Music Production

Covered a real-world case study in salvaging a poorly recorded garage demo: stem splitting for drum replacement/triggering, cymbal replacement using personal one-shots, re-amping guitars through virtual amps, high-passing for bleed reduction, and heavy vocal processing including noise removal, tuning, saturation, and slap-back delay. Also discussed audio delivery formats (bit depth, streaming platform requirements), Reaper workflow tips for cross-project plugin copying, mastering consistency across singles and albums, drum programming philosophy for producers, and drum fill construction for non-drummers.

Reviewed several pieces submitted to the Beat Challenge folder, including works by Christian and Angela, with discussion of chord voicings and song structure. Also heard a work-in-progress song featuring vocals, live instrumentation, and MIDI horn tracks in development. Much of the session involved troubleshooting audio playback issues with uploaded files before pieces could be evaluated.

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.