boundaries of like melody and all that you know with their own stuff. I think that kind of started in the 70s and kind of pushed into the 80s with, like I don't know, jazz fusion.
Speaker 1:That's just my opinion yeah, I roll with it, man. I think it sounds great and, like, like I said, I think stretching yourself and what you're able to do is a great thing when it comes to songwriting and sort of like pushing the boundaries and even though they're the expression of like doing something that makes you not necessarily feel uncomfortable but it takes you out your comfort zone, I think, in terms of composition, since it's only gonna be good, you know, but I love it. I think it sounds great. It's a really, really fun piece of music, but I'll pass it around, so let's go to Brody hypnotist. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:Hey, I thought that was really cool as well. I thought instantly the vibe was there and I also thought it was quite fusion-y, because I like a lot of fusion music. I think you've done a great job of production. The first thing I thought was that the sounds are massive. I love your bass drum. Is that from a kick or is it from drum machine? Sorry?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a good question. Like, I think that's a mix of two drum samples. One is like an 808 kick and then I just kind of have like a release that I tied to it to make it I don't know, I have a lot of problem with the 808 release for some reason being consistent. So I kind of like mix the two together so it would be like very, you know, reliable sounding and then the kick in the second section is just like another sample. That's kind of different. But thanks, yeah, for asking and thanks for your feedback.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought it was really nice, very, very lush sounding.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, we'll go to the next beat, bakery Mike. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Hey guys, I'm a massive 80s fan and I definitely love the vibe on that, definitely, like you're saying, sound like a bit of a cop show. So I'm a very Beverly Hills kind of cop kind of vibe and I love, just love the soundscape on it. It's just, it's just so massively wide and I really like that. I love the bass sound when it first came in Awesome. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4:I actually like took one sound and kind of made an octave up from that, so they're just kind of in unison on an octave away from each other to get that sound. It's like a fake chorus effect maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good thing to do. With basses, I think I've said on the podcast before with bass sounds in particular, and I think I did a tutorial episode where I had like an actual bass guitar bass guitar is playing bass and then I had another synth laid on top of that which was providing a different texture, sonic texture, so they weren't like competing in the frequency realm, but it's a great thing to do. And layering, since I used to do, I went, I deviate, I said deviated. I went down the path of too much layering at one point and I had to rain it in. But that was you always got to be careful about that, I find, thomas, what are your thoughts? Laser cop.
Speaker 5:As Mike just said, it's this Beverly Hills sound. But the little cop saw laser cop and Beverly Hills the same thing. I directly started having this 80s movie sound feeling on in my head and the first thing I was like I was a little bit so okay, what is this right now? Because I didn't get the beat at the beginning. But when the beats got open up a little bit, they were starting with the chords in the back side. Yeah, that's cool. Right now. That part is cool. This is the one I like.
Speaker 5:I personally do not like the slushy snare sounds. In my person view, I generally don't like those kind of snare sounds, even pop music or other music styles. I never use such these sounds. But this is the choice of the producer. It's your personal favorite to say you want to do this. It's okay for me. But it was interesting. It's a specific kind of music. I've never heard this before in that kind of somebody doing it today. So I will definitely have a listen when it's come out hopefully soon, and we'll check the whole why. Because it sounded good, but it was interesting. Also, I had this a little bit of a crock-rock music at the beginning, with those not fitting like just four on the floor beat or something, and so, as a musician, I need to listen to it sometimes again and again to check those points. That's making it interesting, because if you understand the music in a billion seconds and say, okay, I got everything from that song, this is the song, it's like, yeah, it's too easy, then yeah, no, I agree 100%.
Speaker 4:What was the adjective you used to describe the snare? Again, it was slushy or something.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I just said that it's like this sound you use. It's not my personal point. I don't like these snare sounds in general, so but if this is your choice, it's your choice and it's okay for you, because you have to produce of that track.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I appreciate that, but I'm just curious how would you improve it if you were in my shoes?
Speaker 5:What snare I would use. Yeah, I would try to use classic rock snare, like in the 70s it's been used could fit the sound. Also, modern rock snare would be too. Yeah, it's not. This would be destroying the sound wipe you want to get. So just try. Yeah, like 70s rock snares, like Led Zeppelin, john Bonham style or something like this.
Speaker 4:Very cool.
Speaker 5:Maybe that could fit also.
Speaker 4:Very cool. Maybe I'll give that a try, because I didn't think of that.
Speaker 1:John Bonham's sounding snare would sound really cool, man. He got that sort of like big, big room. I'm trying to remember how they recorded their snare. I'm fairly certain they actually had just a huge room. It might have been Led Zeppelin, it might have been another band along those lines. That I can't remember now.
Speaker 3:I think you're right, Mark.
Speaker 5:I'm absolutely not a Led Zeppelin fan, but I like the drum. I think you're also a monster, definitely, so I've seen videos of that guy. That's cool. So use any kind of analog recorded snare sounds from the earlier times, just a classic halts, not too very too much compressed or something just rough like the guys did in the old times.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there is like a couple different sounds, snare sounds from that era, so there is like a more muted, dead, dry sound. And then the Bonham drum sound is a little more open and kind of reverby. But yeah, I'll give that a try. John Bonham is like one of my personal favorite drummers, so excellent, very good, very good.
Speaker 1:I'm fairly certain I'm thinking about it now that they had the drums and then they maybe mic'd it. At the end of a corridor or it might have been a big stairwell and they had a mic, they were doing all sorts of really crazy stuff on the kit. That was the great thing about. Well, you can still do it now, but, like a lot of the recording techniques and I went to Hansa Studios in Germany and they went through how they would just play out the sound into the room, then record it, just the room itself, with the music being piped out into the room to capture the room's ambience. It'd be great. I mean, it's all well and good if you have that access to those big studios. But the thing is now, like Thomas says, you can just find a nice analog recorded snare with that nice open sound, which will be really, really nice. Excellent stuff, folks. So now we move on to the final one, thomas Laser Cop. What bit of a description about your song that we've got coming up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's the latest song I'm working on. Last year I released my full length record and then I just concentrated more to DJing around a little bit in synthwave music. So now I just started like, okay, we need to do a new song and just play that little single and this is the right now the production stage. So just a little bit mixing so that sounds okay. There's not final mix, there's no mastering on it completely. So this is pretty rough.
Speaker 5:And the song is called Invaders and this show show some this typical 80s movie, alien invasion, threatening things. You know from action movies from that time and I've seen this. There was a movie from 1990 with Stolf Langgren and the main role, with this becoming piece I can't get the title at this moment right now and I think Angel Cop. I think Angel Cop was a typical massive bullshit action movie exploding cars, alien invaders shooting people with city guns and it's like it was a pretty weird thing. But I really loved this trash kind of movie and this one inspired me to say, hey, that style loves it and let's do a song pretty much forward. So, yeah, so that's synthwave music I'm totally into. And laser crop is like my personal synthwave music project. I'm used to playing death metal bands normally, but the thing is you can do this on your own, so I do. Synthwave music, yeah, excellent.
Speaker 1:Death metal all the way. Thomas, I did the same. I was playing in a death metal band, as the audience well knows, and I made the move over to electronic and synth based music purely so I could do it on my own. So keep some years open.
Speaker 5:We released our record in, I think, january with a new band, nice. Classic old school death metal from Sweden style.
Speaker 1:Oh, are we talking Melo death? Are we talking like car?
Speaker 5:It's like old school and two ancient tube Boss metal music like. I will show you some for later. I got the masters from the studio there. I can say yes, please do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll be very interested by that Nice bit of entombed. I haven't listened to entombed for ages. Anyway, I digress. Thank you, thomas, just play this right. So this is invaders. Very cool, I like the little sound bite you've got going on in there. That's really nice. What are you using for your sort of base up? What patch or VST synth are you using?
Speaker 5:I mostly use SynthMaster 1, RST plug-in. It's from the Turkish producer KVT production. I think I really love that thing. Although they got the SynthMaster 2 out, I prefer the first one, and also I use Omnisphere, Like the most of you guys hopefully do. And yeah, I like working most with the SynthMaster 1 all around SynthKid. That's a pretty good synthesizer with cool presets. You don't have to search very long for an inspiration and then just easy some clicks and you can change and adapt like you want. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:So, with regards to the composition itself because it's very sort of that fast-paced up tempo sort of song as it is how is the whole composition going to play out? Is it going to drop in tempo? Are instruments going to drop out, or is it going to be continuous? Is it going to be at that fast pace?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it stays on that tempo. I do not do any breakdowns in tempo. I shoot some breaks. Later there will be an instrumental solo coming in. So my ongoing workflow is to adapt rock songs arrangements. So I describe this music sometimes I made like their rock songs don't play with guitars, so that's another way I have. Typically I have in verses, I have in refer, I have another second verse, second verse on the C part, outro on the front. So I use always those structures. So the song will be around four minutes and that would be good for me because usually when I will come to an end, like wow, then they can put in this part in this part. That would be cool. Like the end of the part is six minutes, like oh no, it's too long, it's long, you know.
Speaker 2:And so for me.
Speaker 5:My focus for the next composition will be to not stay longer than four minutes on the tracks. And yeah, that's the point Very good.
Speaker 1:I like what you said about their sort of like breaking down rock tracks and sort of like recreating them, which I really, really like. I could definitely hear, like you could. I don't know if there's space for it, potentially, but like actual guitars, like distorted guitars on it, but that's. Yeah, I don't know. I think you may need to make space, but it's hard to say without hearing the whole track. I'll pass it around the room, Eric. What are your thoughts? Dream commander.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So first of all, I really like the track. It sounds really cool. I can kind of hear the dark influence, the metal a little bit in the bass, kind of that, like pulsating, almost double kick kind of feeling, like kind of fun, kind of vibe. And I kind of agree with what you're saying too about trying to give yourself a little bit of a boundary on the length of composition, because I kind of struggle with that as well. So yeah, I just think that's a really positive way to look at it.
Speaker 4:As far as like the track itself goes, like I could kind of see it going into so many different directions, like I can hear like drum breaks, like one or two bar drum breaks, where it just kind of deviates from the main groove, and there's just like a little kind of do-da-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, you know, like kind of a almost like a mini drum solo. I can also hear like more like a string pad maybe like a high string pad, kind of permeating above everything, just kind of coming in at some point to provide sort of like a more of a texture in the higher end. I'm not sure if you do vocals much, but I mean that could go either way probably in my opinion, but I think you have a really solid like foundation for whatever the track is going to be. Obviously you probably know, but we can only hear a few seconds, so yeah, thank you for your comments.
Speaker 5:Yeah, first of all, another vocalist and so absolutely have no skills in singing and I would always be. I always need a singer or a singer for that. And this time I just said, no, I don't want to plan vocals in it, I just kind of some film samples that you couldn't hear at this point. I will show up in the beginning. I got some samples like from Terminator movies or something. At the end I will have some more movie samples to do to give the song the face. You know whether like connected to the title and radar. So this is all kind of from movies with alien radars inside or some 14 things you know. And so with the strings you said, yeah, this is the beginning of the song, this is quite from the first minute of the track, so it's the opening part of the track. You heard and you said strings. I always use chorus, like you maybe heard at the end of the snippet. You have that core flow because I love that. But yes, as I said, it's production stage.
Speaker 5:The song is not final written yet, so I have all chances to change different things and turn around. And, yeah, usually I use all some synth pads, strings for like outro parts. More, at the beginning I mostly start rough, like straight going forward, and then I just took hey, now we got some melodies, we got like opening up and get slowed down for a moment. So, with the boundaries about the songs arrangement, yeah, this is not 100%, must I've said it's like just a plan and that's all a little bit of my style.
Speaker 5:I just used to do that in that way. And so because I'm a great friend of pop music structures, because easy, it's ongoing and I know that's part of my DJing, so it's one of my main jobs and I do DJs in Clubsie and Frankfurt and I'm used to that. The people are suited to those kinds of arrangements. Everything else is some interesting, so you know. So I just took over as, like, even in metal music we have some pop structures in the tracks. So most of them I said, yeah, it's cool, I like that, you know. So why do changing Music?
Speaker 1:No, it's brilliant, Thomas, I'm with you on that. I tell you, when it comes to songwriting and arrangement, I'm very influenced by pop arrangement, now more so when I was in the metal band man, we used to do crazy arrangements. I remember we had one song and then we didn't repeat a riff throughout. It was. It wasn't quite prog, but it was good fun. Playing it live, on the other hand, was a challenge remembering all the riffs. But hey, hey, but no, I'm with you there with the, with the structure as well, and I think with pop structures as well. You inherently are. The songs are inherently shorter. Pop songs generally are the ones that specifically played on the radio, being sort of anywhere between sort of two and a half to three and a half minutes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, at the end it's not my intention that that song shall be played on the radio, Like I absolutely do not expect any commercial success with that kind of music. So just because this is a very niche music. And the other thing is the most people I've met from the scene are ex band members of metal bands, that's quite yeah. Yeah, that's quite funny. And there was one. One point I've seen is in this very huge Sundway Facebook group. There was a guy, one guy, complaining like yeah, I've put so much effort in my new record I posted the link here on. Nobody's seen it or comment that that's bullshit, shitty guys or all that stuff. I said, yeah, the point is everybody I just wrote in as a comment on the point is yeah, as you can remember, everybody here is an ex metal band member because his band split up because nobody listened to their music at in earlier times. So exactly those guys are waiting here for your new record not to be heard. It's the same shit, you know. That's why I do it for my own pretty much.
Speaker 5:I think usually the most musicians say, ah, if you listen to your own music, this is a little bit like it's not not well seen. I like my music because that's the way I want to listen to music. So I listen to produce music I don't like. You know. You know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I think that's the song I like, so let me do this. I can't do tracks I don't like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's. I had this conversation with Pasha on the on the producers podcast a few months ago and he said the same. He's like I think you do. I think more specifically, when you are writing music as an individual or even as a duo, you I listen to my own stuff. Admittedly, there are times when I stop because I've probably over listened to it, but I think I create it because I like it, so I create stuff I want to listen to. It makes perfect sense.
Speaker 5:I have absolutely props to commercial music producers who do commercial music because they know they're going to be a commercial banger, although they don't like that kind of music, you know. So they can break down their own. Yeah, I hear a sense of music like so Can you imagine that doing like so we got here in Germany. We got the Schlager pop, called like folks music or something. It's totally huge. Playing shows in front of 80,000 people like this is like small cheesy electronic shit music with bullshit lyrics. I hate it as hell, you know.
Speaker 5:So they got producers in the background. They've been paid for the songs you know and those guys are metalheads. They sit there like they are in the position to produce music for this girl like Helena Fisher and maybe you heard about her and I can't do that. I never can do that. I have an idea I commercial very successful Schlager song. I said, dude, I can't program that. Yeah, it's not. Probably like. This is like sit at home and do this like no chance. It's not because it is heavy to produce or difficult or you need some. It's your mind, you're just selling it. I can't release that. It's not possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's artist integrity as well, I think, comes into play there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, integrity, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:In the interest of time, I'm just going to pass it around the room here. So, mike B bakery, what are your thoughts on laser cup invaders?
Speaker 2:I really liked the separation of sounds you had there. I definitely could see it going like a Genesis type way, like that confusion era, that kind of drum sound. I really like it and that. But now I totally get what you're saying. If you're not like happy to produce in that style, then they don't. I mean, I played a metal bands for the best part of 10 years growing up, switch to hip hop, then transition to dance music and house and EDM and that. But yeah, but I just feel that all of that gave me the skill to produce the dance music and that it all into Twins at the end of the day, because you know, you've got the heavy hitting kicks from metal music that come into it, You've got the heavy bass sound that comes from hip hop and it all into Twins. But I really like, I really like what you've done with the track. I like to see where it goes and where it ends up. So you've got really, really great 80 sounding stuff there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of like the sum of your parts on you. It's great that you, like you mentioned there about hip hop, you got you've got metal and you've got these different genres and you've got the EDM sort of influence coming in. You can sort of take bits from each different genre and then create your own identity, your own sound. Yeah, I think that's the best thing to do. But going back to what Thomas said earlier about sort of like almost ghost producers writing songs who are metalheads for pop music it's, I could see why they would do it. I mean, it's a lucrative business, but I guess it depends on sort of what your yeah. Yeah, exactly, it depends on what you want to get out of the industry, isn't it? I mean, if someone wanted to buy a song off me for an X amount of money, yeah, I don't know, it's an interesting one, isn't it?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I accept that, that people are doing that because I run a club in the Indian frag for the small one which do pop music, parties like 90s party to current chart parties, hip or parties, you know, and everybody working in the club is a metalhead. That's so funny. So we're under the money with that because the people come inside, drink beer, pay an entrance, and so I started doing DJ for that. Because, yeah, why shall I pay someone 500 years for having playing the songs I know from Viva television, music from earlier times also, and so the skills to switch the tracks or just made up this was very easy in my opinion. And so, yeah, it's a dream to work for that. You earn money with the music you really love, you know. So I earn money with music. That's a dream I always had, but it's not the music I love. But I can't do the music I love with the money I've earned with the music. I'm not laughing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, nearly the same. Yeah, you're still in the music industry, aren't you? That's the key Hypnosis. So find a bit of sort of feedback. Brody, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:I thought that sounded really nice straight away. Good vibe again. I also particularly noted the separation between the kick and the bass. I presume you're side chaining somehow with that and I kind of thought it sounded a bit like not exactly like but you draw an influence from Depeche Mode, who I really love, and it sounded really kind of like upbeat and like it was about to launch into a Depeche Mode song.
Speaker 5:Okay, good, yes, I used some plug-in called wait a second Time Space Time Space.
Speaker 3:Oh, Track Spacer.
Speaker 5:Track Spacer. Yeah, thanks Track Spacer. Yeah, this is a very great plug-in to do side compression, side chaining. I love that tool so easy as I saw the commercial about that. It's one of the guys who produced that. He just said that, hey, I bought it for 49 Euros. He said this is the best 49 Euros I ever can invest in music production. I said, definitely. So just put in on the track, just for the instrument, just put it in like this point. You put it so much side chaining on like one loop, putting like okay, it's cool, sounds great, it's amazing. I really loved it. You can use a multi-bank compression for separating whole frequency phrases. That's okay, but for every single track layer in my productions I always use the Track Spacer. That's the most important, not sounding VST plug-in. I got this.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Thank you, Thomas. Track Spacer I've heard that mentioned a few times. I know there's a number of producers I'm aware of that are using it. I haven't used it myself, but I'm well aware that it's used in a lot of productions. Gents, it's been a pleasure, but we're coming to the end now, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you the opportunity to go around and describe where our audience could find you online and if you've got any key dates of anything coming up. So, if we start with Beat Bakery, where can our audience find you online and have you got any key dates or releases?
Speaker 2:coming up so we can find us across all the socials at Beat Bakery UK. And important dates we've got coming up the 6th of October our brand new single, One More Time, featuring George Bone on V Records, is being released, and we're also playing a gig in Box Park on the 6th as a little launch like little launch for the single when it comes out as well.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, excellent stuff, and we'll go with Dream Commander. Eric, where can we find you online? Have you got any releases imminent?
Speaker 4:But yeah, you can check out all my old releases over on the usual platforms. And I have a cool, important date coming up live performance October 7th in Portland at no Fun it's if we have any listeners in that area of the world and I'll be playing October 13th in Seattle with this guy, tommy Capello, who was in the Lost Boys this movie, so he's like a saxophone guy and yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me Fantastic Eric Hold on a minute. Is that Tim Capello or Tom Capello?
Speaker 4:Sorry, yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, Tim Capello.
Speaker 1:You're playing a gig with Tim Capello of Lost Boys fame.
Speaker 4:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Amazing Fair play. I'm a fan of Gunship and he's done a few tracks with Gunship, notably one of their recent releases. That's going to be amazing. Make sure you get some video footage of that and get yourself a picture with them as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:I'll invite him out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have a chat with him. Get him to feature on one of your songs as well while you're there. That'd be a good little win if you can get it Sounds good, amazing. If I were in Portland Oregon, I'd tell you we'd go to that. It's a bit of a track for me in such a short space of time. That's brilliant. Finally, laser cop Thomas, where can we find you online and what? Have you got? Any key dates?
Speaker 5:First of all, thanks for having me on that nice round here. You can find me on Spotify, on Bandcamp, just typical things. I would much more prefer if you found me on YouTube because from my first record, my first RCTP we were made at, handcrafted an anime movie. My good friend David made it by hand like five minutes with laser cop doing an old fashioned action movie. This was a shit load of work and this shall be a little bit more seen as well. I got there one hour DJ set, filmed with some more cameras and nice cutting and producing where you can meet suit with music. I will play as a DJ on the party if it's possible, and as well we got some more tracks on there. It would be cool if you just go around on the YouTube channel of laser crop.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, excellent stuff. Gents, I will put all of that information in the episode description as well, so our audience can go away and listen to that off the back of listening to this episode and before we go. If you would like to join myself and my friends here, who hopefully will come back at some point on an episode of the producers pub here, the inside the mix podcast, please do head over to inside the mix podcast, dot podia dot com or inside the mix podcast. Alternatively, nice and easy, click on the link in the episode description and get signed up and join us discussing your music, play some of your music you've got coming out and also get to chat and meet other producers. Gents, folks, it's been an absolute pleasure. It is a Sunday evening, so I'm going to sign off and I will speak to you all again very soon.
