Music Production

Covered bass guitar EQ fundamentals, including the counterintuitive principle of boosting highs and cutting lows to help bass cut through a mix. Discussed tape emulation in mastering, specifically the Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machine and its use as a subtle glue and saturation tool.

Reviewed two submitted works this morning: Paul's "Driftwood," an atmospheric guitar-based piece processed through layered filter effects, and Josephine's newly written vocal-piano song. Discussion centered on restraint in production — specifically, the risk of overproducing early-stage material before the songwriter has fully lived with it. Nathan performed a brief section of Randy Newman's "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today" as a reference point for how orchestral arrangement can serve a simple song without obscuring it, and credited the orchestral arrangement to Van Dyke Parks. A technical thread with Jon on rhythmic displacement and MIDI tempo-slowing techniques rounded out the session, along with a brief discussion on vinyl mastering and audio-video sync.

We discussed the 1991 hit, Loosing My Religion by REM. We talked bout arrangement choices driving production choices and vice versa. The song has an interesting structure, and is 4:53 long so- unconventional by pop standards, with a mandolin solo in the middle. Participants were challenged to discern the structure, arrangement, and mix choices, as well as discussions around what it would be like if this song were made today, and how might the production choices differer? What is stylistically appropriate for one genre could make or break a song and the development of those sensibilities.

Covered pre-mastering mix preparation, including gain staging, LUFS metering, true peak reading, and strategies for managing dynamic peaks in choruses. Discussed top-down mixing with a mastering chain in place, the value of separating the mix and mastering stages into distinct sessions, and plugin installation troubleshooting on macOS (Ventura and Tahoe), including AAX path resolution, security/privacy settings, and risks associated with unvetted plugins.

Covered recent updates to Logic Pro and the friction they introduce for experienced users — specifically the reorganized content library, changes to Drum Kit Designer, and multi-output routing. Also discussed a past project involving a video-sequencing app with a custom scripting language for audio and video, and briefly touched on Ableton's video sampling capabilities.