Music Production Mentoring

We ran two rounds of "Interval Bingo" — listening to mystery chords and identifying specific intervals (perfect fifth, major second, minor second, tritone) by ear. Worked through the reveals chord by chord, using chord inversions as the central challenge: why a major chord in first inversion hides its fifth, why a diminished chord is built from stacked tritone pairs, and how voicing affects what the ear locks onto. Also previewed an upcoming Songwriting Incubator series and a new harmonic synth feature in development.

We talked about technique with playing to help alleviate shoulder pain, or any discomfort from posture and the way we hold the guitar. We then worked through some hand warm up exercises, finger dexterity and talked about ways to find the root, 3rd, 5th etc on the guitar neck. We also discussed briefly how 3 piece bands and songwriters write a little differently in terms of self accompaniment and looked at some popular examples. Finally we wrapped up class with connecting and soloing around two scales as part of the Cage theory, and ways to improvise with flourishes like bends, hammer ons, or even just changing the rhythmic feel.

Covered production techniques for Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" (from the Headhunters album), using Arturia's ARP 2600 model to reconstruct the iconic synth bass patch. Walked through the ADSR envelope in detail — particularly the role of decay — and explained how the VCF with high resonance produces the characteristic "barky" tone. Also broke down the arrangement and production of "Chameleon" with students, covering its call-and-response structure, stereo placement decisions, and harmonic simplicity (two-chord vamp).

Covered mic selection and placement for acoustic instruments, gain staging and signal flow through a DAW and hardware mixer, the difference between mic/instrument/line/speaker levels and how DI boxes work, and parallel effects routing using sends and aux tracks instead of in-line plugin mix knobs. Also addressed stem vs. track-out terminology and audio-level distortion management at different points in the signal chain.

Covered mixing workflow in Logic Pro, focusing on why to avoid placing a limiter on the stereo output during the mixing process. Demonstrated how to use Logic's Summing Stack (Track Stack) feature to group and organize instrument buses, and walked through how to create and use a session template — including how to import tracks from an existing session — to save time when mixing multiple songs that share a similar track layout.

Covered top-down vs. bottom-up mixing philosophy and how to find the workflow that fits your process. Walked through a full vocal chain demonstration — EQ, stacked compression, de-essing, saturation, vocal doubling, ping-pong delay, and reverb bussing — with live examples on a vocal-and-guitar arrangement. Discussed automation as the final step that separates a functional mix from a finished one, along with mic selection, plosive control, and the value of low-stakes practice projects.