Producer

Speakers are kind of like a pair of new shoes.

This is a tetrachord.

There are vocalists out there that will never ever give you a good performance in headphones, but even seasoned vocalists sometimes have a hard time matching the vibe and the performance of a relaxed studio environment with the monitors on.

This is a story about perfection.

Stop singing. There’s nothing in your vocal chain that will substitute for a good performance. I can fix your pitch, I can fix your timing, but if the vocal doesn’t…

When you sign on to go on a roller coaster and they buckle you in that chair, you’re signing up for a thrilling ride knowing full well you’re going to be returned back in one piece.

Major 7th chords and minor 7th chords aren’t unique.

Do you think there’s a difference between a hook and a chorus?

It’s producer malpractice if you don’t do a quick gut check on the key of your song before you record that awesome vocal.

There’s one thing that separates veteran producers and engineers from newcomers, and that thing is understanding signal flow.

Producer, professional, beatmaker.

Inexperienced producers tend to make a tactical mistake when they’re working with vocalists.

Producers have this habit of trying to understand music theory without understanding one really basic thing, which is form.

Welcome to a ton of new followers and I figured I’d introduce myself.

The biggest music theory hack has nothing to do with reading music or memorizing chord names. It starts with seeing the pattern.

We see both experienced and beginner producers at Bee Kitchen.

What makes music tick?

Stuff that confuses new producers.

Pretty much any experienced producer will understand the value of editing.

If you’re unfamiliar with the keyboard, this is about to be the best and the worst lesson you’ll ever get.

I actually reject this idea that anybody’s becoming a better producer because of posts that they’re reading, because everybody’s really teaching from the same pool of facts.

So one breakthrough that I had when I was learning how to do all of this, I think it’s very easy to forget about velocity when you’re putting stuff into a piano roll.

Is the circle of fifths overrated?

Putting a price on your work is one of the hardest things for any creative to do.

You might be surprised to learn that the big studio sound you like isn’t just a byproduct of a big studio.

Reverb. I am brimming with things that I want to say about reverb. There’s no way I can put this into 60 seconds, but effects mixing and synthesis starts next…

If you know someone who’s making cool beats but they’re still adjusting stuff by ear, getting things sounding good without entirely understanding what those settings are doing, their success relies as much on luck as it does on skill.

A music production environment is a complex one.

I think I know a lot about music and I consider myself a pretty decent engineer and producer.

With or without an audio degree, you wouldn’t be the first musician to come to me, never having been told what key tracking is and what it’s for.

There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous.

One of the important things they won’t teach you at recording school, it’s how to give and receive feedback.

I’m regarded as a producer who can capture a great vocal performance and get a great vocal tone.

A producer today is like an island and to me nothing epitomizes that more than the topic of automation.

Okay, this just in. If you want me or someone from Beat Kitchen to come and talk to your newspaper, we would be delighted. Not only does that sound like…

Music. It has the profound ability to create a kind of structured order out of chaos. It connects seemingly distant places, shifts them to create tension and resolves them, sometimes…

Welcome everybody. This is Mark Jaffe from Five Bridges. Mark is a wonderful attorney who really takes a focus on creative stuff and he’s agreed to come in and talk…

Music theory starts with your ear and learning the names for stuff doesn’t really matter if you’re not hearing with specificity I can help you learn the names for things and I would love to but you can train your ear for free by yourself I’ve been giving you about three chordals a week for like a year But you don’t actually need me you can do it in front of your own instrument.

So you’ve seen a few Beat Kitchen videos and you want to learn more about the whole program thing.

Hey, Producers! You need to know a little music theory. I’m going to be hosting a free Zoom workshop on the intersection of harmony and acoustics. It’s specifically for producers…

So producers were always talking about sine waves, but what are they?