#213: Finish Tracks Faster - Workflow Hacks Every Producer Needs (feat. John Kunkel)

Have you ever felt stuck in an endless cycle of tweaking, adjusting, and second-guessing your music production decisions? Producer John Kunkel (aka John Grand) reveals the counterintuitive truth that many of us miss: working smarter, not harder, is often the key to finishing more tracks and creating better music.

John shares his game-changing approach to using reference tracks as structural blueprints rather than just mixing guides. By importing a track you love and mapping out its arrangement, you immediately transform that intimidating blank DAW canvas into manageable building blocks. This simple technique has helped John slash his production timeline from weeks to days, and it might just revolutionise your workflow too.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when John explains why your sound selection decisions matter far more than your processing skills. "Your track is only going to sound as good as the choices that you make in sound selection," he explains, likening poor sound choices to painting with incompatible materials. This insight challenges the common tendency to reach for EQ and compression when the real solution might be choosing a different sample entirely.

Perhaps most thought-provoking is John's psychological observation that constantly adding layers often indicates a lack of confidence in your original ideas. Drawing inspiration from artists like Eric Prydz, he advocates for focusing on fewer, higher-quality elements that evolve through automation rather than overwhelming arrangements that exhaust listeners' cognitive capacity.

Whether you're just starting or looking to break through a creative plateau, this episode offers practical strategies to finish more music while keeping the joy in your production process. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Follow John Grand

Follow The New Division

 How to Make Progressive House from Start to Finish | Splice

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Working Smarter
• 4:39 Workflow Optimization with Reference Tracks
• 10:14 Sound Selection vs. Processing
• 21:42 Sound Design and Synthesis Tools
• 22:44 [Ad] The Feral Fandoms Podcast
• 23:33 (Cont.) Sound Design and Synthesis Tools
• 26:37 Knowing When a Track is Finished
• 34:16 Upcoming Projects and Where to Connect

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:23

How do producers finish tracks faster, design sounds that stand out and create music that connects without needing a massive studio or endless hours tweaking? That's the question we're exploring in this episode, and here's the twist the answer often isn't working harder, it's working smarter. So what does that actually look like in practice? Let's find out.

John Kunkel: 0:46

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.

Marc Matthews: 0:51

Welcome to Inside the Mix, your go-to podcast for music creation and production. Whether you're crafting your first track or refining your mixing skills, join me each week for expert interviews, practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry. Let's dive in. Hey folks, welcome back, or welcome to Inside the Mix. Today, I'm joined by musician, producer, composer, sound designer and label manager, john Kunkel, also known as John Grand John. Welcome, how are you? Thanks for joining me.

John Kunkel: 1:25

Great yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Marc Matthews: 1:27

Yeah, great, I've been looking forward to speaking to you on the podcast, which I'll go through in a minute Just for the audience listening. Where are you joining from?

John Kunkel: 1:35

I am joining from Redlands, California, so that's about an hour east or so from LA, basically. So yeah, right in the heart of SoCal.

Marc Matthews: 1:44

Love it, love it. This is a classic british conversation. What is the weather like where you are at the moment is?

John Kunkel: 1:50

it sunny. It's beautiful. Right now it's like a good crisp 80 or something like that, but it was pretty hot for the last month or so, like a pretty big heat wave's been out here, so, yeah, it's been warm nice man, the reason I asked.

Marc Matthews: 2:03

I walked to the studio just to record this today and it's like torrential rain here. So if you're watching this on YouTube, folks, and it looks like I'm sweating, I'm not. It's because my hoodie got wet when I was walking over. It got wet through my coat, so it is not like nasty sweat patches, but I don't think you can see them anyway. But yeah, cool Southern California. I get more and more Americans, you know what, like a trip to the states and it'd be great to just go visit all the people I've spoken to on the podcast. It'd be a really cool road trip and like, do the interviews on in person?

Marc Matthews: 2:32

that's like podcast bucket list yeah, you'd have to drive a lot, probably because it's such a big area you know like you don't have a car you're screwed oh 100% man, where I say, uh bless, the traffic over here in the uk is terrible, but then again it's like it's you can get like London.

John Kunkel: 2:47

For me it's like two hours and I chat to people in the States and they're like, oh, that's easy, I do that every day yeah, there's people that I know that drive at least two and a half hours a day, you know, for work or whatever, and it's, it's, it's insane, yeah yeah, yeah, 100% man.

Marc Matthews: 3:02

So I did touch on a story then that I was going to go through. So it's's kind of like a full circle story, if you will Audience listening. You know I've been releasing tunes for a while and recently I've delved into the realms of progressive and melodic house and that started, I reckon, around this time last year, maybe a bit later, and the tutorial that inspired me to do that was John's Splice tutorial how to make progressive house from start to finish, and I'll put a link to that in the episode description. And I went through that and off the back of that I released a tune called waves. Again, I'll put that in the description. So it inspired me to do that.

Marc Matthews: 3:36

And then fast forward 12 months and, thanks to a recommendation from Michael Oakley, who you might remember from episode 207, I now get the chance to sit down with John himself. So he provided the warm, warm introduction for me. He recommended me to talk to John, gave me the warm introduction and then I put the two together that okay, it was John who inspired me to go down this route that I've been down in the last 12 months, which is like serendipity right there. So it's quite a cool little story and it kind of 12 months and then finally get to meet the individual who inspired me to move into Progressive House, which is quite cool. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, again, audience listening. If you are interested in that, just do go check out that tutorial because it's really really cool. So if you're not familiar with John, so I mentioned John Grant as an alias. He began making music at 13, affronted the critically acclaimed synth band, the New Division, and in 2015 launched his John Grant alias, focusing on progressive house, trance and techno. Beyond his artist projects, john's designed sounds for sample magic and splice hence the tutorial and published with one mess, one west start, again west one music group, dynamic music and sony.

Marc Matthews: 4:43

I know I get tongue-tied at some point. It always does with these intros. So this episode yeah, mentioned it at the beginning. There we're looking at sort of creating songs faster, streamlining the process. So what's in it for you? Workflow hacks to help you save time and produce more efficiently, fresh sound design ideas to spark creativity and strategies to finish music, while keeping the process fun and inspiring. So I think again, that tutorial kind of inspired this again. So I think it'd be quite cool to start with workflow optimization and efficiency. So imagine you sat there and when you sit down to produce, what's your process for getting into an efficient flow? What's your process to get into flow state for producing?

John Kunkel: 5:24

Man. Well, I mean, that's the beauty of it. There's so many ways to go about it, but I think the most effective way for me is to find a track that I'm just really into, that I'm vibing with that. I've been, like you know, playing nonstop. I grab that track, I stick it into Ableton or whatever DAW you want to stick it into, and then I just just start copying the arrangement. I think that otherwise I'm just fiddling around, you know, for four to eight bars or 16 bars, and then once I have an idea, you know, then I start building it out.

John Kunkel: 5:55

But having that reference track is so important because it really does make it feel more achievable to do something to, or at least achieving something similar like the track you love, right?

John Kunkel: 6:06

So I think a lot of it is just a mental game, right? You know, when you're able to see the full picture of something, you're able to sort of build out those Lego building blocks and you kind of know exactly where you're starting, where you're finishing your track, and it's also just like inspirational to see that it's not just this hidden magic, right, it's literally right in front of you. Every piece, every component of that track you can dial into solo it. I mean, now you even got stem separation. So if you wanted to go and stem separate parts to really hear how they're making those sounds, you know, I think that's that's helpful as well, which I don't really do, but you know, it's just really a great way to kind of get yourself in the zone without feeling overwhelmed of like, well, now I got to figure out where this track is going to go and and which part is the breakdown.

Marc Matthews: 6:52

Like you know, if that track was successful your reference track and it's done well then you also have a good shot of creating another successful track because of the example that you're following yeah, wise words and it's uh, I got, I got that from that again, referencing that tutorial again, but that's, I took that away from that and it's something that I've done now for the last 12 months because it makes perfect sense, right, uh, because I know what it's like to to sit there with the daw open in front of you and it's a blank canvas and it can be quite daunting, specifically if you're trying to find that motivation. So having that reference track and breaking it down in terms of section by section really does work and it's helped me no end in the last 12 months and it's something I do. And it's interesting you mentioned about the stem splitter function as well, because I did that recently because there was a particular build going into the drop and I thought.

Marc Matthews: 7:40

You know what? I've got logic. I'll use a stem separator, break it down so I can properly sort of analyze and go in and see what's happening there, and it does. It does make it infinitely quicker. I find it's certainly sped up my process when it comes to actually getting an idea down that's workable and something I want to continue working on. So, on the flip side of that, do you, do you ever do it the other way and not have a reference track? Was that just something that just doesn't suit your workflow?

John Kunkel: 8:09

I do. Yeah, I mean, I'd say the bulk of the music that I've ever done was without a reference track. That was something that I only started doing probably a couple of years ago, where I was like this is like a big unlock.

John Kunkel: 8:19

You know, this was something that really helped me accelerate my production timeline, you know, from being able to start a song to finish the song, whereas before it probably would have taken me a couple of weeks. You know, just doing it off of muscle memory and then counting bars and all this stuff, and then going back and forth with labels and them saying, oh, this bridge is too long or this breakdown is too long, you need to cut it down. It's like, well, why would I keep having these problems when I can just go and look at the tracks that they recently signed? And then I could get 10 reference tracks and then see, you know examples of each one, like, oh, this one has this length, this one has that length. I could probably do something with one of those examples and then go from there.

John Kunkel: 9:01

But and you know, there's still times where I'll just go in completely, as they say, raw dogging it without any sort of reference, and just go ham on it. But that's usually if I have a lot of time on my hands, right? If I got like a full day and I got eight hours to kill, then sure I'll go ahead and try something, just having fun and doing that. But the reality is is I don't have eight hours to kill to make tracks. I might have one or two hours a day where I can really zone in hill to make tracks. I might have one or two hours a day where I can really zone in, and so the quickest shortcut to doing that is to have that reference track.

John Kunkel: 9:34

Or the other thing I do is I just have created a bunch of templates based off of reference tracks that I love, and then I can just open one of those and use that as a blank canvas. Right, I already have my drums laid out, I have my arrangement markers laid out. I might even have mixing chains on each one of the different buses laid out. So I already know that, like, all I gotta worry about is vibe and melody and progression, and the rest is kind of like oh, I gotta swap out that kick or I gotta change that hi-hat or I gotta do this, or you know yeah, kind of removing all the friction to like that creative process, the vibe as you mentioned, that and like achieving that sort of vibe that you want to use.

Marc Matthews: 10:15

And I think I had this discussion with Michael, actually because he's been on the podcast twice, so the first time he was on, we were discussing his workflow and how he follows a similar process in that he'll have follows a similar process in that he'll have, let's say, serum or diva, and then have the favorited bass patches that he wants to use and use those just to kickstart that creative process. So you're not spending an hour trying to find the perfect bass or spending a couple hours trying to find the perfect snare, which you might whip out in the long run anyway because it doesn't suit the mix overall. But going back to that reference track, say you've started a song, you're using the reference, you've mapped it out and whatnot? Do you use the same reference when it comes to the mixing stage and the mastering stage?

John Kunkel: 10:56

yeah, usually it depends if it's in the same key. So I'll always reference something in the same key of the track that I'm working in. So if I'm working on a track in g minor, I'm going to reference the track in g minor, because when I look at the frequency spectrum of the reference track, I want to be able to compare it accurately to my track for mixing, because you know, the most fundamental parts of a mix are usually going to be the low end right. So I want to make sure that, like my first octave bass, my sub is aligned with the reference, my second octave bass, my third octave bass, and it's not so much that you're using that as like it needs to match exactly what that track is doing, energy wise or whatever. Yeah, it's a good way to be able to get yourself closer to a ballpark mix that will translate most likely very well across several systems, because you're already using that reference track as your North Star and so you can use that track's frequency spectrum and use things like matching EQ analyzers, all sorts of different techniques, to be able to get a mix that will sound as close as possible to that club track or to that North Star track that you're vibing with and it also just creates consistency across your mixes.

John Kunkel: 12:07

So, if you're working on an're, you know vibing with and it also just creates consistency across your mixes. So if you're working on like an album, for instance, right, you know having those different reference tracks as long I mean that's. The other thing too, is that, like you have to be very selective as well with your reference tracks, right? Like you don't want something that's like a 90s house reference track versus like a house track that was just, you know, released yesterday. Completely different mixing techniques, completely different. You know mixing spectrums and whatnot.

Marc Matthews: 12:35

So choosing your reference track is also super important yeah, those words echo a conversation I had on the podcast, a couple I've had on this year, one with slay slain shane slack, get his name right earlier this year and he said the same thing to find a track in the same key. And I think Eric Mitchell as well, mastering engineer, said a similar thing. So it's a recurring theme of the podcast this year with regards to references Because I've been banging on about references now, probably since this is like the fifth year of the podcast, but only this year has it really sort of come to light with regards to actually finding a reference in the same key as well, which is from what I can gather from the feedback I've had on the podcast is often overlooked. So it's a, it's a very important tip. So, moving on slightly now, what's the what would you say? I was gonna say the biggest mistake. It sounds quite negative, but maybe the biggest mistake or challenge you see producers make that slows them down.

John Kunkel: 13:25

I think the number one is the sound selection, and this goes into sound design as well. But your track is only going to sound as good as the choices that you make in sound selection, you know. So you know, the way I like to think about it is if you're painting a canvas, right and you have paint that is from this brand, and then you have paint that is from this other brand, and maybe one of those brands is like less quality than the other one, or maybe they're actually not really compatible because of the material that they're using right, that is going to massively affect how the end result will sound. So you're, you know, ultimately production and and song and songwriting and creation, at least when it comes to electronic music, really comes down to the choices and decisions that you make sonically. So whatever you're picking, whether it be a kick hi-hat, bass, all of that is going to come together and create this sort of bigger picture, and if one of those elements is off or not the ideal sound, then the track isn't going to sound well, and so the biggest mistake that I see most producers make is they just kind of go for whatever they think sounds good in isolation, but maybe not in context with each other.

John Kunkel: 14:40

So that could mean that you know you're going to have to make some trade-offs, like you may really like this bass preset, but that bass preset is potentially what is ruining your entire song. And when you swap that bass preset out and maybe you just sound design something from scratch, that's just a simple sine wave or a simple saw wave with a couple of voices. That could be the thing that makes or breaks your track. And so, you know, I oftentimes and I do a lot of coaching with different producers that are up and coming or that are just trying to learn how to sound design or just learning how to produce, you know, 90 of the time when I, you know, when I hear the tracks that they're working on, the first thing that I notice is just the sounds that they picked are just really bad quality, or maybe they are high quality but they're incompatible with one yeah, wise words.

Marc Matthews: 15:25

Would you also say that? Or rather, do you ever experience where you maybe find a mix engineer or producers having problems with a mix and maybe it's eq or compression or something some of this just not quite sitting right and it actually turns out it is like you said it is just a poor choice and they need to whip out that sample and bring another one in or use a different patch, versus reaching for an eq or compression or saturation or something along those lines a thousand percent.

John Kunkel: 15:48

One of the things that I try to do with my students is to teach them to not do any mixing until they are at the 99% stage of production, meaning that most, if you can get to a really solid mix without having to do hardly any processing, then you're already, you know, let that that, that that means that everything that you've selected up to that point is compatible with each other or it's sounding good.

John Kunkel: 16:26

Now the way I see mixing is really more like a way to accentuate those sounds or to bring those sounds either more forward to the front. So I don't really see it as like I don't really see mixing as like a surgical exercise. I see it more as like a highlighting exercise of like you know what? I think this pad or this synth is a lead, so I want to add a little bit more top end or I want to add a little bit more overdrive to it, to kind of like richen it out. But I I, you know, with my own tracks I rarely, you know, when I finish them and send them off to labels I don't really do that much mixing to them. I, I very I mean mixing in the sense of like surgical eq and stuff like that. Usually what I do is like I'll just level things out.

Marc Matthews: 17:06

So it's, you know, I really do believe in just volume fader, mixing and very minimal, minimal, minimal eq, and then any other eq is really for for creative purposes yeah, it's quite refreshing, taking it to be fair, because I think again, with the podcast and speaking to the listeners and whatnot, I think it can be quite easy to fall into over mixing, over processing and just doing something because that's what you've seen online. You see all these uh, you see tutorials etc. Online. They say do the xyz to get this vocal, particular particular sound and whatnot on a vocal or a kick or anything along those lines, and I think you can just go down a rabbit hole just over processing, where realistically, less is more yeah, 100, and I think that's the important thing is that people will sometimes think that, well, I just added a reverb and then I did some EQ, and then I did this and compression as mixing.

John Kunkel: 17:56

I would argue that's not mixing, that's production. You're trying to arrive at a certain sonic sound. Mixing is really just about making sure that everything flows well together. So that's why I always tell you know, students and stuff that like, if you're producing and you're doing EQq and you're adding compression, you're doing this stuff, you're really still producing. You're not really mixing at that stage, because mixing is going to be like I got everything printed out potentially, they're all lined up and you know the session and I'm just really trying to make sure that everything is is is bouncing well together, leveling out. You know, particularly for dance music.

John Kunkel: 18:32

You know you really don't have to do a whole lot if your sound choices are good and and and you know, a lot of times the reason why people over mix is because they made bad production choices and so that's why they end up having to do all these crazy things to make the track sound good, because they ended up over phasing something, or they ended up adding too much reverb, or they ended up, you know, their, their ping pong delay is just like going so stereo that like they think, oh no, I gotta fix this other thing and in reality, oh, your ping pong delay is just taking up the entire stereo image. That's, that's what's happening. So those are production decisions that end up in people's minds thinking that, um, you know, I gotta fix the mix now, which you know.

Marc Matthews: 19:12

So yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's a common common thread. I would say, having done this podcast now for five years, a very, very much common thread. So moving into, like sound design, so we've we've touched on it a bit here. This is an interesting question. Do you think every producer should dive into synthesis? Should you have like a basic understanding, I guess, specifically in the realm of music, that you operate within um or is focusing on presets and samples? Enough can you get away with I get away is the wrong phrase, because you don't really want to be like making music and just getting away with it.

John Kunkel: 19:44

Um, in my mind, yeah, I mean, it's totally possible for somebody not to have any sort of sound design, synthesis sort of knowledge, but I do think that it opens up a lot of doors and I think that if there's a sound that you hear in your head and you don't want to spend an hour looking for the right preset for it and you can just make it yourself, then that's pretty powerful. You know, you could save yourself an hour. So you know, again, I'm all about efficiency when it comes down to workflow. If you have that skill set, you know it's kind of like saying, like, would you want to just rely on MIDI or would you want to be a really good keyboard player or piano player? Right, like, I think you would always want to be able to play keys really well, which I don't.

John Kunkel: 20:27

I suck at playing keys, and so it's like I have to rely on a lot of like MIDI work and you know, kind of like Avicii-ing it where it's. I have to rely on a lot of like MIDI work and you know, kind of like Avicii-ing it where it's. I'm pretty much 90% in the piano role, right, um, so would I would like to have that ability, a thousand percent, and I think for sound design. It's the same thing, it's just it's a really good extra half, but it's not, you know, essential, necessarily, and that's proven by thousands of producers who, just um you know, rely on, on presets and they, they, they do very well for themselves yeah, I, um, I'm the same.

Marc Matthews: 21:00

I'd love I'm a guitarist, so I could play guitar yeah, but play playing piano?

Marc Matthews: 21:06

I think I tried, for whatever reason. I thought I was listening to a track and I was just like I'm gonna try and play that piano track and then I sat down I was like, yeah, I can, I can't even play piano. What made me think I could just sit down and just bust out this piano piece? But I'm very much the same I piano roll and then trying to humanize it with velocity and timing and whatnot. Definitely definitely down that route. If you're say you're starting out, you want to get into sound design and synthesis, can you recommend a synth to start with a?

John Kunkel: 21:34

vst. Well, I mean, I think serum is a great one because you can really see and visualize, you know, what's happening under the hood. I mean that was kind of the reason why it was built is because, you know, steve duda didn't like how massive which was another uh synth by native instruments kind of had similar functionality, but but everything was not visible to the person designing the presets, right. So with Serum it's really well laid out for you to be able to see exactly what's happening when you do, you know, a movement of a knob or anything like that. You can also see like different wavetables which are sort of like the bread and butter, instead of Serum, of sound design, and it's a really powerful synth.

John Kunkel: 22:19

You know serum to particularly. You know I've been a really big fan of it and I've already made like 500 presets for it since it came out and it's just incredibly powerful. If you want something a bit on the lighter side, I would recommend people start with something like spire, very easy to sound design with. It's got, I think, three or four oscillators and just yeah, you know like watch a couple of tutorials. It's really not rocket science. It's not difficult to wrap your head around if you dedicate time to it.

Marc Matthews: 23:25

Yeah, I'm a serum user. I've been using it now for the last 18 months and I'm a massive user as well. Use massive less now, now that I've got serum and there's another one as well. I cannot remember the name of it and it's great for sound design. It's gone. It's Arturia Pigments. That's the one.

John Kunkel: 23:44

I was thinking of yeah, yeah, pigments is really good too. Yeah, that's another good one.

Marc Matthews: 23:48

Yeah, I use pigments a lot when it comes up. I use pigments a lot when it comes to if I want just like really weird, like atonal or like just random sounds, I often reach for pigments. But another really cool. I think I'm probably due updating it to be fair, but I've never used Spire. Is that a paid for? Is that a free? It's a paid synth.

John Kunkel: 24:07

It's paid by this company called Reveal Sound and I've used it on nearly every single track that I've ever done since it came out. It's just a very lightweight, not super CPU hungry synth and I use it for bread and butter sound.

John Kunkel: 24:21

So if I just want like a really simple bass to kind of layer under. Or if I want to widen another synth by layering, I'll drop Inspire quite a bit. Another one that I'm really really into is nexus, which is probably my, my favorite synth. Um nexus 5, I think. It's just got so many options and I think it sounds objectively better than serum potentially. But you know serum is just sort of like you know everyone's go-to and there's a lot of great presets for it. But but nexus, in my opinion, is just so powerful. It's kind of like omnisphere on crack. You know it's just got like and it's and it's and it's actually for for how powerful it is. It's very lightweight as well. You can run several, several instances of it before your um. You know sessions start kind of uh crackling or anything.

Marc Matthews: 25:11

Yeah, I found that with Massive. I remember before I had my Mac Studio and I was using Massive and I've had a few instances of that and it was just like no, you can stop. You're not doing any more of that, but thankfully I don't have that now. But I think Nexus would love that soundbar, that description of you of Omnisphere on crack on crack.

John Kunkel: 25:38

Oh man, it's. Yeah, I would highly recommend it. I mean, it does cost a lot and the expansion banks are expensive, but they're definitely worth it and they teach you a lot about just how they get those signature sounds. And you know, there's a couple of banks that I like, like the harman van buren bank is really nice, the cashmere bank and there's a bunch of melodic techno ones that I that I find to be really inspiring. It's's nice.

Marc Matthews: 25:56

There you go, folks, I'll put links. I'll find links to all those. Do go check them out in the episode show notes. You'll find that in the links for this episode. So I think it'd be nice now to move on to the creative process and results phase, stage, let's say, of creation. So I often ask this question to individuals, whether it's production, mixing or mastering but from your experience, how do you know when a track is finished? Let's go from the production side of things before mixing. How do you know when a track is finished?

John Kunkel: 26:25

yeah, I mean, I think that's really up to every producer to decide. You know, I think it's quite easy to overdo a track and I'm definitely guilty of that, thinking that I need to add. Just, you know, keep layering and adding more and more and more. So I don't know that I necessarily have an answer as to how do you know when it's finished. I think you just kind of know and you're like this is it Like I don't need to do any more work to it, of lean these days more towards not oversaturating a track and just focusing a lot on automation versus just adding more and more and more stuff to it?

John Kunkel: 27:01

Right, like I'm a big eric pritz fan, and so one of the things that I've always noticed that he does is he doesn't really have thousands of sounds in his tracks. He just has a few core elements and those are always evolving, whether it's via volume automation or, you know, interesting effects and stuff like that. So I'm definitely a big fan of that now, and so I think that's also helped me finish tracks quicker is not having to think about constant adding more and more and more. Like I'm actually really against that these days.

John Kunkel: 27:34

I now work with some people that I won't mention that are very much about like adding layers and layers and layers. And then I'll be on a mixing session with them and they'll say, do you think I should bring that 18th synth up a little bit? And I'm like, well, I didn't even know it was there, I had to go and solo it. So there's just stuff like that where it's really easy for for you to get into your head that you need to keep adding stuff to finish the track, when in reality it was probably finished, you know, 10 sessions ago yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.

Marc Matthews: 28:06

You mentioned that about the, the individual who um was asking about that particular sound, whether or not they should bring it up in the mix, and I experienced that just recently as I was working on a project for someone and I gave them some feedback and I was just like you've got all these sounds which I'm mixing.

John Kunkel: 28:23

And.

Marc Matthews: 28:23

I don't think you need like. I was at the mixing stage and I didn't want to put a producer hat on because that wasn't my role, but I was kind of like you've got all these and they're just competing for space and some of them you can't hear. But it happens, doesn't it? And I really like what you said there about, rather than adding more, use, automation, move things with regards to volume, with regards to stereo placement, or whether it's automating EQ or something along those lines. So I really like that approach and I think it's really, really, really good.

John Kunkel: 28:54

Yeah, and I think it's important for producers and artists to understand a little bit of like how psychology works. When you listen to music, the brain can only process X amount of information. So you know, when you start adding things over and over and over there, you know it eventually becomes a wall of sound, right, and so the brain has to try to. You know, make eventually becomes a wall of sound, right, and so the brain has to try to. You know, make sense of that information in the best way it can. And if the brain is telling you add more, that usually might mean that you need to just probably step away from the track. And then, you know, give it to someone else and let them hear it and then ask them do you think this needs more or not, instead of just like working in a silo and then just you know layering stuff.

John Kunkel: 29:36

Because you know again, like the, you know your ears and your brain can only process X amount of sounds. You know, within a. You know it's kind of like if you're watching a movie and you try to put in four or five scenes into one clip at the same time, like would you know what is happening? You would, you know what is happening? You probably wouldn't, because even if you had like an opacity layer and you could see all like the the different scenes happening at the same time, your, your, your eyes wouldn't be able to process what's going on.

John Kunkel: 30:04

And it's the same thing with music, right? You know, whatever the central theme of your track is, that should be the, the full focus of that section or of the drop or anything else, and all the other stuff really just takes a backdrop. And, yeah, there's going to be people that are going to be like, oh, that snare is sick or that bass tone is great. But you know what? What? You know the vibe of the track, those things just, you know, add to the vibe of the track. They don't necessarily like take over the front stage.

Marc Matthews: 30:29

So I think it's always important to remember that well, you mentioned that about the sort of the analogy using the film is really good.

Marc Matthews: 30:36

Never thought of it that way. So I think audience listening if you ever are in that position whereby you're sort of second guessing yourself think of it in that context that John mentioned there about the central theme, and do you want all these subplots or these side quests going on at the same time? Can you comprehend or are you exhausting your cognitive load? And one thing I've done more often than not lately for the last 18 months now because, hands in the air, I was one of those individuals that at one point would throw the kitchen sink at stuff and then I listened back to some early things and I'm like what was I thinking there? Why have I got so much going on there? I learned the hard way. Now it's and, uh, it's through that feedback loop as well that I experienced that. So you mentioned there about sending it to someone else and getting that feedback and and an individual saying, coming back and saying, actually, have you considered just stripping it back and removing elements rather than adding more? So it really really does, really does make a difference.

John Kunkel: 31:27

It's wise words yeah, and I think that you know, kind of going off of that topic, of the psychology of it too, I think there's also an element that I've noticed from you, you know, having worked with people on a coaching level is that the more that you add to a track usually shows that you're not confident with the ideas that you began with, and so it's almost a way to mask what you don't feel comfortable with. And so a lot of times, being a good producer is being confident in your decisions and knowing that whatever you're adding into is good enough, and if it's not good enough, then adding more things to it isn't going to mask your confidence. I mean, in other words, like you know, good, good, good productions come from confident producers. In my opinion, I really do believe that to be true.

John Kunkel: 32:13

I think that if you're and again, like confidence is something that takes practice, right, there's false confidence, which is someone who comes in he's like oh, I just made this track and I added all this stuff to it, and then you hear it and it sounds terrible. Right, that's what I would call like false confidence. But you know, actual, real confidence is sort of like this position where you're going into a track and you might have to spend a lot of time getting there. You know, it may not be quick, you might not be able to get that idea for a day or a week or whatever, but eventually you're going to arrive at something where you have so much confidence that, like this is good and I don't need to put 15 layers under it for it to sound good, right and so, yeah, that's sort of like.

John Kunkel: 32:53

Another thing that I think is really important for people to remember is that, like if you're starting to see yourself add a bunch of layers to stuff to make something sound good, then you weren't originally comfortable with the first idea that you had, and that could even be not even on a sound design level. That could just be like your melody sucks. So you're just trying to like make it sound good even though the original melody is not great to begin with's kind of like polishing a turd right as they say so yeah, making a, as we say over here, a silk purse out of a sal's ear is is one of the phrases that comes to mind.

Marc Matthews: 33:25

I don't know if that translates in the us. It might do. I think it does, but it's one that we say a lot over here. But it makes perfect sense. There's like audience challenges. I've got a challenge for you guys listening. So pick one unfinished track from your hard drive and commit to finishing it. I've got this week. I mean, obviously you can do it seven days if you want, with a stripped down approach. So cut all the fluff, focus on the essentials and get that track finished. Based on the sort of discussion that John and I have had here today in this episode. John, it's been an absolute pleasure. There's loads of this. I appreciate we're at 35 minutes already and I did say I very rarely get through all the questions that.

Marc Matthews: 34:00

I have what I've got written down. This always happens, but I think it'd be great if you could maybe talk a bit about what you're up to and also where the audience can find you online if they want to learn more about you and what you're.

John Kunkel: 34:11

Yeah, so I am putting out a John Grand album pretty soon and then I just started a new project with my bandmate, alex Gonzalez, from he's in another band really great band called Matt Black. They do industrial and sort of like darker kind of music, but we just started a techno project called Unterstrom. So I'm kind of putting most of my energies into that lately and then still doing new division stuff. Just did an EP that's coming out next month and then, yeah, just you know, constantly doing sound design, producing, mixing and mastering friends and friends and family and other people out there. So, yeah, you can find me on Instagram at John Grand Official. Can find me on instagram at john grand official. You can follow unterstrom, which is, like I said, more techno leaning. Uh at, we are unterstrom on instagram and uh, yeah, I think those are usually the default places folks can find me on. Yeah, fantastic.

Marc Matthews: 35:07

I'll put those links in the episode description and audience listening. If you're not familiar with the new division, go check out argyle. It's, uh, there's a vocal sample in that. I think it's a vocal sample. It might actually be a vocalist, uh, but it's. It's such a cool sample and it inspired me this week to think you know what? I'm gonna find something like that myself in the track that I'm working, working on in a few weeks. Uh, I wish I could time stamp the sample I'm thinking of, but I can't. I can't think of it?

John Kunkel: 35:33

was it like the little lead one on the choruses maybe, or something?

Marc Matthews: 35:38

I think so it's not actual words, it's just like a it's like a yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna try to see it.

John Kunkel: 35:46

Yeah, I think it was just a one shot that I put on on like a multi-sampler nice, it's so cool.

Marc Matthews: 35:52

I was gonna try to sing it then, but but then I can't sing, man, I wish I could. Fantastic stuff, john. Thank you very much. Audience, do go check those links in the episode description and, if you've picked up one tip that you're going to take forward today, consider supporting Inside the Mix on Patreon. You'll unlock exclusive extras and help me us keep bringing these conversations every week as well, so you can click the link in the episode description and you can join for free, for free, for free. John. It's been a pleasure. Again. Thank you so much for taking the time out today to chat with me and we'll catch up again soon. Thanks for having me. No worries Until next time. Folks stay inspired, keep creating and don't be afraid to experiment inside the mix.