#167: AI Meets Music: Revolutionising Production and Empowering Artists with David Lucius King

Curious about how AI is reshaping the music industry? From enhancing creativity to streamlining production, artificial intelligence is sparking a new era in music. In Episode 167 of the Inside The Mix podcast, I sit down with platinum-selling producer David Lucius King to uncover how AI in the music industry is transforming the way artists create, produce, and perfect their tracks. If you've been asking questions like how is AI used in music? or which music artists use AI? —this episode is for you.

David shares his firsthand experiences with AI-powered tools, explaining how these innovations give artists unprecedented control while keeping the human touch that makes music memorable. Whether using AI to manage preliminary mixes or enhance creativity, David provides invaluable insights into combining innovation with tradition in the studio.

Imagine having a demo ready for A&R that’s both polished and professional—all without sacrificing creative energy. We dive into the benefits of pseudo-mixing and why outsourcing a preliminary mix to expert engineers can streamline the entire production process, especially for trap, hip-hop, and electronic genres. With AI tools on the rise, balancing efficiency and authenticity in music production has never been more possible.

Finally, we tackle the broader implications of AI, discussing its potential impact on jobs, workflows, and the timeless appeal of music. While AI might refine production, David and I agree—the heart of iconic music will always be human. Plus, tune in to hear our thoughts on how AI is opening new doors in podcasting, letting creators push boundaries in ways never before imagined.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• AI in Music Production: How AI tools like loop creators and audio processors are changing the creative landscape.
• Pseudo Mixing Explained: Benefits of outsourcing preliminary mixes for high-quality demos and reduced revision times.
• Balancing Speed and Quality: How to refine elements like low-end and vocals for commission-worthy tracks.
• The Future of AI in Music: Will AI ever match the timelessness of classics? Exploring what AI means for artists and listeners alike.
• AI’s Broader Impact: From potential job threats to creative freedom, examining AI’s role beyond the studio.

This episode will leave you excited for the future while grounded in the belief that music’s heart will always be human.

Click here to follow David Lucius King: https://www.instagram.com/davidluciusking/

Click here to listen to The Script 'Run Through Walls'

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Chapters

• 0:00 Music Production and AI
• 5:23 Efficiency in Pseudo Mixing for Artists
• 13:12 The Future of AI in Music
• 25:33 AI Impact on Music Production
• 30:41 Empowering Artists Through AI
• 40:07 Defining Success in Music Production
• 49:00 Future of AI in Podcasting

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:22

Excellent review. That's the first one I've seen where it actually makes a lot of sense with gain reduction to me.

David Lucius King: 0:29

Appreciate that, thanks with your rough ideas. Before you come into the studio with a producer, you know, for example, you could, you know you could get a beat made by AI, you could rap on it, you could get all that stuff going and then take that into the studio and be like you know what. I'm not sure about this, but here's a direction for us to go into which is, you know, super useful and and now you know, I just, yeah, I feel like the creative has just so much more power and so much more say, you know, with, with, with, uh, leveraging ai than than we ever did before. You're listening to the inside the mix podcast with your host, mark matthews hello and welcome to the inside the next podcast.

Marc Matthews: 1:17

I'm mark matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learnt with you. Hello, folks, and welcome back, or welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by platinum selling award-winning music producer and songwriter, david Lucius King. David's work has shaped countless tracks and he's here to share some invaluable insights on music production, ai and the future of music making. David, how are you today?

David Lucius King: 2:05

Thank you for joining me. I'm doing very good, Mark. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be on the show here with you today.

Marc Matthews: 2:11

Fantastic stuff, Audience listening. We were just having a discussion off air about David's chain that he's using for the podcast today and he's using an 1176 going into an LA-2A, which is very apt, because I dropped an episode on that in episode 164, which turned out to be very popular. But yeah, we were just discussing that very chain off air and the inverted attack and release times, wasn't it?

David Lucius King: 2:37

Yeah, no, I was just saying to Mark that we've got a unit. Well, actually, the setup that we have in the studio would be a 1073 going into an 1176 and then into a CL1B, but it was only. I think I had the 1176 for ages. It was the black one with the black face and the engineer came in and he was like Dave you know, the attack and release times are inverted and it was about a year later yeah, a year in. I was like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. And it was about a year later yeah, a year in. I was like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. Um, but, yeah, I, I didn't, I didn't know for the longest time. And then, uh, I found out and I was embarrassed and now everybody knows yeah, everybody listens to the podcast.

Marc Matthews: 3:16

Now it's not gonna make a similar uh, similar error for one of a better way of putting it, but it's like I was saying off air. It's like every time I go back to using it, I still still have to double check, I think. Is it still the same? Is it still that way? Obviously it's not going to change, but for whatever reason, I still have to double check and I can imagine a lot of people still fall foul of that.

David Lucius King: 3:35

Yeah, I think that the 76 into the LA-2A that's what you want, though or the CL-1B. I always find just having the two compressors on there for the vocals it just does some magic. The 76 will do the quick stuff, and then the LA-2A or the CL-1B will do more of the slower stuff, and then, yeah, just those two together. You just get that thickness and the warmth. You can't go wrong. I think the first studio I went into they did that I had never seen someone record with an know um, an eq and and compression going into the box, and then I I was always a bit fearful of doing it because I'm like, why not just get the dry and then do with all that fancy stuff later? But then when you do it once, you're like, okay, I totally get it.

Marc Matthews: 4:20

It's way better this way yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine it is. It's such a good combo. I mean audience listening. Go check out episode 164, if you haven't done so already, where I demonstrate the use of the 76 going into an LA-28, albeit they are emulations, you add emulations, but yeah, you can hear the sound that you get from it and it is fantastic. But, david, I got a bit from your bio here, so you've worked with a variety of top tier artists earning accolades in music production, songwriting, placing you in a very sort of esteemed category there.

Marc Matthews: 4:53

But I think we'll just dive straight into the sort of the topic for this episode today. So I mentioned earlier we're talking about music production and AI. But I know we had a chat a few weeks ago and we were sort of fleshing out ideas for today and the one that really stood out to me was the pseudo mixing and outsourcing the mixing process. And for the audience listening, uh, it is a mixture. You got some who audio engineers, others are just songwriters and musicians. So I think this is really important, this idea of knowing to outsource the mixing process. They could. Could you tell us a bit more about what? What is pseudo mixing and why outsourcing can benefit producers?

David Lucius King: 5:30

so basically, um, I get to work with a lot of artists and, um, what happens with the, you know, after the session is, you know, the song that we do in the day that then gets sent to the artist manager and the artist anr, and then the record label, and then somewhere along the line a decision gets made whether or not this track is going to make the album or the single or be released. Essentially and I guess just kind of it just kind of stemmed from sort of doing loads of those sessions, you know, we'd, we'd, we'd do a song with the artist, we'd get it to a place where we all thought it was great and then, before sending it to the label, um, once we've gone back and forth with the artist and we're sure that he loves it, I'll send it around to one of my, one of my engineers I've got about three and then, um, they just kind of do like a again, that's like a pseudo mix really. It just, you know, they'll take care of some of the problematic frequencies. So to give it a, a quick 30, 40 minute, you know, just mix, and and then I find, just doing that you get the track closer to being finished. It doesn't, you know, take everybody's time. You know away, it's still, it's still creative and it's still a quick thing. So you can get it, you can get a few in.

David Lucius King: 6:37

And then that way, I find, when they're playing the tracks up in the studio room or in the A&R's office, there's not much imagination that the anr needs to have in order to, you know, see the song or hear the song in its you know, full potential. And that's kind of when the pseudo mix came in. And then when I get the green light from the label, uh, when they want to commission the track, I'll then let the engineer know, and then they, you know, they'll do the final bells and whistles, the final tweaks, and then it's just, it's just a more sort of fluid, you know, way of creating music and a way of getting the idea across quicker, rather than because I find a lot, a lot of times you might send in a rough demo and then you get judged on the demo. You know they're like oh, actually that demo didn't sound that great, so maybe that producer isn't very good, or, or or. You know, you know. And then you flip it. You go and the guy gives you a demo and it sounds like a mastered mix. You're like, wow, that guy was incredible, let's send him more people. So you know, it's kind of like getting over the line quicker.

David Lucius King: 7:32

And even for us it's really great because, like you know, you never know how it's going to sound when it's fully mixed. And when you get the pseudo mix back you're like, actually you know what, guys, we're onto something, and sometimes that might even spark an idea or show you where your track needs something. You know you might be like, oh, you know, we got the mix back from Josh and you know I'm not sure about the relationship between the kick and the 808. How about we change, you know things? You kind of get to remove yourself from the whole. You know I'm mixing the project. You can kind of go, ok, I'm just going to produce it, and then the mix almost becomes a part of the production and then you can pick and choose and then have those conversations with the artist sort of earlier on and then, when it gets, to, you know, the people that are commissioning it.

Marc Matthews: 8:15

There's a lot less moving parts, yeah, that all makes perfect sense, just to summarize then. So we've got like a 30, 40 minute, as you say, sort of mix master, yeah, and then we've got edits going on there and then that's going to the a and r and it's also then enabling the a and r to see, or rather hear, the potential of the track itself. So it's just that efficiency, it's making it more efficient, yeah, and also you've got a better sort of use case for judgment there as well, from if it is a demo. I suppose it's still a, I suppose you're still submitting a demo, but it's a higher quality version, yeah, of a demo, so to speak.

Marc Matthews: 8:45

So you mentioned there about the 30, 40-minute mix master. What is the workflow for that? I appreciate you're not going to be able to probably take a long episode to go into the entire workflow, but how are you able to sort of create a 30 or 40-minute mix master? Is that like each track is being processed, or are you sort of doing like a top-down mix? How are you sort of doing like a, a top-down mix, or how are you doing that well?

David Lucius King: 9:09

I think it's different every time, right, because you know um, with every track, with every genre it's it's a different approach. You know when you're when you're making trap music or hip-hop music, you know it's all about the low end and you know the catchy melody and then the vocal and kind of the relationship between those three. And when you're doing other things, I think I attack them differently. So I I think, to answer your question, if I, if I was in with um, like, let's say, one of the more hip-hoppy trap artists, what I'll do is I'll, I'll just get everything to the point where I feel like this sounds, like it's mixed. You know um, but you know, once you've, when you've written the song, when you've produced the song and then you're also doing the mix, you kind of I don't know like, like um, decision making fatigue is a word that comes to mind. You know there's you've made so many decisions in the songwriting process, you've made so many decisions in the production process. Now, when you're entering the mix, you know you might think it's right, but then there's always just a little something. So that's where the pseudo mix comes in, where I feel like I'll get it to a place where it's great, and then I'll stem out like group stems, you know, like drums, that'll be like one stem. You know, uh, lead vocal, that'll be another stem you know we'll have. We'll separate some things but then also not separate other things, because I like sort of committing to the sound. You know, and, and you're, yeah, there was a, there's a saying that came that comes to mind. It was like let's pour concrete on that track. You know, no, nothing changes. You know, like, this is great, I love the way that kick sounds pour concrete on it. You know, no one's, no one's, no one's, uh, no one's touching this and um, you know, you get the bits that you love and then I'll, I'll send a note to the, to the mixer, and it'll just normally it'll be like, hey, man, just you know, do your do your magic. And then I'm not sure what he does. It comes back and it just sounds more like a record. There's, there's, it's never a.

David Lucius King: 10:48

Uh, we've had experiences where we've sent it off to mixers and it's come back and it's like a night and day kind of thing where they've totally changed everything, which I don't personally mind. But yeah, a lot of times with the artist they'll I think it's called demoitis. They'll get really in, in love with the way the demo sounds, and then when they get a mix back, it's just a whole other can of worms that you gotta deal with now. So so our relationship is more like mine and the mixers is more like um, they're like looking for masking frequencies, they're looking for a way to, you know, improve what's already there. How do we make the world's best kick? You know, how do we, how do we make the relationship between you know, the vocals and the bass and this all work the the best?

David Lucius King: 11:29

And that's kind of, I think, more the stuff that the, the pseudo mix, will do just sorting the frequencies out. So when they, when they play it on a laptop or when they play it on their phone or whatever the A&Rs are listening to, it just sounds the way it should, I guess. And then and then, and then you know when it gets commissioned, you know it goes back to the mixer and they do and they do their bit. But most of the time there isn't, there isn't really much to do because, even though it's kind of under the you know terminology of a pseudo mix, I think the closer the mix sounds to a finished version, the more chances of the song being commissioned and the quicker everybody can get paid. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting one really. Um, and I and, but yeah, it's, it's different every time, I guess yeah, I totally get that.

Marc Matthews: 12:14

It's kind of expediting the process as well, isn't it? You kind of get into the the end quicker by making the process more efficient, because if you've got that pseudo mix and you send it to the mix engineer, it's sort of like a closer representation of what the artist is sort of searching for, the producer is attempting to achieve with what they're doing. And it kind of leads on nicely to the next question, which is about ai, and I know, for the audience listening, I did a number of episodes earlier in 2024 with ai. But we had a discussion when we caught up a couple of weeks ago about Spike Stent's Spike AI. So it kind of leads on nicely too, because you could think, if you're creating this pseudo mix, is there then a use case? Because I know you say you send it out to your engineers for them to create this pseudo mix, but is there now a use case for this, for example, spike AI to then do that for you? I'm not trying to rob anybody of a job here any of?

Marc Matthews: 13:11

your engineers of a job. But what are your thoughts on this sort of ai and the idea that you can now basically recreate a spike stent mix with your project?

David Lucius King: 13:21

you know, I think I think it's really interesting and I think we're at a very pivotal kind of moment in music creation and music mixing, music mastering, the whole lot of it. I haven't personally used Spike's AI yet. I definitely will. I feel like that's going to be super dope. But yeah, it's an interesting one, right? Because on one hand, you know, spike stent is probably one of the best mixers in the world and he's incredible, and now you can have an ai version of him in your computer and that ai version of spike can mix your tracks for you. You know, again, it's we're kind of speaking about something we haven't used it because I haven't, I haven't bought it, I haven't downloaded it, but if it does do what it says, it does, I think. You know, I don't know it's it's it'd be hard to say I don't want to use it because I don't want to use ai. See, the thing about me is I love ai. I think it's so cool. I think the fact that we have like an iron man version of Jarvis you know that we can just be like yo makes my track. You know he's like yeah, no problem, that is the coolest thing. I feel like I'm living in the future. I'm Batman in my Batman car and it speaks to me. That's the coolest thing ever. You know, on that topic, like I don't know what DAW the listeners might be using, but the DAW I use is Studio One've. They've got a version, a new version, out with ai integration that I installed, like last week, and it's incredible. You know, it's got ai stem separation, um, and and, and I think the next stage of this ai integration in music will be, you know, like a logic built-in mix function or a protools built-in mix function, where you press a button, you select a genre, you, you know, find, uh, maybe even a mixer that you like spike stand, for example, uh, and you go, you press mix.

David Lucius King: 15:15

You know, I think that is what we're heading towards, really, but the the, the thing that I do want to say is you know, with the ai stuff, um, I I don't think it's a replacement, you know, I don't think they're going to replace mixers. I don't think that's the case, because there's so many intricate little decisions that need to be made based off of taste, right, and I don't think that's. I think that's one thing AI can't do. Ai doesn't have, you know, good music taste, for example. They are just trained on an algorithm, whereas an engineer will be able to go actually, you know what it should sound like this. Why? Because it feels right, and I think that's the bit that we can't replicate, and it's the same across. With you know songwriting and production, with you know AI. What's the app called? I?

David Lucius King: 16:03

think it's called Suno, where you type in a certain lyrics or whatever and it comes out with the song. I still think like you're gonna need a human at the end of the day to kind of put all the bits together, and I think AI is just kind of like a really smart assistant that kind of gets you to the finish line quicker or offers you suggestions along the way. You know, and I think I think that's what it's turned into, which is what I think for the beginning bit, we were all very, you know, very scared of what, of what it's going to turn into. Who knows where it's going.

David Lucius King: 16:37

But I think now we're a bit further, further in, and I think I think AI is just like, you know, the discovery of the internet. You know, when we discovered the internet, we thought it was a fast way to send emails, but it wasn't. There's so much more and I think it's the same with AI, like and especially in music. You know, yeah, I think it's a smart assistant that's here to help, really and get you there quicker. But I can't wait to use the SpikeStent plugin.

Marc Matthews: 17:12

That sounds super lit. It does, don't I? I haven't used it either yet myself, but I mean, I've got to try it. I think I think most people will, because I'm inquisitive and, like you, I love ai. I love, I really like leveraging ai to make the creative process more efficient for me and I use it a lot to sort of take care of those remedial tasks. I don't necessarily like to, in particular, outside of music as well, just in day-to-day life, like daily admin and and various things like that, and it just helps.

Marc Matthews: 17:36

I think the way you described it there makes perfect sense of like an, an assistant. Yeah, I think that's the way to see it. And one thing I think is really important with something like Spike Stents, with the Spike AI and other AI platforms as well and I've said this on the podcast a few times is you can, like you mentioned there the future may hold that we can just low end. Why have they grouped this together? Why does that top end sound like that? And reverse and try and figure out how they've put it together. But it's interesting there.

Marc Matthews: 18:13

You mentioned about studio one and the stem separation, because I'm a logic user and a reaper user, so far as I'm aware I don't think reaper has any. I don't think it does. I mean I could be wrong, but I use logic more. But logic's got the stem separation and the and the mastering feature as well, the ai assisted mastering in there as well. But I think the key is is just to use it as an assistant. You know, like, like you mentioned, just make your life easier and and and see it that way.

David Lucius King: 18:38

You know it you know stuff like, uh, you know, um, there's a, a sample pack, or there's something that you've purchased and whatever, and you really love the kick in it. Or you're like, oh, if only that didn't have that snare, or whatever. You know stuff like that super useful. Or we had a moment where, um, I mixed, uh, I mixed a track, or I sorry, I produced a track for this artist. Oh, ages ago, uh, like in 2015, long time ago. And then they were like hey, do you got, still got stems? It's just just like. No, I don't, but we managed to find a WAV and then use the stem separator to sort of get, sort of into the track and then sort of recreating the bits that sort of felt a bit too weird.

David Lucius King: 19:19

So stuff like that incredible. You know, like I would have never been able to do that before. I'd have to completely recreate that track and start from scratch. But because of AI I'd have to completely recreate that track and start from scratch. But because of AI I was able to, you know, separate the bass, separate the kick, separate the snares, separate the vocals from the track, get the guitars out of there. There were, there's a few weird kind of things that happen when you stem. Separate, like this is like weird digital distortion-y sort of elements that it doesn't get a hundred percent right. But even that, like I just keep thinking, thinking like imagine update number two or update number three, like it's gonna be amazing you know the things that we can do with with ai and um.

David Lucius King: 19:55

It sounds like I work for studio one now because I'm saying how great it is, but they've also, with the update, they had a, a splice integration right yeah so you can, you can.

David Lucius King: 20:05

You can be working on a track, um, and say it's in the g major or whatever. You can drag, like um, the guitar sample in your track into splice and be like, hey, give me loops that work with this. And then it gives you loops that are in the same key, in the same time frame that just seamlessly play alongside your track, which is another bit of sort of ai integration into you know uh, loop libraries, which is incredible, like you know, before it would. It would be this whole going outside the, the da opening up splice, getting things, checking all the loops of where if they work or not, and now it's, it's, it's fully integrated, which is which is kind of what I'm getting at. I think ai is here to just make our jobs so easy that eventually artists just don't even need us anymore.

Marc Matthews: 20:49

Yeah, that Studio One integration sounds amazing. So because I use Splice myself and I use.

Marc Matthews: 20:56

Logic. It's fantastic, isn't it? I've only recently started using it again because I hit a bit of a creative bump and I needed a bit of inspiration, and I think it's probably about 18 months, two years, since I last used it. But now you've got Splice Bridge, which I use in Logic, so it then plays the samples in time with my project. But I didn't realize so in Studio One you can go the other way, so you can take your audio into Splice and then it will match samples in the Splice library to your audio. Did I get that right?

David Lucius King: 21:26

Yeah, it'll match. It'll give you loops in the key that you're using and the key of the loop that you put in. Everything will be beat match. There's no need for bridge anymore because splice is, uh, it's in the browser window on the right of your um taw, which is super cool and that's just. And it's like a perfect example of like.

David Lucius King: 21:42

The workflow just got easier because of ai. Right, the ai. Ai can recognize the file and it can give you other bits that fit with that file, which is essentially what you do as a producer. And it's just. It's just searched the entire platform of Splice and given you this, the bits that you would have been, you know that you would have picked that are in the right bit of a song. So it's not really doing your job for you, but it's making your job a lot easier and it's making the choices that you make, you know, a lot easier to make and you know sort of removing some of the obstacles that you might have to.

David Lucius King: 22:12

You know, shovel through oh, that's in the wrong key, oh, that doesn't work or whatever. It's all that's now been removed. So when, when I'm making a beat and it's even, it even goes along with genre. So if I'm in a trap beat, uh making a trap and I don't like the snare, drag the snare in there, or even the drum progression, and it'll give you you know, like hi-hats that fit perfectly on top of it, or you know just bits that just work really well with the track uh and this is only like a week ago and uh, it was one of those things like I just got like a burst of inspiration. As soon as I got it made three tracks a day, and I've been making three tracks a day for the past week because it's just so cool that is that that is real.

Marc Matthews: 22:47

I love the idea that you can go the other way and oh, it's so good yeah, yeah, it's so good it's.

Marc Matthews: 22:52

It reminds me of um, because what I do sometimes when I'm when I'm songwriting, when I'm producing, is I'll just have a random key and tempo within within boundaries for tempo generator, just to remove a barrier to me, for me thinking, okay, well, I'm going to just randomly select a key, maybe a random minor key, and I'm going to randomly select a tempo, just to remove that. It stops me having to think, basically, I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but now you've got this splice integration as well with, like Studio One, whereby you can also have it help you sort of with that creative it's almost like a palette, in a way isn't it?

Marc Matthews: 23:29

yeah, just throw it in there. That that is. That is impressive.

David Lucius King: 23:31

That is impressive I like your, I like your take on. I've never tried that. I've heard, I've heard, uh, one other producer use it. I think he was doing an interview, it was calvin harris, and and and he said he would just set the bpm to 120 and turn the click on and that's how he would start his session. You know, he would just have the click running, so everything that they would write in that room would be 120 bpm, which is specific to, if you look at it, pretty much every colvin harris song ever. Um. So picking a genre and picking a tempo before the songs, the, the songwriting session, is a pretty neat idea. I might actually have to try that yeah, it, it does.

Marc Matthews: 24:05

I did it recently. Uh, I was working on a progressive house track. I was moving into some some different territory than I usually do and I was I was thinking, you know, I don't really know what key I want to use, so I just randomly select I think it was in f, minor. In the end, I just randomly selected the key and it worked out really well and it's just removing those barriers, I think you know, and just to to help you as a creative, because I think it goes back to what I said earlier about leveraging AI to make the creative process easier and more enjoyable.

Marc Matthews: 24:32

But just to play devil's advocate here and this is something I read on a forum and it might have been when I was researching Spike AI I saw a comment on there and it was. I don't know who posted it and I probably wouldn't say if I did, but it was something along the lines of like with AI. Now, now we've got this ability for it to help us generate lyrics, and now we can use it to help us generate music, and now we can use it to mix for us, and then we've got mastering assistance. Is there? I mean, as I say, devil's advocate is it now lowering the barrier to entry so low that you, you could, basically you don't have to do anything musical, you could just prompt your way to a song, all from beginning to end. What are your thoughts on that?

David Lucius King: 25:15

well, I think it's like anything now with ai. You know, you can, you can prompt your way into, you know, um, ai generating a photo for you, for example. You know that photo's probably not gonna hang, you know, next to the mona lisa, you know, but it might, you know, and it's the same kind of thing with music. I feel. You know, like you could, absolutely. You know, and there are people that do do it. You know they, um, they have, you know 27 000 artists that all release. You know 10 songs every week that are all AI generated and you know, if that works for you, then cool, you know, and it's definitely something that you can do. And there's, there's a lot of.

David Lucius King: 25:56

I don't know, it's kind of a genius idea if you think about it. But you know, will that idea be the next Billie Jean? Will that idea be the next, you know, frank Sinatra, fly Me to the Moon? I don't think so. I've experimented with Suno and I've experimented with the AI generated lyrics and all that stuff. And I think, again, we're not at the point where it's like, you know, hey, give me Max Martin's ability to write songs, give me, you know, 40s ability to produce songs and go enter. And then you're like, oh my God it's amazing.

David Lucius King: 26:32

I don't think we're there yet. I think we're at a point where it can generate something that's really close to something that's really great, and then you can take that idea and reshape it. And I don't know if fix is the right word, but, you know, definitely work on it some more until maybe it is as amazing as, as you know, one of the great songs. But I don't think we're there yet. But one thing that I'm definitely looking forward to is like a an ai generated loop creator, which I feel like is the next thing that's going to come up, if it hasn't already. You know, like make me a loop in the style of this boom, and then there it is. Or like guitars in the style of this boom there it is. You know what I mean.

Marc Matthews: 27:08

Like that kind of stuff I can't wait for that.

David Lucius King: 27:10

That's going to be so cool. But, um, to answer your question, no, I don't. I don't think. I mean until you know we get a billboard, number one that was completely written, recorded and produced by ai. I don't think we're at that stage yet, but we may be soon. But yeah, I still feel like it's the human element that makes it great, or maybe imperfectly perfect, if that makes sense I like that, imperfectly perfect.

Marc Matthews: 27:36

I think that's a good way, because it's like happy accidents, isn't it? And it's it's something like because there are no rules rules in music and you might be like producing or mixing a track and you're thinking you know what this could do with some more low end, whereas ai, if you were to use it, might say, actually, this goes against the data set I have and this isn't what I would do, so you wouldn't get that. It goes back to what you said earlier, I guess, about how it's. It hasn't got that sort of finesse taste that we have yeah taste.

Marc Matthews: 28:03

Yeah, exactly that. And I think, going back to the question I asked, there as well, it's all about legacy as well. I think if you want to just create, if you just want to create a song, then you can go through that process I mentioned earlier. But if you want something that's got legacy, like you say, like Billie Jean, for example, then it's not going to do that. But no, when I saw that comment, I just thought to myself. I was like actually, I can, I can kind of see where that individual is coming from. But I think it also goes on to my next question, which is this classic one. I think this isn't just in the music industry. Uh, this is like across the board, because you can see now in most platforms there is an element of ai in there somewhere, whether it's shoehorned in because they feel that they need to put it in there and show they've got this, this capability. But I mean, I can pretty much guess what your answer is going to be to this one here, but it's about ai coming for our jobs.

Marc Matthews: 28:54

I don't really like that phrase that's what I've got, yeah, exactly that's what I've got written down here, but I don't think it is. What are your thoughts in terms of impacting music producers in the wider music industry? What are your thoughts on that?

David Lucius King: 29:08

I think now AI has just made our job really easy. You know it's, it's, it's gotten easier. You know there's, there's still. You know Rick Rubin talks about this all the time, you know, and he's like I'm not really good, you know, at playing an instrument or doing this or doing that, and he's like what he's really great at is taste right, Knowing what is what works and what doesn't. And I think you know, if I have one skill, that's my only skill right. I, I. When you play me something, I can tell within the first five seconds whether or not this is great and and that's. And how does this track make?

David Lucius King: 29:49

me feel you know and, and, and that's sort of what that's, that's my, that's my compass in, in, in music I just go out. You know um me and um me and a mate I work with we call it um.

David Lucius King: 29:54

You know when, when you play a song, this my, my my hair stand up, like it's this weird reaction I have to music when it's really great and we call it the a and r menu, like, oh yeah, they in our men, they're all standing up. You know, the hairs on my arm, they're all standing up.

Marc Matthews: 30:06

This is a win.

David Lucius King: 30:07

The A&R men are standing up and I think that's kind of what I go on. So you know, if you have anything, have taste right and if you can sort of leverage that in the production and in the music and in the songwriting world, I think that's the bit that makes what you're doing great, because you love it. You know you love this type of music and now you've created this which you also love. So chances are other people that love the kind of music that you like will resonate with what you've created because you love it. Right, the AI you know, I think the AI is really good at going okay, this was great, this was really great, this was a really great song. Let's make something based off of that. And then you you sort of get like a something that's cool that you could probably work with. But again, it's sort of back to what I said before. I think the as long as there's someone there going, this is good, this isn't good. You know, I think you can really leverage the ai to to make it work for you. You know you're still going to need a producer, but I don't know, we might, we might be at a point where an artist could, you know, input a bunch of lyrics, be like it's written in the key of c, these are my four chords, I want it in this tempo and then press the go button and you know there's the beat and you love it and you know they able to, you know, edit it later on in the future.

David Lucius King: 31:27

You know, actually I'm not sure about this part Can you fix this and then fix, and then there'll be like the producer artist relationship between you know, the AI and the artist. And if we get there I think you know that would be, I don't know. I still don't think it would destroy our jobs. I just think it would be creating a new job, right? So the artist now would have the option I can go work with a producer or I can go and work with the AI, and I think both ways there'll be a learning curve, there'll be a process and, yeah, I don't know, it's a really interesting thought to have, but I don't think it is going to take away, if anything, ai is really giving the control to the creators.

David Lucius King: 32:11

You know you, as a creator, you can now do so much more and you can get so much further with your rough ideas before you come into the studio with a producer, you know, for example, you could, you know you could get a beat made by ai, you could rap on it, you could get all that stuff going and then take that into the studio and be like you know what. I'm not sure about this, but here's a direction for us to go into which is, you know, super useful and, and now you know, I just yeah, I feel like the creative has just so much more power and so much more say, you know, with, with, with, uh, leveraging ai, than than we ever did before yeah, I agree with that, and what you mentioned there which I thought was quite interesting is about how we could use it to sort of, you want to have a particular sound, for example, and then you can use that as part of that ai or that ar, anr or demo process.

Marc Matthews: 32:59

But, and also importantly, putting the power in the hands of the creative.

Marc Matthews: 33:06

And I I was thinking then, as you were mentioning it, and it kind of goes back to when because you think back sort of 15, 20 years maybe, plus ago, when we didn't have the ability to just upload our music and release it on these streaming platforms as easy as we do now.

Marc Matthews: 33:20

So that was sort of one turning point in the music industry when it just suddenly opened the floodgates or the doors, rather, for artists to just upload their music without needing a label and get it out to those ears. And now it's also putting with AI. We're putting more control and power in the artist's hands and saying, actually, you can get pretty good results and get some pretty great ideas using this AI assistant as well. So I think the more time progresses and the more we see these advancements and turning these corners in the music industry. I, for me, personally, I just see it putting more, more power in the artist's hands, which is, and the creative's hands, which is, which is the route I would want to go down ultimately, and I think it's great, I think it really is, yeah, no I, I agree and I and I love what you said there.

David Lucius King: 34:04

You know, 15, 20, 15, 20 years ago, give or take, you know, it was just, it was a different time. You know, I remember, you know $10 would buy you an album.

Marc Matthews: 34:14

Yeah.

David Lucius King: 34:14

And now $10 a month buys you every album ever ever made, you know, on Spotify. That's, that's, that's the difference. So the value of music has changed, you know, from $10 a unit to $10 every unit, but that doesn't mean that it's, you know, dead. I think now, now, with with independent artists, like you said, being able to, you know, create a song, release a song, you don't need a label to take 90, 95% of your master, you can do it yourself. You don't need distribution, so you don't need a label to take 95% of your master, you can do it yourself. You don't need distribution, so you don't need a label to go and pay a distributor, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to have 10,000 copies of your record made and then shelved into all the different stores and all that you know stuff. You don't need that anymore because I mean, quite frankly, what was the last album you bought? I mean, I can answer that it was the album I made.

David Lucius King: 35:07

It was an album I produced. I bought it because I wanted it turned into a gold record. Yeah, but that was the last record I bought that I'm being I'm being honest, I couldn't tell you what mine was.

Marc Matthews: 35:11

I think I think it was wow, it's gonna be. I don't know if it was 10 years ago, it was a very long time ago, very long time ago and I've I think the artist was. It was either because I'm a metalhead, it was, either the black dahlia murder or it was a band called silosis. Uh, it was either one of those, it was one of those two artists, because I know I would have bought their album, but, um, and then obviously I've fully lent into the streaming platforms.

David Lucius King: 35:38

Yeah, it's, it's, it's changed, right, because you know it, it, it transitioned. It went from the only way to get a list of music is to buy it, and then it was, you know, the, the, the download, the download era happened. And then everything changed. And then, you know, for a good, for a good few years they were like we're doomed, that's it, it's over. And then, and then, spotify came along and created revenue where there was none before and made, you know, doing the right thing uh, easier, which is why it was the big thing. It was easier to make a Spotify account than it was to go online and download a bunch of albums from dodgy websites and then put that on your iPad and then that whole thing, you could just boom, everything's there. So it became easier to do the right things.

David Lucius King: 36:20

But that doesn't mean that, because the market share is so much lower than it was, it still doesn't mean that you, you know, because because the market share is so much lower than it was, it still doesn't mean that you can't, as an independent artist, you know, uh, put a bunch of music out, and it doesn't need to do you know, billions of streams in order for it to turn into, you know, um, a livelihood. I know one of my friends, you know um, uh sort of releases music on his own from his own label. Own label he's got, I think, a close to a million monthly streams and you know he's got two kids and a wife, he's retired his wife and you know he lives a very happy life off his music and I think like that's incredible, you know that's, and probably living a better life than people on a deal, because the way the deals are structured, you know you get an advance and then you have to pay the advance back and you don't. There's there, there are so many artists that are they're coming out now and they're they're huge, huge, huge artists and they're all saying you know, that big album I made 10 years ago or 15 years ago or 20 years ago, I haven't seen a penny of that, you know. And there's a big case of, like Limp Bizkit, you know, suing I think it was Universal for unclaimed royalties, because it's just like a I don't know it's a, it's a whole system that I think worked when there was, you know, millions and millions of dollars on the table. But I think now that there are thousands of dollars on the table, I don't know if that structure works anymore.

David Lucius King: 37:37

So if you do it yourself, um, and you're consistent with it, you can. You can turn it into something that you know might put you in the best you know era of music ever. You know music publishing has never been worth more than it is right now, which is incredible, you know, because of TV, because of syncs, because of all the ways that we can now use music outside of listening to it on Spotify, of course, you know, it's sort of opened up this whole new world for us. So yeah, I don't know, it's a great, it's a super great time to be alive, it's a great time to be an artist and you know, I mean there are what is it like? 15 000 records released every day.

David Lucius King: 38:13

But that doesn't mean that you can't do your bit, you know, for your people in your group and your circle of friends that grow into. You know a room of friends that grow into. You know a thousand of friends that grow into. You know a thousand people, two thousand people. You know when you, when you look at the spotify numbers, it's really easy to get discouraged by like 500 monthly listeners, for example. But if you then think about that, think of a room with 500 people in it listening to your song, I mean that's pretty freaking cool, you know what I mean.

David Lucius King: 38:39

And then, and then that 500 turns into a thousand, then you're like, oh my gosh, like you know 5, you know 5,000 people. What is that? That's like the, the, the, the Brixton Academy O2. Oh my gosh, academy O2 is just listen to my song, like you know, in a month. So you know it, it, it's, it's. You know, if Sony comes knocking, if Universal or Columbia, and they come knock and they're like we would love this artist and we think he or she is great, they're great, we'll do that deal. But if I get an independent artist and I know they're, I know the kind of numbers that they're doing you know, like I almost prefer doing that deal because you know you're, you're, you're growing, you're growing with them and yeah, man, it's just a really exciting time to be.

Marc Matthews: 39:23

Fantastic stuff. I really love what you said there about the 500 monthly listeners, because I think I've said that on the podcast before and I mentioned it with regards to just podcasting itself. And I think to myself actually when I think about the numbers, because with podcasting, just with any content in general really, and YouTube as well, and I think to myself, I put a YouTube video out and it gets a couple thousand viewers and I'm thinking actually, like you mentioned there, okay, if I put 2 000 people in the room that I've just viewed some of my content, that is a that's a large, that's a big room, right?

Marc Matthews: 39:52

it's pretty cool man it is yeah, it's with the podcast as well. I think to myself I'm getting x thousands amounts of downloads per month. I'm thinking, actually, that's that's people walking around, thousands of people walking around listening to my voice and others who have had on the podcast, which is quite amazing. And I really like what you said about your friend who has been able to live a nice, comfortable life off of music. Because you don't need to reach the upper echelon, that sort of what is it the top 0.01% of artists who are those bigger artists? You don't need to get to that level, you know, and you can still have a really comfortable life and a good living from music. And, yeah, I think it's a great message.

David Lucius King: 40:36

And I mean, and I think the thing, the last thing on this, I think the thing about you know I don't know if you've experienced this, but like getting to work with you know the huge, the huge artists, and you get to work with the huge record labels and then you know things, things go really well.

David Lucius King: 40:52

You know you get platinum records, it goes number one. And then I I've had the, you know the, the opportunity to be able to kind of like look behind the curtain or the, the label curtain, and there's, it's just so much of the success of the, you know, let's say, top 10 percent of, or the top 10 artists in the world. So much of the success is just, you know, because of budget, right, like it's. Uh, you know, if a record label is going to dump a million dollars on radio promotion and your song's playing on the radio, you know a couple hundred times a day and it blows up and it's the number one record in the world. Is that success, success? Or is that success just like a product of a, just a really well?

David Lucius King: 41:26

you know oil machine, you know like yeah, and and so much of the of the music industry is is just that, really just. You know they did, they had a good song, they had a great a and r and they had a million dollars yeah, yeah and then.

David Lucius King: 41:42

And then you know you release not you personally, but you know the artist may release their own song and you know they might put a budget of I don't know 500 bucks into promotion and it might. It might get. You know, just so far. But you know, I think you have to ask yourself, at the end of the day, what is success? Is success, you know, buying my my way to number one? Or is success, you know, putting out music that I love and know being able to pay my rent with it, which is that's what I thought success was? You know, I started music production when I think I was about 14 or 15 and I was just like in my mom's house on a laptop and I remember thinking I was like if I could just pay my rent with this stuff.

Marc Matthews: 42:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Lucius King: 42:25

That's when I'll just be happy enough. And then I was able to. I think that's success in its own just being able to do what you love and pay bills with it.

Marc Matthews: 42:38

I wholeheartedly agree. And this kind of segues on nicely to the final part here, Dave, because we're approaching the end of our chat here and I do find that these things fly by. So you mentioned there about success and doing music as your day, your livelihood, as it were. So I'm an independent artist. Tell our audience a bit about what it is you do and maybe where they could find you online and learn more about what you do as well.

David Lucius King: 43:03

I'm a music producer and a songwriter where they could find you online and learn more about what you do as well. I'm a music producer and a songwriter and you know, I I believe in you know writing songs that are true to you or true to the artist, or true to something you know, that are about something that's really meaningful. You know, I think the biggest, biggest song I've done to date and I I sound like a a big-headed person when I say this, but I did actually just have to check it because I got an email from a publisher that asked me she's like what's your biggest song? And I was like, I don't know, let me find out what streams it was, and it was 43 million streams on Spotify. It's a song called Run Through Walls.

David Lucius King: 43:40

I wrote it with the script and, yeah, like it was a few weeks after my dad had passed away and then I got this big. You know it was about 2018. I got this big job and it was like, hey, you know the script heard some of your stuff and they'd love a session and it was like it was a really tough day to go to work. You know it was only a few weeks after my dad passed away and then I, I, I showed up to the session and, um, you know, um, danny, from the script, you know his, his mom had passed away, you know, um, not long, yeah, you know, um, you know, a few weeks ago was as well. So we were both there trying to hide this whole sadness from each other. And then, you know, I think it was Danny that said, you know, he's like, you know, when I was at the funeral, you know, it was that moment that I realized, you know, I have friends that have run through walls for me, and I just remember thinking like gosh, that's a great line, you know like. And then we wrote Run Through Walls and yeah, it did really well that the album went number one and it went number one on loads of different territories and I think it's just one of those things we wrote about, something that was so true to us and so painful and raw at the time.

David Lucius King: 45:04

And once the record came out, it was the only song that I get messages from people that have, you know, survived really difficult moments in their life. And there was one lady in particular that says that said she was, you know, in a, let's say, in a really bad state and you know, she made it. She made it through, she, she, she, she fought it. Um, she's like, you know, the thing that got me through was listening to that song and I was like gosh, that's, that's incredible, like wow, you know, and um, she's like, yes, it's, it's the theme song to me and my best friend, because if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been able to, you know, mentally, make it through all the, all the treatments and everything, and yeah, it's just stuff like that. That's just so like I'm like, yeah, that's the reason I make music and I think that's the kind of song that I try to write. I try to write about, you know, real moments.

David Lucius King: 45:51

There's a writer that we worked with quite a bit. His name's Toby Gad. He wrote Beyonce's If I Was a Boy and loads of if I were a boy, loads of like huge, huge songs, and he said a similar thing. He wrote John, john legends, all of me and a similar thing. You know, it's like, you know, when the artists come in, it's almost like part therapy. You know, like you're, you sit there, you talk about what's going on, you talk about, you know, the things in their life and then you try to make a song about it, and I think that's the difference between, you know, between working with someone like myself than working with someone else. I always try to make the topic and the song and the concept feel as real as possible and to be about real stuff. So I think that's kind of my bag.

Marc Matthews: 46:37

Yeah, that's an amazing story. That really is, and it kind of echoes what you said earlier about the whole AI thing and that you're not going to get that from that. That's that emotional rawness and that taste and everything else that encompasses what's going on there. You're not going to get that from that and it's a great story, man the script for the audience listening. I don't know if they would be well-known in the US, possibly, but they're an Irish band, right the Script, if I remember right.

David Lucius King: 47:07

They're an Irish band. Yeah, they had Break Even and A man who Can't Be Moved. I think they did very well in America and Hall of Fame with William that did that, did well in America. But you know they're a great band. They're amazing, they're, they're amazing. They're on tour with pink right now. Yeah, they're, they're playing, playing. Uh, my tunes are playing in the same uh arena as pink, which is pretty insane. Definitely a pinch myself moment that is.

Marc Matthews: 47:31

That is indeed um so david. Where can our audience find you online? Where's the best place to find out more about what you're up to?

David Lucius King: 47:38

um well, you know my only fans.

David Lucius King: 47:40

I'm just kidding um that'll be a first for the podcast Well, you know, actually, on that topic, I was talking to an A&R about the concept of OnlyFans and how, if it didn't have such a stigma attached to it, it'd be a really great tool for musicians and producers, like if you could just subscribe to, let's say, yourself and your own OnlyFans account, which just sounds hilarious, and then you could have a paid subscription to instructional videos on how to mix track or you know, all this other stuff. So I think the idea behind that is really smart. I think we need to come up with another platform and another name.

Marc Matthews: 48:13

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like Patreon in a way, wouldn't it?

David Lucius King: 48:19

I haven't experienced that yet, but I think there's definitely something in there in terms of music that. But yeah, to answer your question. Sorry, I have ADHD. I bounce all over the place To answer your question. I have an artist project that I write and produce everything myself. It's called David Lucius King. It's on all platforms and if you want to check me out on TikTok or on Instagram, it's my name, david Lucius King, probably best places to find me Cool on TikTok or on Instagram, it's my name, davidliciousking.

Marc Matthews: 48:45

Probably best places to find me Cool. I will put links to that in the episode show notes and I'll also put a link to Run Through Walls as well, so the audience listening can go and have a listen to that, because I think that'd be quite a cool place to start as well, because it's part of your journey and whatnot. But, david, it's been an absolute pleasure. I love these chats about AI it David, it's been an absolute pleasure. I love these chats about AI. It's always an interesting, thought-provoking conversation and it's only going to get more interesting as time progresses. It'd be interesting I said interesting about three or four times there It'd be good to come back in sort of like I don't know two or three years' time and then revisit the conversation and then see where we're at in terms of what's moved on.

David Lucius King: 49:26

We can get my AIave to talk to your ai and then have an ai conversation you.

Marc Matthews: 49:30

You say that now this platform that I use, and I've recently come back to interviews after a break over the summer and you can now I'm guessing it's using what I've recorded so far right?

David Lucius King: 49:42

but.

Marc Matthews: 49:42

I can put in text, and then it will create pre and post and mid-roll content for me with my voice. I haven't tried it out yet, wow, so I'm going to try it out and see, see what it sounds like. But I'm assuming it will use the audio it's captured of my voice and then use that to generate mid and and pre and post-roll content, as as I say. So, yeah, that's so cool. Three years' time. I might not even need to sit here in the microphone. I will, to be fair, it'll be, automated.

Marc Matthews: 50:11

Yeah, yeah, it's not going to get the subtle nuances of the rubbish I talk half the time, so then again, it might you never know, just like I'm doing right now. Soon, folks, before you go, I want to hear from you, I want to know your favourite episode of the Inside the Mix podcast. Alternatively, you could just review this episode, click the SpeakPipe link in the episode description and you can record an audio message detailing your favourite episode and why, and also give yourself a shout out. All you need is your mobile phone. You don't need a SpeakPipe account. You don't need to download an app. It's just like sending me an audio message via WhatsApp or whatever messaging platform you use. As soon as I get your audio, you will be entered in that month's draw to win a Starbucks coffee voucher, and if you don't like coffee, just give it to someone else and pretend that you bought it for them. All you need to do is click that speak pipe link and send me an audio message reviewing this episode or a previous episode and give yourself a shout out.