Music Production Mentoring

Covered the difference between saturation and distortion, with live demonstrations on kick drum, bass, and vocals using the Abbey Road Saturator and a virtual guitar amp. Worked through multi-stage compression on a vocal chain — three compressors in sequence for peak reduction and makeup gain — and explained why reverb belongs on an auxiliary bus rather than directly on a track, including how to EQ and automate the reverb tail independently. Also addressed gain staging, headroom management, microphone selection for noisy rooms, and tracking levels for vocals.

PRODUCTION GYM — 862 words across 2 speakers (14 wpm). Insufficient instructional content for a summary.

Worked through the phase rotation control on the custom additive synthesizer plugin — traced its origin in the commit history, diagnosed why it behaves differently on the left half of its bipolar range, and discussed whether to keep or remove it. Also covered automation and MIDI mapping of plugin parameters in Logic Pro, and talked through strategies for organizing a sync-licensing music website, including keyword taxonomy, slider-based filtering UIs, and using AI mastering for catalog preparation.

Covered music distribution strategy, with a focus on artist-friendly and cooperative streaming platforms as alternatives to major streaming services. Discussed physical vs. digital releasing, Bandcamp Friday scheduling, and platforms including AmpWall and Resonate. Also touched on unconventional microphone techniques drawn from the book *Recording Unhinged* by Sylvia Massey.

We covered mic technique and placement. John was struggling with how to get rid of plosives in his recordings. So we did a mic placement exercise, pop filter up, and talked about the de-esser in the mix down.

"The Rose," open 5ths, Pedal tone scale degree 5 becomes 3rd of iii, becomes 9 of IV, becomes 1 of V, etc. iii - IV progression in "The Rose" and James Horner's "If We Hold on Together." Listening to inner voices— Am is one note away from FM7—7th in inner voice in "The Rose."