AI tools are revolutionary. They are changing the way work gets done, including what’s possible in creative fields like songwriting and music production, at a staggering pace.

From a listener’s perspective, it’s clear that the audience is already starting to divide. Some people want absolutely nothing to do with music made by AI, while others likely won’t care as long as the song creates a vibe or gives them a good beat to run to.

As musicians, producers, and songwriters, we have to look at this from a completely different angle. When you start handing off various parts of your process to AI tools, there is a very real risk that you are letting the core ingredients of your artistry slip away.

The Slippery Slope of Convenience

The purpose of this article isn’t to claim that using these tools is inherently bad. What’s wrong with using a prompt-based AI plugin, such as Waves Illugen, to generate some samples and atmospheric background textures when you were the one who wrote the prompt? Maybe nothing. Producers have been using sample packs and loops for a long time.

How about feeding your acoustic demo into Suno to hear a few different genre versions and arrangements for fresh production inspiration? Perhaps you aren’t planning to use the audio it generates; you’re just using it as a sounding board. After all, you wrote the core demo composition. What’s wrong with that? Again, maybe nothing.

What about getting ChatGPT to help you brainstorm a few lyric concepts when you’re stuck on the second verse? People have been using co-writers for decades, not to mention tools like RhymeZone and a trusty thesaurus, so what’s the difference?

You might decide that all of this is perfectly fine. I’m not here to dictate what’s right and wrong for your workflow. However, what I am concerned about regarding my own work - and what I would suggest is worth thinking deeply about - is that each small task you offload risks diluting your “sound”. That mysterious, hard-to-define quality that people recognise and love about the music you make is fragile. If you’re not careful, it will slowly fade out of your productions, and you won’t even notice until it’s too late.

Two Questions Every Artist Should Ask Themselves

Before mindlessly integrating AI into your creative workflow, hit pause. I think every artist should seriously consider two fundamental questions:

1. Which parts of the music-making process give you the most personal satisfaction and fulfilment?

2. What is the unique ‘sonic fingerprint’ that makes your music unmistakably yours?

(Note: If you’re a part of a band or group, this is a conversation you should be having together.)

Let’s dig into why each of these is a helpful question to ask.

Question 1: Where Do You Find Your Fulfilment?

This comes back to the whole point of doing creative work. Why do you do it? If you like making music, there must be some parts of the process that you particularly enjoy and draw deep fulfilment from. What are those parts?

On the surface, it seems obvious that you’d want to keep doing those specific tasks yourself. If someone (or something) else did them for you, you’d just be giving away the best bits, leaving yourself with the less interesting tasks you don’t get much satisfaction from. Why would anyone do that?

It’s not always that simple, though. In reality, we can sometimes be tempted to skip over even the parts of the process we value the most in exchange for convenience and speed. It’s easy to get sucked into the addictive vortex of external gratification fueled by past successes. The “output” part of the creative process can be extremely rewarding: having people interact positively with your releases, getting radio play, racking up streams, or feeling the buzz of a live crowd singing along to your songs.

The risk here, of course, is that you stop focusing on the actual process of making the work in pursuit of the output. If your workflow becomes a mechanical production line rather than a creative zone because you’ve outsourced the best bits, a rift can form, and you can start losing the meaning you once found in the craft itself. That is not sustainable.

Figure out what parts of the process you genuinely draw meaning and satisfaction from. The work that feels great to have done, even if it was hard along the way. Hold on to those parts; don’t be tempted to farm them out.

Question 2: What is Your Sonic Fingerprint?

Where exactly does your sound live? Does it live in your lyrics? Is there something slightly off-kilter about the arrangement choices that people instinctively recognise as you? Is it the nuance in the particular way you play your instruments, or the chord progressions you always seem to gravitate toward?

Or, as I suspect is the case with my solo project n1ghtmar3cat, does it include the specific way you use recording technology? I think my sound comes from my particular style of songwriting and compositional decisions, combined with the specific, sometimes unorthodox production choices I make.

This is a crucial question to ask, but it’s not an easy one to answer. The reality is that your musical identity is likely a complex web of many different things that give your tracks a recognisable flavour. This includes external influences (the cultures and communities you’ve been exposed to, your artistic heroes, the gear you have access to) and internal factors (your values, subconscious tendencies, and preferences).

You might not even be able to fully recognise your own sonic fingerprint until years after you’ve made a record. Your sound emerges and becomes more distinct as you continue to build your discography, often without you fully realising it. The countless micro-decisions compound over time.

Many prominent bands’ first albums sound like a mix of fairly obvious references. The 1975’s early music strongly resembles Michael Jackson and INXS, but their more recent albums have a sound people recognise as “The 1975”, and they’ve become influential in their own right. Both Radiohead and Silverchair had strong musical ties to the Seattle grunge scene in their early records, but they grew in different directions, and neither much resembled grunge in their later work.

Pointing out these strong early links isn’t a dig; it’s fun to hear artists figure out where they sit in the musical landscape. After the second or third album, the music begins to sound more like them. They’ve done the reps, written a ton of songs, and worked together as a unit long enough that their sound is identifiable as their own, rather than a collection of influences.

Looping back to the topic at hand: I would suggest you don’t let AI anywhere near anything you recognise as contributing to your sonic fingerprint. Don’t outsource the parts of the process that you think are the reasons people love your music, because an AI won’t approach them the way you do.

If you’re unsure whether a particular part of your process might be contributing to your unique sound, think twice before using AI tools there, too. Often, listeners recognise your characteristic quirks more easily than you do, but they’re not in the room to tell you what they are when you’re making your next record. These ambiguous elements might be the ones artists are most likely to outsource, thinking they aren’t important, not realising what they might be losing. If you start outsourcing too many of those micro-decisions along the way, your sound may never get the chance to fully flourish.

The Safe Zone: What to Actually Automate

With all this in mind, my advice is to use AI tools only for parts of your process that you are almost certain do not contribute to your sonic fingerprint.

The most obvious examples include administrative, organisational, and productivity tasks. AI excels here, and utilising these tools can save you a whole lot of time, effort, and stress by removing friction that was previously necessary but came at the expense of time spent actually being creative.

The Premium on Authenticity

As music becomes easier and faster to generate, the market will inevitably flood with perfectly competent, algorithmically polished tracks. When that happens, the messy, human, recognisable “sound” that you’ve fought to protect will become your greatest asset.

People need community, and they inherently crave real, authentic connection. AI can generate a song, but it can’t generate the human experience behind it. By fiercely protecting the parts of the process that make you you, you’re giving listeners something real to hold onto.

Do your best to figure out what those parts are, and keep them in your own hands.

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

Once things get moving in a creative session and energy is up, it’s all about keeping the momentum going. Whether you’re trying to whip some lyrics into shape or get the instrumentation to sit right, the last thing you want is for your creative flow to break because of technology hurdles that don’t need to be there.

Over the years, I’ve built up a collection of browser bookmarks and apps for creative utility tools that I turn to regularly. These aren’t expensive or complex applications, just simple, functional utilities that quickly solve a specific technical problem so I can get back to being creative. In this article, I’ll share these tools with you; hopefully, reducing some technical friction will help keep you in that flow state more often!

Let’s touch on each of the utility tools I’m talking about and why they’re so useful to have at hand quickly.

Note: If you’re becoming more serious about the time you spend on your music, I’ll introduce you to a brand new suite I’ve developed that brings all these tools together into a clean, ad-free digital dashboard. This is for people like me who would rather solve all these challenges efficiently in one trusted location. It’s called ‘The Music Factory Suite’, and I’ve included a brief video to demonstrate how I’ve integrated all the handy utility features we’re discussing here.

1. Pulse: Tap Tempo and Metronome

When I’m working with a track that doesn’t have a BPM noted, a reliable tap-tempo tool really speeds things up. While Pro Tools does have a built-in tap-tempo function, I find Taptempo.io faster to access and very accurate, so it has been my go-to for the last couple of years. It’s super basic: open the website, start tapping any key in time with the song, and it gives you the BPM in giant text. Job done, close the tab.

Similarly, a basic metronome is a fundamental requirement when practising or figuring out the right tempo for a song you’re working on. While you’ll use the click track in our DAW when recording, having an easily accessible metronome on your phone or in a browser tab is incredibly useful for off-DAW sessions. I mostly use a phone app for this called Metronome Beats, which has a lot of extra functions, but if all you need is a basic option, you can just type ‘metronome’ into Google; they’ve got one built into their search interface.

2. Words: RhymeZone and Thesaurus

Lyrics can often be the hardest part of the process. When I find myself stuck trying to get a phrase to flow right, sometimes seeing a list of rhymes or the right synonym is all I need to push past the mental block and get the words out. RhymeZone and Thesaurus.com can be great tools to help you get the message across in a way that fits the track. I don’t know how many times I’ve visited those two sites, but it’s a lot!

3. Musical Notes: Online Virtual Piano

There are times when I don’t have a MIDI controller hooked up, and I need to get a chord progression or melody out of my head. In these situations, quick access to a basic musical keyboard interface in an app or browser can help me think through the idea. Typing in ‘online virtual piano’ gives a handful of results, but most have ads all over the place, which can be annoying. OnlinePianist’s Virtual Piano is one of the cleaner options and loads relatively quickly. Sometimes this is all you need for quick note referencing purposes, and it’s much quicker than loading up your DAW to open a virtual instrument.

4. Quick Idea Capture: Voice Recorder & Scratchpad

One of the most useful tools a songwriter or composer should have quick access to is a simple phone recording app. Any modern phone will likely have a built-in recording app for free, though I’ve paid for Easy Voice Recorder Pro, as there are a few useful features that free apps often don’t have. Regardless of what you use, it needs to be really quick to access, so you can hit the record button to hum whatever little idea just popped into your head before it flutters away. My phone is full of recordings of vocal melodies, odd-sounding mouth guitar noises, and badly beatboxed rhythms I’ve recorded so I can pull them up later when I’m at my workstation to turn them into something real. Don’t let those ideas vanish; record them, even if you have to hide in a cupboard at work or go to another room in the middle of the night so you don’t wake up your wife to get that idea down (both personal experiences).

Equally useful is something you can pull up on your phone or computer to quickly jot down lyric ideas you have. As with the recorder, you should have quick access to this. I’ve got a Google Doc just called “Lyrics” which is full of all sorts of lyric ideas from the last decade. If a song I write progresses significantly, I’ll put the lyrics in a separate, appropriately filed document. But to start with, just set something up that you can open quickly and access anywhere without having to think too much.

While I’ve squeezed a lot of value out of the tools shared above over many years, I’m at the point where I find jumping between multiple browser tabs and waiting for different windows to load while accidentally clicking on ads to be more annoying than I’m prepared to deal with if I can help it. It’s still a bit too inefficient, and risks pulling me out of the zone. I wanted all these tools accessible in a single, clean interface - no ads, no distractions, just pure utility. That’s why I created The Music Factory Suite.

All-in-One Toolkit: The Music Factory Suite

The Music Factory Suite is a brand new digital dashboard I built to solve a handful of challenges I’ve faced in my creative production process over the last decade. Its main purpose is to provide useful production tools that help songwriters, composers, and engineers make more music. I know the challenges I’ve faced aren’t unique to me, so I suspect a whole lot of music-makers will find this app useful for reducing technical friction and keeping up that creative momentum.

While The Music Factory Suite has a few more in-depth tools I’ll explain in future, for now, let’s focus on all the quick utility tools it has built in:

• Quick idea recorder

• Lyric scratchpad

• Lexicon (thesaurus, rhyming words, etc.)

• Tap tempo

• Metronome

• Tuner

• Step sequencer

• Reference synth

• Circle of fifths

The Suite is designed to be bookmarked in your browser for quick access. If you open it on your phone, you can save the page to your home screen or app drawer so that it opens like a regular phone app. Keep it handy so that your digital utility belt is always there when you need it.

I made this for paid Substack subscribers, but I'm offering all subscribers a one-month free trial. If you find it really useful, upgrading to a paid subscription only costs about the price of a single coffee each month. So I invite you to take up my offer of a free month by visiting The Music Factory Suite - create an account and give it a go, no risks attached!

Tool Up

Whether you use the free bookmarks or The Music Factory Suite, the key is to have your tools ready and easily accessible before you need them. Production is about making decisions; don’t let a small technical hurdle slow down your next great idea!

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

I don’t have the greatest sleep habits. I’ve listened to multiple podcasts and read at least one book specifically about sleep (...maybe half of the book), so I could list off around a dozen proven behavioural and environmental strategies that someone could implement to improve their ‘sleep hygiene’. Do I follow this advice? Some of it, some of the time - but because sleep hygiene is all about building consistency, the answer is probably closer to ‘no’.

If I were to deny any agency or personal responsibility, I would blame my average sleep habits on the two decades of playing in bands and accommodating a musician lifestyle, involving band practices and shows that almost exclusively happen at night. While most people gradually outgrow their ‘stay up late’ tendencies after their teenage years, the musician lifestyle perpetuates those habits.

One particularly useful thing I’ve learnt from the sleep specialists is about our circadian rhythm and how the body responds to light and dark signals to regulate hormones that help regulate the awake and sleep cycles. We can use this information when planning our days to maximise energy usage.

Mapping your Day to the Circadian Rhythm

We are at our most switched-on state a few hours after we wake up. For many, this would be somewhere around 10-11am when cortisol levels are high. This means it’s a good idea to schedule things that require cognitive heavy-lifting around that time. After lunch, often between 1-3pm, you get a lull in energy (it’s definitely 3pm for me!). Some say we can be a bit more creative during these times because our inhibitory control is lower. Perhaps don’t book critical activities during this time, though; work through some mundane emails or admin that won’t require you to be at your best. Then, we often get that ‘second wind’ of energy in the early evening. Nice! Perhaps that’s a good time for exercise before dinner or catching up with friends. After 8pm, the second wind tends to fade as your body starts preparing itself for rest. Well done, you made the most of your energy by planning your schedule to suit the natural circadian rhythm. Time for a well deserved sleep at 10pm!

Now, back to that musician lifestyle - let’s see how that all maps onto a typical show day.

A Day on Tour

• 7am - Get up and meet at the van to hit the road (maybe earlier if you’re going to an airport). That’s fine - you’re drowsy, but not much energy is required - it’s just lugging around some gear and searching for a coffee stop. All good so far.

• 10am - Peak cognitive energy! High-quality, unhinged chats happening while everyone sits in the van or on the plane. Great times had by all.

• 1pm - Still in the van. The energy is wearing out now; you might be trying to sleep a bit or relax and listen to a podcast, but you’re getting uncomfortable. Should’ve remembered to grab a jumper out of your bag to use as a pillow.

• 3pm - Arrive at venue, set up and sound check; time to get your head in the game. Absolutely hitting that 3pm lull zone, though.

• 5pm - Second wind energy! Just in time to… sit around and wait for three hours for doors to open and the first band to play.

• 8pm - Your body is meant to be winding down, but you need to start warming up for the show! Maybe an energy drink and some slaps to the face will help.

• 9pm - It’s the moment everyone’s been waiting for. Time to go on stage and perform a high-energy gig, concentrating intently for around 80 minutes straight. Everyone’s counting on you to put your best foot forward and impress the audience, approximately 14 hours after you woke up, and when your body thinks it’s bedtime. Nailed it.

While the night owls among us might have a circadian typology that’s shifted a bit later in the day compared to others, it’s fair to say this musician mapping of the day is pretty misaligned with everyone’s natural rhythm. When you have to do this for multiple days in a row, the misalignment compounds, and if you don’t adopt some sensible routines and healthy eating (and drinking) habits to manage those energy levels, your body really starts to notice.

Developing Effective Habits

I’ve found that developing a bit of a routine can help ride these ebbs and flows to approach the critical gig moment with a reasonable level of mental focus and energy.

Some of the things I tend to do include:

• I avoid stodgy food during the day where possible, and avoid sugary drinks.

• I’ll keep a couple of protein bars and some nuts in my bag for snacks to help avoid eating things like potato chips and lollies that people might be passing around.

• While still hanging out and being involved in what’s going on, I’ll take moments during travel (van rides, plane trips) to close my eyes and listen to a podcast for a while to try and rest.

• Obvious one here - I manage alcohol consumption during the day (I’ll have something to drink with touring friends, but limit it), and more specifically, I’ll avoid any alcohol for at least an hour before playing, and will only drink water during the show.

• If I’m quite tired and there’s no time for a quick 3pm hotel sleep, I’ll find a spot backstage to lie on my back on the ground with my feet raised up on a chair, put in my earplugs, and get a 10-15min power nap a couple of hours before playing. Thanks to former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink for this quick energy reclaiming trick!

• I’ll spend a full hour before our set doing various exercises, including drumming and vocal warm-ups, as well as jogging, star jumps, stretching, etc.

• When there’s a show the next day, I’ll try to get back to the accom relatively soon after pack down to wind down and get to bed.

• At night, even if it’s quite late, I’ll read at least a few pages of a book on my Kindle to try and shift gears to relax my mind before attempting to sleep.

• Vital: I always make sure I have earplugs that can be worn while sleeping. You never know what random noises you’ll be blessed with during the night at the lucky dip accommodation you’re staying at!

What works will vary from person to person, but these definitely help in my case. I know because I’ve tried not doing them at times in the past and had worse results!

I recently read a great article called ‘My Toilet Bag Addiction’, about clinging to some semblance of control in an environment where you can realistically control very little, written by Vanessa McGowan (a Wisconsin/Nashville-based Kiwi musician and creative professional who tours a lot).

Unfiltered by Vanessa McGowan

My Toilet Bag Addiction

I think I’m addicted to toilet bags…

Read more

2 months ago · 5 likes · 13 comments · Vanessa McGowan

While I haven’t been on tours as extensive as she has, I recognised the journey of experimenting with different ways to approach such a topsy-turvy lifestyle. I feel like I’m always tweaking my show-day routine, trying to implement new ideas to better manage my energy and focus so I’m in a strong state late in the day.

I’m always interested in hearing how other people approach show days and touring routines, so to the touring musos out there, share your best energy-maintenance tricks in the comments!

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

Vocals are often the most important element in a mix. Getting a voice to sound full, present, and airy without sounding harsh can be a challenge.

This might be a familiar scenario: you open an EQ and boost the top end for some vocal sheen. Initially, you think it sounds great, but then you realise you’ve also amplified a range of harsh frequencies you weren’t really noticing before in the singer’s upper mids and highs. Worse, the sibilant ‘S’ and ‘SH’ sounds are now really jumping out.

The Problem with Traditional Fixes

When this happens, the standard toolkit sometimes falls short:

1. De-essers: You pull down the threshold to catch the sibilance, which helps with the ‘ess’ sounds but leaves the glassy harshness in the tonal parts untouched.

2. Dynamic or Spectral EQ: You try to dip the harshness only when it occurs. However, because sibilance often overlaps with the frequency range you’re targeting, the ‘S’ sounds trigger the processing much more than the tonal harshness does. You end up with a lispy vocal that still sounds harsh.

3. Static Notching: You try several thin, high-Q cuts to kill specific resonances. But because the vocalist’s pitch and timbre vary, the resonant frequencies move around slightly. Before long, your EQ looks like an upside-down hedgehog, and the vocal sounds dull again.

Every vocalist and microphone combination presents unique challenges. The technique I’m sharing is a hands-on, surgical solution for those difficult sessions where standard processing just isn’t cutting it. I don’t do this with every mix, but it’s a good trick to have up your sleeve!

↓ I’ve included a video demonstration toward the end of this article ↓

Melodyne: Not Just for Tuning

Most audio practitioners know Melodyne as a pitch-correction tool. While it’s world-class in that department, it also has a variety of other useful applications for manipulating vocals and instruments.

One lesser-known use is managing sibilance. Unlike a traditional de-esser, which reacts in real time when a signal hits a threshold, Melodyne first scans the audio. During that scan, it distinguishes between pitched, tonal audio and unpitched sibilant noise, and handles them differently during editing. The Sibilant Balance control lets you adjust the balance between these two elements across all the notes you have selected, even an entire vocal track. This is available in all editions of Melodyne 5 except for the basic ‘Essential’ version.

The Strategy: Separating the Tonal from Sibilant Parts of the Signal

Our goal is to use spectral dynamics to tame glassy frequencies without the sibilance interfering with the processor’s threshold. To do this, we can split the vocal into two distinct tracks: one containing only the tonal information and one containing only the sibilance.

Note: This process involves rendering audio, so I recommend creating a safety backup in a hidden track or duplicate playlist before you begin.

Step 1: Extracting the Tonal Track

Start by duplicating the vocal track. On your first track, select all the audio within Melodyne. Move the Sibilant Balance slider to -100%. This effectively eliminates the sibilant sounds, leaving you with just the notes. Render this audio and label the track ‘Vocals (Tonal)’.

Step 2: Extracting the Sibilant Track

On the duplicate track, set the Sibilant Balance to +100%. Now, the tonal parts are removed, leaving behind only the ‘S’, ‘T’, ‘SH’, and ‘CH’ sounds. Render this and label it ‘Vocals (Sibilance)’.

Step 3: Reconstruct the Vocal

Place both tracks into a routing folder (or a group or stack, depending on your DAW). The two tracks will sound very odd when played back solo, but when played together, they should slot back in like puzzle pieces, sounding identical to your original recording. Pretty impressive! To affect the vocals as a single source, add plugins to the folder rather than each individual track.

De-Harshing with Precision

Now that the vocal is split, you have a new level of control. You can add a spectral dynamics processor or a dynamic EQ just to the ‘Vocals (Tonal)’ track. Because the sibilance is no longer triggering the processor’s threshold, you can target those thin, glassy frequencies in the high-mids and highs. The processor will only react to the harshness in the singer’s voice, leaving the sibilant sounds crisp and untouched, because they’re on a separate track. A broad EQ boost would then add air to the vocal tone without affecting sibilance.

Bonus: A Manual De-Esser Alternative

This split also gives you greater control than traditional de-essing. Instead of using a de-esser with static settings to compress sibilance, you can just turn down the ‘Vocals (Sibilance)’ track by a few dB. Because it’s all laid out visually in front of you, you can look at the waveform of the whole track; if any sibilant moments are still too loud, you can use clip gain or volume automation to adjust them to taste.

You could also EQ your sibilance if needed. Some singers create sibilance where certain frequencies whistle through more than others; EQing just the sibilance track lets you cut those frequencies without altering the vocal tone.

A Useful Technique for Difficult Situations

The technology behind this technique hasn’t been around for very long, and it’s great to consider new ways to tackle mixing challenges as it continues to evolve. While I’ve focused on Melodyne here because many engineers will already have it, there are a few other new plugins that can do a similar job, such as splitS by apulSoft and Re-Esser by Wavesfactory, which work in real time rather than offline or via ARA2 integration.

It’s worth noting that a well-recorded vocal track, using a microphone that suits the singer’s voice, may not require this approach. Many fantastic vocal performances have been captured and mixed expertly without this level of intervention. However, we don’t always have the luxury of a perfect vocal recording. While quite involved, this is a great option to keep in mind for achieving a smooth, high-end vocal sound when other solutions just aren’t working. Give it a try on your next difficult vocal mix!

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

If you ask five different people what they think a music producer does, you might get five different answers. To some, it’s the experienced head in the studio control room, guiding a band through recording their song. For others, it’s a kid hunched over a laptop programming 808s. Some people might even think it applies to the person using an AI music-creation tool like Suno (let’s hope we haven’t gone that far...).

The term is confusing because it carries varied meanings. This is unfortunate, because some of the most vital, overarching roles of the traditional ‘record producer’ are at risk of being overlooked if artists don’t realise what they’re missing. Without the specialised oversight that a traditional producer provides, much of the music out there won’t reach its full potential.

This article looks at what a record producer does and why the role is so valuable in the music production process.

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The Traditional Role: The ‘Director’ of the Record

In music, a producer can be understood as the audio equivalent of a film director; the person responsible for overseeing the entire creative, technical, and logistical execution of a recording project. Their main goal is to help guide an artist through the process of turning a raw song into its final, polished state. They are the objective ear in the room, responsible for translating the artist’s vision into a finished recording.

Their work generally falls into several categories:

• Pre-production and arrangement: Before anyone even enters the studio, the producer works with the artist to choose which songs to record. They break down the songs to examine structure, tempo, and key, making arrangement decisions with the artist to ensure each track flows effectively. They can suggest what instrumentation is needed and help define the overarching sonic vision.

• Recording and performance: The producer helps to choose the right recording space, hire necessary session musicians or engineers, and manage the schedule. During recording, they coach the artist’s performance. They know when to push a vocalist for a more emotional take, when to prompt a performer to adjust their playing, and when to wrap up the session once physical and creative energy is drained.

• Post-production and oversight: Once tracking is complete, the producer oversees the editing process. They provide stylistic guidance to the mixing and mastering engineers and communicate feedback to make sure the final sound aligns with the original vision established in pre-production.

• Project management: The producer is also an administrator. They are responsible for keeping the project within budget, managing schedules, and serving as the primary liaison among the band, the engineers, and other stakeholders, such as label representatives.

Defining Success Before Hitting Record

If goals haven’t been discussed beforehand, there’s a problem. How can a producer know if the project is headed in the right direction if there isn’t a shared understanding of what success looks like? Before tracking begins, a producer should get to know the artist by asking questions to define the project’s parameters.

Here are a few questions I always like to establish early on:

What kind of sound are you aiming for? What stylistic references do you have in mind?

Getting reference tracks from the artist can be extremely useful for envisioning the outcome. There are certain recording approaches and techniques that achieve a particular sound, so you need to know what the artist wants before you decide which ones to use. Should the guitars be double-tracked? Should the vocals have prominent harmonies or sound more like a single voice? What type of sonic space are you going for: a big, lush sound, or a thrashy punk aesthetic?

I’ve found that it can also be useful to request different references for different elements of the track. For example, requesting a reference where the artist likes the overall sound of the mix, one where they like the style of the drums, one for the vocal treatment, and one for the guitars. This is a useful exercise for the artist, and it can give the producer vital clues to inform their approach.

Is this song intended to be a single? Are we aiming for radio play and streaming playlists, or is this an ‘album track’?

The answers to these questions strongly influence production, particularly song structure. While there are exceptions, most songs that achieve significant radio rotation or streaming success fall within a specific duration window. Pop songs often sit in the 2:30 to 3:30 region, while rock songs might stretch to 4:00. Singles also benefit from being instantly recognisable, utilising characteristic elements right up front to catch a new listener’s attention.

Conversely, some tracks work best when duration isn’t a consideration at all. Perhaps a longer, more gradual intro is called for, or a bridge that changes gear for more than eight bars. ‘Album tracks’ aren’t necessarily just those that weren’t good enough to be singles; often, they help glue an album together by providing more depth, showcasing a broader range of an artist’s character traits.

What’s the budget for this project?

Beyond what the producer is paid, it’s useful to know how much money is available to cover production expenses (hiring studios, engineers, session musicians, etc.). If the budget allows, recording everything in a beautiful commercial studio with the same engineer for the whole project might make things run incredibly smoothly. However, the producer might know about decent smaller studios or have access to a home studio, which would likely be much cheaper and might still be suitable for everything except live drums. Hiring a big room just for the drums and then moving to a smaller space for overdubs can save a lot of money while maintaining top-tier quality.

What are you looking for in a producer?

Producers come with many different approaches, working styles, and specialist skill sets. Opening this dialogue with an artist ensures everyone is on the same page about how hands-on or hands-off the producer should be and which areas of expertise the artist hopes the producer will bring to the process.

One of the main benefits of asking questions like these is that the artist may not have actually thought about them yet. Prompting this discussion before production starts is invaluable. If the artist is a band, they might not be aligned on these goals; either they disagree, or just haven’t broached the topic. A producer can spark this conversation so everyone gets on board with a shared goal from the outset. Leaving these questions unasked until halfway through tracking is incredibly risky, as the creative choices you’ve already made might conflict with newly discovered goals.

Pre-Production: Where the Song Craft Happens

Early experiences for many new artists and bands often skip the pre-production stage entirely. Usually, this is because they either don’t understand it or don’t yet recognise how much value it can add.

The typical workflow might look like this: a band writes a song in the rehearsal room, gets it to a point where they can play it through start to finish, and then they find a local engineer to record it for a daily rate. They track the instrument parts, have them mixed and mastered, and release the song.

While a producer’s guidance is important during tracking and their oversight continues to steer the project toward completion in the later stages, pre-production is arguably where they add the most significant value. This is where the actual song craft takes place.

A good producer looks at the raw song and identifies where the fat needs to be trimmed, where the tension needs to build, whether the tempo needs adjusting, and whether the key truly serves the artist’s voice. This phase isn’t just about getting ready; it’s about enhancing the piece of work so that it has a greater impact and its essence is communicated more effectively. Having gone through this many times as both an artist and a producer, I’ve come to understand this as an essential part of the process; there are certain things that you just can’t fix in the mix, regardless of how good the mixing engineer is. By investing in pre-production, you ensure that the time spent in the studio is focused more on capturing a great performance of a great song, rather than building it on the spot.

Unlocking the Full Potential

A producer is much more than a ‘nice to have’ technical facilitator or a studio administrator. They are a strategic partner whose primary goal is to help an artist reach a level of excellence they might not achieve on their own. By providing a bird’s-eye view of the project and handling the logistical and technical heavy lifting, the producer frees the artist to focus on the creative performance.

Whether you are a solo artist or part of a band, understanding the breadth of this role is a step towards creating more impactful music. An effective producer can be the difference between a good song and a great one, better capturing the artist’s vision and delivering it to the listener with greater clarity and impact.

💬 Have you ever spent time in a dedicated pre-production phase? What have your experiences been like?

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

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The kick drum and bassline pose mixing challenges because their core frequencies overlap in the low end of the spectrum. Deciding which one should be more dominant - often depending on the style and genre - and giving it a slight volume edge over the other is a good starting point for getting the balance right. From there, several mixing techniques can help the kick and bass sit together more effectively. Some of these involve sidechain processing.

Sidechaining a kick drum to an appropriate processor on the bass track can temporarily reduce the bassline’s energy, creating space for the kick to punch through clearly (often called ‘ducking’). When done well, neither track will suffer much, but both will sound clearer in the mix. Giving each track its own space prevents overlapping frequencies from building up into undefined, low-end muddiness.

Isn’t Sidechain Ducking Just for EDM?

While it’s often used to create the familiar rhythmic pumping effect heard in EDM and other electronic genres, it can also be applied effectively to pop, rock, and other genres. As well as making the kick and bass more audible, a bit of sidechain processing can give the low end that ‘glue’ feeling where the tracks seem more connected, as if they’re grooving along together as one.

Sidechain compression techniques originally arose to solve problems, used by engineers to create early de-essers and to automatically duck music beneath a radio DJ’s voice in broadcasting (where the ‘ducking’ term came from). It became common for some studio engineers to use the technique subtly to help kick drums cut through dense basslines in the ‘80s, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that dance music producers began using it in a more overt, intentional way as an effect. Since then, it’s become a staple sound in electronic genres.

As with many mixing challenges, using several approaches together is often the best way to achieve a great result. I think about the relationship between kick and bass when applying EQ, compression, and sometimes saturation, and I generally shape the kick drum’s envelope based on its role in the arrangement (I’ll dive into these topics in future articles). All of these, along with sidechain processing, can work together to improve the relationship between kick and bass across a wide range of genres.

Let’s take a look at four different sidechain approaches for kick and bass, each giving a slightly different result. I’ve also included a video demonstration of these four approaches below.

1. Using a Compressor’s External Sidechain (Classic Approach)

This is the conventional way to achieve the widely recognised ducking effect. The bass compressor’s external sidechain receives input from the kick drum, and each time the kick hits, it triggers the compressor to quickly duck the volume.

You’ll need to play around with the attack and release settings to get it sitting right. Generally, a fast attack is required because you’re dealing with transients; otherwise, the front of the kick drum will get through before the bass ducks down, so the compressor won’t be doing what you want. Make sure you check how fast your compressor can react without causing an audible click - not all compressors do a great job with attack set all the way up. Adjust the release so that it fits well with the groove of the track.

Some modern digital compressor plugins also have ‘lookahead’ settings. This will introduce a small amount of latency in exchange for letting the compressor see what’s coming up, allowing the compressor to reach the target gain reduction at the precise start of a transient, eliminating the clicks or pops that often occur with near-instantaneous attack settings. This is particularly handy when sidechaining a bass with a kick, because lookahead means the bass is already out of the way when the kick hits, creating an even cleaner separation.

2. Using a Volume Shaper with an Audio Trigger (More Control)

LFO tools let you shape parameters like volume over time, synced to your DAW’s tempo, frequency in hertz, or triggered by MIDI. These tools have been around for a while, but some of the newer ones - such as Shaperbox 3 - can be triggered by audio events, including an external sidechain signal. This means you can set up a shaper module in the same way as you would with a sidechain compressor. The advantage of a shaper module is that instead of attack, release, and threshold, you can draw in the precise shape of the ducking. With Shaperbox, you can even make it reactive to the input level, so it uses your ducking shape while also adjusting the amount of ducking based on the input signal level; heavy kicks duck the bass more, while lighter kicks duck it less.

While Shaperbox doesn’t have a lookahead option (hopefully a future version will introduce this feature), you can get a similar result by starting the volume level from closer to the low point rather than at 100%, so that when the kick hits, the shape is essentially increasing back to full volume rather than having to quickly duck right down first.

3. Only Ducking the Low End - Multiband (Subtle)

This technique can be done either with a plugin like Shaperbox 3, or with a multiband compressor such as Fabfilter Pro-MB. The setup is the same as the two previous techniques, except that you only duck the low end of the bass using multiband functionality. If you set the crossover just above where the punch typically occurs in the kick drum (around 100Hz), you duck out the most problematic clashing frequencies from the bass while leaving all the mid- and upper-frequency detail at full volume. Like Fabfilter’s compressor Pro-C 3, their bultiband Pro-MB has lookahead, which I’d recommend using for sidechaining.

4. Only Ducking the Low End - Spectral Dynamics (Subtle)

Using the sidechain feature of a plugin such as Soothe2 provides a particularly transparent way to duck the low end of the bass when the kick hits. With the multiband approach discussed in the previous point, you achieve greater transparency than a single-band compressor by ducking only the low end of the bass. The difference with using a spectral dynamics plugin like Soothe2 is that the frequencies being ducked match the specific kick drum you’re using, offering an even more transparent option. Soothe isn’t just being triggered by the level of the sidechain signal; it’s reacting to the specific high-energy frequencies in your kick drum and ducking only those frequencies from the bassline, connecting the two more like puzzle pieces.

While Soothe is a popular choice for this technique, including by star mixing engineers like Jaycen Joshua, one thing to note is that Soothe2 doesn’t have a lookahead function. There are some other spectral dynamics plugins that do have lookahead, such as threebodytech SpecCraft. While SpecCraft might be a bit more fidgety to set up than Soothe, the addition of lookahead is a particular strength for creating transparent sidechaining.

Choosing the Right Tool for Your Track

Approaching the relationship between kick and bass involves selecting the right tool for the specific musical context. Whether you opt for the rhythmic energy of a classic compressor, the subtlety of a multiband approach, or the surgical transparency of spectral dynamics, these sidechaining techniques are useful additions to your toolkit for maintaining a solid low end. As you experiment with these workflows, remember that the goal is to create a cohesive foundation in which both elements can coexist without much compromise. By effectively combining these sidechain approaches with other mixing techniques, your rhythm section will have both the weight and the clarity to carry the rest of your mix.

💬 Have you experimented with the newer spectral dynamics methods for sidechaining, or do you still find the tactile control of a classic compressor or volume shaper more intuitive for your productions?

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

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The Perfection Trap

It’s easy to get bogged down in the pursuit of perfection when creating music. At some point in our careers, many of us have spent hours, days, or even weeks stuck on choosing the “right” synth patch or agonising over a single lyric in a bridge too early in the process, searching for a result that remains just out of reach.

As I built up more experience in songwriting and production - and worked with a growing number of talented people - I started noticing a pattern. I eventually realised something that fundamentally changed my mindset and helped me build more productive creative habits:

The most effective way to approach creative perfection is to acknowledge that it simply does not exist.

Instead of chasing an impossible standard from the get-go, there’s a more productive - and ultimately more enjoyable - way to approach the creative process. It just requires a small mindset shift, and I find a particular analogy helpful for explaining it.

The Sandpaper Analogy

This productivity analogy was introduced to me by producer and Shihad drummer Tom Larkin. The core idea is that in the early stages of the creative process, you should aim for broad strokes and rapid progress while intentionally avoiding minute details. This allows you to generate more demos in less time.

Think about it in terms of woodworking: when sanding a piece of wood, you wouldn’t begin with fine-grit sandpaper. Progress would be incredibly slow, and the paper would wear out before you made much progress. It’s far more efficient to start with a coarse grit to remove the bulk of the material and shape the wood quickly, then move to finer grits for refinement later.

Prioritising Efficiency in the “Generation” Phase

In my workflow, I divide production into three stages: Generation, Development, and Refinement (I’ll dive deeper into this model in a future article).

The coarse sandpaper approach belongs to the Generation stage. This is the time to be messy. Instead of getting hung up on EQ-ing a kick drum or perfecting a vocal melody that might not even make the final cut, your only goal is to capture the essence of an idea and move on to the next one.

If you labour over one demo for an entire month, you end up with exactly one demo. It might be good, but it might not. However, if you spend that same month making fifteen rough-around-the-edges demos, you can then pick the top three to move into the Development stage. Statistically speaking, picking the best three out of fifteen options gives you much better odds of success than having only one option to work with.

Practical Exercise: “30-Minute Mining”

This is an exercise I use to build a collection of new song ideas for my solo project, n1ghtmar3cat. Thanks to producer Alex Wildwood for sharing his version of this concept at a workshop a few years back.

The ‘30-Minute Mining’ exercise is simple: Set a timer for 30 minutes and challenge yourself to create a piece of music from scratch. To make this work, I use a custom-built DAW template with audio tracks and useful virtual instruments already set up - a piano, a versatile synth, bass sounds, a basic virtual drum kit, etc. - so I don’t waste time browsing plugins (I walk through my template in this article).

The beauty of the strict time constraint is that it forces you to:

• Make quick decisions and trust your initial instincts.

• Avoid overthinking and bypass “analysis paralysis”.

• Focus on the core arrangement rather than getting lost in sound design or micro-edits.

Side note: If you’re interested in learning more about this exercise, I’ve created a 30-Minute Mining PDF guide, which is free for my Substack subscribers (a $47 value). Subscribing is free, and you get the added bonus of receiving these articles directly to your inbox once a fortnight.

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The Benefits of Embracing Imperfection

This approach has been transformative for my workflow. By embracing imperfection early on, I’ve become more productive and less “precious” about individual ideas. If a 30-minute sketch doesn’t work, I haven’t lost a week of my life - I’ve only lost half an hour, and I know I’ll have another go the next day!

All the 30-minute sketches get filed and indexed in an “Ideas Bank” folder. They might not be right for today, but they often become useful later on to harvest ideas for other projects. It has freed me to experiment more and discover unexpected musical directions that I likely would have missed if I were hyper-focused on perfection from the start.

Key Takeaway

Don’t let the pursuit of perfection stifle your output. Embrace the coarse sandpaper approach. Get those ideas down, iterate quickly, and trust that you’ll have plenty of time to refine and polish them later. The most important thing is to keep the creative momentum moving and enjoy the experimentation.

💬 How do you handle the “blank canvas” when making music? Do you prefer to work slowly on one idea, or are you a fan of rapid-fire sketching? Let me know in the comments.

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

It’s not often that a brand-new category of mixing tools comes along. New equalisers, compressors, saturators, delays, and reverbs hit the market every year, but they’re usually different flavours of concepts that have been around for many decades. Product differentiation between most hardware units and software plugins generally comes down to sound quality, character, functionality, user interface, and other preference-based factors, not fundamentally different ideas.

One mixing engineer may use a completely different selection of plugins than another, but you can guarantee both selections will include at least one EQ, a compressor, a reverb, a delay, and some kind of distortion or saturation. The tools I use have improved significantly since I started producing and mixing in 2009 in terms of quality and functionality, but they all fall into familiar categories - at least until I added Oeksound’s Soothe (now Soothe2) to my toolkit.

Spectral Dynamics

Unlike a traditional EQ that cuts a static frequency, or a dynamic EQ that reacts when a specific band crosses a threshold, Soothe operates in the spectral domain. It identifies problematic resonances in real time and applies reduction only where and when needed. It’s essentially a smart, transparent suppressor that saves you from going down the rabbit hole of chasing harsh frequencies.

While a limited number of plugin developers have been experimenting with spectral approaches for a while now, such as Voxengo with Soniformer (a spectral mastering plugin from the early 2000s) and Melda Production with MSpectralDynamics (2009), Soothe really popularised spectral dynamics with its 2016 release, focusing on automatic resonance suppression and a slick, easy-to-use, EQ-like interface. Soothe’s popularity has led to multiple new entrants hitting the market in recent years. Even Pro-Q 4 from Fabfilter now includes spectral dynamics, making it great value, seeing as it’s also the best overall EQ plugin, in my opinion. There’s also SpecCraft by Three-Body Technology, which is an excellent, highly customisable option. Curves Equator from Waves is likely the cheapest alternative when it’s on special, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as SpecCraft and Soothe. For me, Soothe still wins as my go-to for ease of use and UI, but it is very expensive (US$219). If I didn’t already have Soothe, I’d probably buy SpecCraft (US$89) or just use the functionality within Pro-Q 4.

There are also a number of spectral dynamics tools designed primarily as tonal shapers across the full mix, such as Gullfoss by Soundtheory and the Clarity and Stabilizer modules in iZotope Ozone, but I’ll focus more on the precision plugins in this article.

Spectral dynamics tools are regularly useful and have become a core part of my workflow. I’ve covered a few of my most common use cases below. You can also scroll down for a quick video demonstration showing Soothe2 and Pro-Q 4 in action.

Taming Vocal Harshness Without Losing the Air

One of my primary uses for spectral processing is on vocals. We sometimes want vocals to sound bright and present, but boosting the high-mids and/or high frequencies can quickly result in harsh, piercing tones.

Traditional EQ is sometimes too static to fix this effectively; if you cut the harshness, you might lose the presence that makes the vocal sit forward in the mix, and because it’s static, a cut takes away those frequencies even when harshness isn’t an issue. Spectral dynamics tracks frequencies as they move, so you can target the appropriate range where the harshness occurs, affecting the sound when and where needed and leaving it alone the rest of the time.

Cleaning Up Whistles and Harsh Bands in Electric Guitars

Electric guitars, particularly when distorted, are notorious for creating narrow bands of non-musical noise and whistling resonances. By non-musical, I mean that the frequency of the noise band or whistle doesn’t really change much when you play different notes.

I’ve always been quite particular about this issue - I think getting the non-musical distortion bands balanced right is a huge part of getting a great studio guitar tone, and it’s just not something you can do with the controls on a guitar amp alone (I might piss off some guitar purists here, but I’m backing myself).

In the past, I’d use several high-Q cuts to hunt these down. The problem is that when the whistle frequencies inevitably move around even a small amount, the high-Q cuts you’ve set will probably miss the target, requiring more cuts. If you widen the band, you’ll start to dull the tone too much.

With spectral dynamics, you can focus processing on the broader noise band and hit the target consistently with very fast, precise dynamic cuts. It cleans up the non-musical band of noise without making the guitar tone sound dull or hollow, which ultimately lets you turn the guitar up louder without masking other elements or becoming painful to listen to.

Keeping the Weight Without the Mud

Another great use for spectral dynamics is to control the fundamental frequencies and/or second harmonics of instruments like acoustic guitar, piano, or synths. There is a critical region in the low-mids (around 200Hz–400Hz) where “body” lives, but it’s also where “mud” accumulates, especially when you have multiple tracks competing in this area. The terms “body” and “mud” are essentially different descriptive names for the same frequency range, depending on whether it’s helping or hurting the mix.

If you use a static shelf or bell EQ to dip this area, it’s easy to overdo it, and the instrument can quickly sound thin. With spectral dynamics, you can control the buildup of these frequencies on the fly. It keeps the low-mid energy consistent and punchy, leaving the body when it’s needed but pulling it back when it starts to overwhelm the mix. You can absolutely take on this task with a multiband compressor or a dynamic EQ, but it’s worth remembering that spectral dynamics is an option worth trying, as it may work better in certain situations.

Sidechain Magic

Just like sidechaining a kick drum signal to a bass guitar compressor so that the bass ducks out of the way temporarily when the kick hits, helping them to sit alongside each other more effectively, spectral dynamics can be used to slot two signals together. The difference is that with spectral dynamics, only the most prominent frequencies get pulled out of the affected signal, so you can get the two signals to fit together very transparently. Getting the hang of this “unmasking” technique can significantly improve your mix clarity. There are several plugins that specifically focus on the unmasking side of spectral dynamics, including Wavesfactory’s Trackspacer, Sonible’s pure:unmask, and Waves’ Curves Resolve, though plugins like Soothe, Pro-Q 4 and SpecCraft can also do this task.

A New Category of Troubleshooting Tools

Soothe2 and the new range of spectral dynamics tools aren’t just another “flavour” of EQ; they genuinely represent a new way to approach problem-solving in a mix. There are some phenomenal mixes coming out these days, particularly in heavy rock, that make me wonder whether the fullness and clarity they achieve could be attained without these tools. Spectral dynamics offers a level of precision that opens up entirely new possibilities for shaping our music.

💬 Have you made the jump to spectral processors yet? If so, how do you tend to use them?

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

I’ve previously discussed a system I call 30-Minute Mining, which generates many musical ideas that can serve as creative sketches. Some of these sketches will eventually grow into full songs, some might be harvested for parts when you’re working on another song, and some might spark other ideas.

To make my 30-Minute Mining sessions as efficient and productive as possible, I’ve made a custom DAW template that streamlines my workflow and lets me capture ideas quickly. A template is simply a pre-made session with commonly used audio and software instrument tracks, plugins already instantiated, and signal routing set up. It means that rather than opening a completely blank session and starting from scratch, requiring tedious setup that wastes time and breaks my creative flow, I can start from a place where the prep work is already done. The tools I use are already there at my fingertips.

FYI: I’ve just finished developing a learning guide called 30-Minute Mining - A Practical System for Generating Song Ideas That Actually Go Somewhere, a downloadable PDF which includes printable Session Checklist and Four-Week Challenge Tracker resources ($47 value), currently available free for The Music Factory Substack subscribers (click below).

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Apologies to readers who prefer my more conceptual articles - this one dives right into production territory! It’ll be particularly valuable if you’re a music producer, engineer, or musician trying to improve your in-the-box demo creation skills.

Here’s a breakdown of my template and some tips on how you can build your own.

My Creative Template

My preferred DAW software is Pro Tools Studio, but the principles discussed here apply to any DAW. If you have any questions or want to clarify anything I brushed over too quickly, please leave a comment - I’d be happy to discuss further.

Here’s what my template looks like. It’s a long image… the article continues below!

Ready-to-Go Audio Tracks

I have dedicated audio tracks prepared for vocals and guitar - the two most common things I record at my home studio. Each track is named and colour-coded, and the go-to plugins are loaded. Most plugins are deactivated by default, so they don’t slow everything down, but can be quickly activated as needed.

These are the specific audio tracks I have ready to go (Logic/Ableton users: when I mention “routing folders”, mirror with track stacks/groups):

• Lead vocal tracks x3. EQ with low end rolled off to 80Hz, compressor with some preferred settings dialled in, deesser. These tracks are nested under a Lead Vocals routing folder.

• Backing vocal tracks x 4. Same plugins as above, except I use the FabFilter Pro-DS on backing vocals, as it can completely duck out S sounds, which the regular Waves DeEsser I use can’t do (I often deess backing vocals quite heavily). These tracks are contained in a Backing Vocals routing folder.

• Vocal FX routing folder set up, empty to begin with but created so that any effected vocal clips that I make along the way can be added to this folder (I create lots of sounds using vocal effects - read about my approach with vocal manipulation here).

• Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, and Vocal FX routing folders all go under a VOCALS ALL routing folder, which goes to the master bus separately from the INSTRUMENTS ALL routing folder. I keep these separate as I usually add an unmasking plugin such as pure:unmask (Sonible) to the INSTRUMENTS ALL folder track, sidechained to the lead vocals so it very subtly carves clashing frequencies out of the instrumentation to make the lead vocals stand out more (do this with care). Having separate vocals and instruments folders also means I can mute all vocals at once to create instrumental bounces, work on the instrumentation, or mute all instruments to hear the vocals in isolation.

• Guitar audio tracks x2, set up with inputs that come from my Amplitube guitar amp simulator software, which I usually run standalone rather than as a plugin.

Virtual Instruments

I have tracks loaded with virtual instruments that I frequently use as starting points for creative ideas. This is useful because all I need to do is record-enable a track to start making familiar sounds with a MIDI keyboard (or using the musical typing keyboard feature most DAWs have). You can change the sounds later if needed, but having a range of software instruments ready to go lets you quickly try ideas as they come, rather than spending 30 seconds setting things up and potentially forgetting the cool idea you had.

Like the preloaded audio plugins, these software instruments are deactivated by default, so they don’t consume valuable CPU until needed. Opening a blank session that is already slow would be counterproductive! I activate the instruments I want to use as I go.

Here are the virtual instruments I have in my template, all nested under their relevant subfolders (noted in bold):

• Drums

  • A basic acoustic drum kit with multi-track output routing using Handy Drums Studio Standard (GoranGrooves)

  • Kick drum designer using Kick 3 (Sonic Academy)

  • Snare drum designer using DC Snares (Scaler Music)

• Percussion

  • A stomps, claps, and finger snaps sampler called El Clapo (Boz Digital) - Side note: this is a secret weapon production tool; hardly anyone seems to know about it!

  • An experimental percussion sampler I’ve just started trying out called Random Metal (Beatsurfing VST)

• Bass

  • Bass guitar emulation using MODO Bass 2 (IK Multimedia) with EQ, distortion, and multi-band compression plugins shaping it up as a good starting point

  • Reece bass patch using Serum 2 (Xfer Records)

  • Pluck patch using Serum 2

  • Clean sub patch using Serum 2

  • Distorted sub & bass generator called Random (Beatsurfing VST)

• Keys

  • General-purpose electronic piano patch for chord ideas using Serum 2

  • Pluck synth for lead melody ideas using Serum 2

PRO TIP: You may have noticed in my DAW template screenshot that all my Audio and Virtual Instrument tracks are set by default to -6 dB. This helps with gain staging, so your levels don’t hit the ceiling when you start stacking sound sources, preventing issues down the track.

Samples

I have a dedicated folder of pre-indexed percussion and effect samples, which I can quickly access using the Waves COSMOS sample finder plugin set up on an empty track. I also use Splice, which is now built into Pro Tools. I don’t tend to use loops (unless it’s something as simple as an egg shaker percussion loop), so these are mostly one-shot sounds.

Auxiliary / Effect Return Tracks

I have several tracks set up with useful reverbs and delays to use as starting points, mainly for vocals. These include:

• Reverbs

  • A vocal reverb using FabFilter Pro-R 2 (FabFilter)

  • A more vast, longer tail reverb using Equinox (iZotope)

  • An ethereal reverb using EchoBoy (SoundToys) modified from the “EchoBoy’s Galaxy” preset

• Delays

  • A lush-sounding general-purpose delay using Timeless 3 (FabFilter)

  • A multi-tap vocal delay after a short reverb using SuperTap 6 (Waves)

  • A vocal slapback using EchoBoy, modified from the 15 ips Tape Echo preset

Master Bus

My master track will be set up with the plugins I usually use, but they’ll be disabled to start with - I don’t want these to affect the sound until I’m at the stage where I have a basic mix going. These are the plugins I start with on my master bus:

• FG-Grey (Slate Digital), which emulates the SSL bus compressor, set to the “Punchy Mix” preset, with a wet/dry mix at 50% (I’ll set the threshold when I eventually turn it on)

• Ozone 12 (iZotope)

• Insight 2 (iZotope) for visual metering

That’s it! Once I’m underway developing a song, I’ll delete any tracks I don’t need, add others, change settings as needed, etc.

Tips for Building Your Custom Template

You’re welcome to copy any of my ideas above, but here are some tips for building your own custom template.

1. Identify Your Go-To Tools

• What are the instruments you most frequently use in your music? If you’re a guitarist, have a guitar track ready. If you use software synths, load your favourites.

• What are the plugins you reach for most often? Having a basic signal chain already set up for each track can save you valuable time. There are probably a few plugins you use over and over; might as well eliminate the repetitive setup steps!

• What are your favourite samples? Create a folder with your most-used percussion and effect samples, and get some software that can help locate relevant samples when you need them.

2. Create Dedicated Tracks

• Set up tracks for each of your core instruments and virtual instruments.

• Label the tracks clearly for easy navigation.

• Colour-code your tracks to visually distinguish between instruments, and use the same colour associations every time so you get familiar with them.

3. Configure Basic Settings

• Set input and output settings for each track.

• Add your essential plugins to each track.

• Save instrument and plugin presets for your most used sounds.

4. Organise Your Samples

• Create a dedicated folder for your favourite samples.

• Organise the samples into subfolders by category (e.g., kicks, snares, percussion, effects).

• Get a plugin like COSMOS that can index and search for appropriate samples.

5. Test and Refine

• Use your template for a few 30-Minute Mining sessions.

• Identify any bottlenecks in your workflow.

• Adjust your template based on your experience to optimise efficiency.

Set Yourself Up for Success

By investing a bit of time upfront to build a custom template, you’ll be able to jump into your 30-Minute Mining sessions much faster, avoid blank-page syndrome, and focus on what matters most: generating ideas! Remember, this is about embracing imperfection and prioritising efficiency, so keep your template streamlined and focused on your core creative tools.

Happy mining!

p.s. Ready to mine? Get the complete 30-Minute Mining system for free ($47 value) with guide, session checklist & 4-week challenge tracker (free for Substack subscribers only - subscribe below):

To bring in the new year, I’ve given this Substack a massive revamp, rebranding it to “The Music Factory with Dave Johnston” to reflect the project's new scope and upcoming plans. At the same time, I’ve created a brand-new resource that I’m offering free to all my subscribers ($47 value), based on a concept I’ve touched on in a couple of previous articles called ‘30-Minute Mining’. It’s all about building creative habits to generate lots of new ideas quickly, hone your technical skills, and beat creative block.

Free gift for all subscribers

This is the first Music Factory guide I’ve put together - shout out if you enjoy it, and let me know how you get on!

🎁 Click below for your copy of my new 30-Minute Mining guide with Session Checklist & Four-Week Challenge Tracker printables:

👉 30-Minute Mining - A Practical System for Generating Song Ideas That Actually Go Somewhere

NEW - Paid subscriber tier

I’ve also added a brand-new paid tier (get it now at the lowest price it’ll ever be) for subscribers who want to support what I’m doing with this project and pick up some extra perks:

🎛️ Mix/production feedback via email (2 credits per month, rollover up to 6 credits). Email me at dave@davejohnston.nz with a stereo file of the track you want feedback on.

👥 One-on-one creative consultation (Zoom) - I’ll meet with you in a 30-minute online session to discuss your creative goals and provide tips or advice depending on what you’re seeking. Email me at dave@davejohnston.nz to arrange a meeting and let me know what you’d like to discuss during our session!

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If your hard drive is a graveyard of half-finished projects, 8-bar loops, and doomed demos named “idea_27_final_v2.mp3”, this is your way out.​

Grab the full 32-page PDF guide with additional Session Checklist and Four-Week Challenge Tracker printout resources ($47 value) for free - instantly downloadable. No sign-in required, no waiting. Just open it and get on the path to creating more.​

What you’ll get:

• Step-by-step explanation of how you can implement 30-Minute Mining into your creative process to build a bespoke catalogue of usable song sketches and ideas

• A guide to creating your own DAW template

• Labelling + cataloguing system for easy reviewing and online access to your sketches

• Printable 30-Minute Mining Session Checklist PDF to help you get started

• Printable Four-week Challenge Tracker PDF

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📔 30-Minute Mining: A Practical System for Generating Song Ideas That Actually Go Somewhere

30-Minute Mining A Practical System For Generating Song Ideas That Actually Go Somewhere

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☑️ Free: 30-Minute Mining Session Checklist PDF

30 Minute Mining Session Checklist [The Music Factory with Dave Johnston]

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30 Minute Mining Four Week Challenge Tracker [The Music Factory with Dave Johnston]

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Loving the system? Join The Music Factory with Dave Johnston for fortnightly ideas and inspiration on songwriting, music production, and creativity.

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P.S. Once you’ve done some mining sessions, reply to your welcome email with your favourite sketches - I’ll feature the best ones.

– Dave

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s hard to believe it’s already been a full year of Music Factory articles.

When I started, my goal was to pull back the curtain on my creative process. I wanted to explore the inspirations, techniques, and sonic experiments that shape my music and start building a resource for fellow songwriters, producers, and anyone curious about how the music gets made.

The timing for starting this project wasn’t random. One year ago, I was preparing to submit the biggest project I’ve undertaken to date: my Doctor of Musical Arts thesis, focusing on music production and composition. I had been working on the project part-time for six years. Six years! In late January, I handed in 30 pieces of music and an accompanying written exegesis totalling slightly over 35,000 words. Although the exegesis has an ‘academic’ feel, it’s full of insights and ideas about music-making, and I wanted to find a way to share parts of it with other producers and composers. After all, who’s going to bother digging through the Otago University archives for my thesis?

And so, as that last chapter was wrapping up and I was able to take a mental break over the New Year, I came up with the plan for what I initially called ‘n1ghtmar3cat Music Factory’. I knew I could pull a whole lot of article ideas from my doctoral work, making it more accessible to other music makers and creative-minded people. That’s exactly what has happened; many of the articles I’ve written over the last year covered topics I had been researching and contemplating for the six years prior.

I originally called it ‘n1ghtmar3cat Music Factory’ to explicitly link it to the sonic exploration of my solo project. However, the scope has expanded to encompass broader topics of creativity and music-making that go beyond my own workflow. I also started to realise that there were many practical examples I could discuss that relate to other projects I am involved with, from my rock band Villainy to the work I do with other artists. To reflect this shift from a personal artist journal to a broader educational resource, I am changing the project’s name to ‘The Music Factory with Dave Johnston’.

I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has subscribed and joined me on this mission during its first year. Your support and engagement have been hugely encouraging and have motivated me to keep this project going strong into 2026. Whenever someone comments on or reaches out to discuss something I’ve written, it really does give me a boost - I love chatting about this stuff, and it makes up for the times I publish an article and hear nothing but crickets!

For newer subscribers, or for anyone who might have missed a few articles, here is a complete archive from the first year, grouped by theme.

🎹 Creative Philosophy & Mindset

These are discussions about the bigger picture: the “why” behind the “what”, focusing on finding a sustainable and fulfilling creative path.

• Beyond the Likes: Why Process Beats Outcome in Music Production - A philosophical look at finding creative fulfilment by focusing on the craft itself, not on external validation.

• You vs the Robots: Why Sonic Identity and Narrative Will Matter More Than Ever - Exploring how human artists can stand out in an era of AI-generated music by developing a unique sonic identity and a compelling story.

• The Authenticity Scale: Where Does Your Music Sit? - A framework for deciding when to use loops and presets versus building your sound from scratch, based on your project’s goals.

• The Long Game Reality: A Sustainable Creative Career Requires a Good Money Strategy - A necessary look at how building smart financial habits is essential for protecting your creativity and preventing burnout.

• The Feedback Loop: Finding Creative Opinions You Can Trust - A guide to seeking out and filtering creative feedback to find trustworthy opinions that will actually help your music.

🎧 Songwriting & Arrangement

These articles dive into the practical structure of a song, from the initial spark to the final arrangement.

• Finding the “A-ha” Moment: The Making of a n1ghtmar3cat Track - A look at the messy, non-linear search for the “lightbulb moment” that gives a song its direction.

• Creative Productivity: The “30-Minute Mining” Exercise - A practical exercise to overcome creative block, build good habits, and generate a library of new musical ideas.

• Less is More: Using the Rule of Three in Music Arrangement and Production - A core production principle for enhancing clarity and impact by simplifying how many elements are competing for the listener’s attention.

• Identifying the “Focus Element”: Mixing and Arranging for Clarity and Impact - Building on the “rule of three”, this piece introduced the concept of a “focus element” to guide your arrangement and mixing decisions.

• Horizontal Arrangement: Introducing the ‘Characters’ in Your Music - Thinking about arrangement over time, and how introducing musical elements gradually, like characters in a story, can create a more engaging track.

🎛️ Production Techniques & Case Studies

These articles examined specific techniques and looked at some of the building blocks of certain n1ghtmar3cat tracks.

• The Power of Vocal Manipulation: How I Use My Voice as an Instrument - A dive into one of my favourite techniques: transforming vocals into unique sonic textures, rhythms, and atmospheric layers.

• Reimagining a Classic: My Journey with “Your Song” - A case study on covering a timeless song, balancing respect for the original with a distinct artistic fingerprint.

• Reimagining “Anchors”: From Post-Hardcore Anthem to Synth-Pop Dreamscape - The story behind my Secret and Whisper cover, deconstructing a beloved song and reinterpreting it through a different sonic lens.

• The Imprint of Circa Survive: Why I Covered “Flesh and Bone” - A reflection on the cycle of creative influence, and how I reinterpreted a post-hardcore track into a minimal, electronic soundscape.

• Heartbeat Kick Drum: Infusing Your Music with Meaning - How I used a recording of my son’s heartbeat in the track “High Hopes” and how personal sounds can add a powerful, unique story to your music.

• Why You Should Be Releasing Instrumental Versions of Your Music - Exploring the strategic benefits of releasing instrumentals, from sync licensing opportunities to serving content creators.

🖥️ Workflow, Gear & Plugins

This section covers the “how”: the specific tools, plugins, and workflows I use to get ideas from my head into the DAW.

• A Studio in My Backpack: Making Music Anywhere - A look inside my portable studio setup and the case for a flexible, minimalist approach to music creation.

• My Sonic Toolkit: The Gear & Plugins I Actually Use (and Why) - The introductory article for a new series, cutting through marketing hype to focus on the few tools I rely on regularly.

• My Sonic Toolkit: Why I Only Mix with One EQ Plugin - An argument for limiting your choices to work faster, focusing on the FabFilter Pro-Q 4.

• My Sonic Toolkit: The Two Essential Compressors for My Workflow - Why I generally limit myself to just two compressors (the UAD 1176AE and Fabfilter Pro-C 2) to keep my mixing focused and efficient.

• My Sonic Toolkit: I Own Two Microphones, and I Only Use One of Them - Why I simplify my recording chain to a single microphone to remove friction from the creative process and capture ideas quickly.

• My Sonic Toolkit: The Swiss Army Knife of Sound Design - Why Cableguys’ ShaperBox 3 is an essential tool in my production kit, not just as a multi-effects plugin but as a fix-it utility plugin for common mixing challenges.

A Look Ahead to 2026

Writing these articles has been a fantastic way to clarify my own thoughts, and I’m looking forward to publishing more.

I plan to expand the “My Sonic Toolkit” series, dive deeper into production techniques, and share more case studies from upcoming tracks. I’d like to start adding video and audio clips to some articles to demonstrate the techniques and ideas I’m trying out - I think that’ll add a new dimension and bring us a bit closer to the music, which is the point of it all.

This has always been intended as a two-way street. One thing I’d really like to see next year is more interaction from readers with comments and discussion around the topics I post about, but to do that, I need to write about things people are interested in discussing! To help me make this resource as valuable as possible, I’d love to hear from you:

• What topics would you like to see more of?

• What are the most significant creative challenges you’re facing?

Please take a minute to let me know by clicking here to answer these questions. Your response will genuinely be helpful!

And finally, if you’ve found these articles useful or know someone who might, I’d appreciate it if you shared them with a friend. Thank you again for being a part of this community.

See you in 2026!

- Dave

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

Top-Rated Articles from The Music Factory

If there’s one plugin that has become my personal ‘Swiss Army Knife’ in the studio, it’s ShaperBox 3 by Cableguys. This plugin is built entirely around an LFO workflow, letting you literally draw in the precise curves of a low-frequency oscillator to modulate various effects. This time-based manipulation adds a layer of control that many other plugins can’t match.

Note: If you don’t know what an LFO is, here’s a good explainer from Native Instruments.

At first glance, ShaperBox 3 looks like a straightforward multi-effects powerhouse. While that’s an accurate description, the real value for me lies in its versatility as a creative tool and a fix-it utility for common mixing challenges. The unique interface, centred around the drawable LFO, gives you incredibly detailed control over how effect parameters change over time.

For anyone familiar with using LFOs in a digital audio workstation, you know the oscillations can generally be synced to your timeline or run freely in hertz or milliseconds. With the release of ShaperBox 3, Cableguys introduced the ability to trigger the LFO via audio transients in the input signal, so each time a transient is detected, the LFO restarts. This one feature unlocked a new range of possibilities, allowing you to surgically sculpt the waveform envelope of percussive hits, synth notes, and more.

Here’s a breakdown of how I approach this powerful tool, from the basics to some more advanced use cases.

Shaping Volume and Dynamics

The most common application of ShaperBox for me is as an ADSR shaping tool using the Volume module. For example, I might want to tweak the shape of a snare drum. Because the LFO can be triggered with every transient, you can draw exactly how you want the volume to change over time for each snare hit, redesigning it to better fit into your track.

Let’s say a snare recording has too much room sound and is muddying up the mix. I could use the Volume shaper to fade out the volume right after the initial transient, almost like a manual expander. This makes the snare tighter and more focused, helping it cut through without the lingering sound I don’t want between the hits. On the flip side, if the transient is too sharp, you could roll off the volume slightly at the start of each hit, creating a subtle fade-in to soften the attack.

The Volume shaper also excels at side-chain ducking. Instead of relying on a compressor’s attack and release settings, you can draw the exact ducking shape you want. You can even trace the specific shape of your kick drum’s decay (the side-chain signal waveform is displayed behind your LFO shape) and invert the LFO shape so that the ducking on the bass track allows the kick drum to fit in like a puzzle piece.

Beyond Volume: Modulating Other Effects

Once you understand the power of shaping volume over time, you can apply this same LFO workflow to the other effect modules. Take distortion, for example. With a snare drum, you could draw in a shape that applies a burst of distortion just for the transient, then has the distortion level drop for the rest of the waveform, leaving the tail clean. Or you could do the opposite: no distortion on the transient to keep it sharp, but then ramp up the saturation on the sustain. This kind of precise, time-based distortion is hard to achieve with most distortion plugins.

Dynamic Effects with Envelope Following

In many modules, you can link the effect amount directly to the input signal's amplitude. This is “envelope following”. It opens up some fun possibilities with effects like filters, reverb, panning, and width. Think about a pad sound where the louder it gets, the more it extends to the sides of the stereo field, or a vocal where the amount of reverb changes dynamically with the singer’s volume. All of this can happen automatically, without any manual automation.

Precision and Power with Multi-Band Control

Once you’re comfortable with the core workflow, you can further expand your creative and problem-solving possibilities with ShaperBox’s multi-band functionality. All shaper modules can operate in up to three distinct bands, meaning you can apply different settings and LFO shapes to different parts of the frequency spectrum. The possibilities are wild. Want a different reverb algorithm for the low end than the highs? Check. Apply distortion to just the midrange, leaving the lows and highs clean? Why not.

One of my favourite multi-band use cases is with the volume shaper on a kick drum. For example, I might apply a tight volume roll-off to the high and mid bands to get a focused, clean attack, but I’ll leave the low-end more space to decay with a slower fade. This lets you retain the low-end weight while reducing unwanted room noise by effectively gating the rest of the signal after the initial attack.

Endless Possibilities

If you want, you can stack these modules so the signal passes through each one in a custom effects chain. The signal flow is up to you, and the creative potential is near endless.

There’s so much more to say about each specific module, from the unique Time shaper to the textural possibilities of the Noise module, and the newly added Pitch shaper. The main takeaway is this: the plugin is incredible value and crazy versatile. The team at Cableguys post excellent tutorials and creative ideas on their YouTube channel, which is well worth subscribing to (The Ultimate Guide to Shaperbox LFOs is a great start!).

This is one of my must-have plugins, and I think more people should know about it.

Happy creating!

—

💬 ShaperBox is my ‘Swiss Army Knife’. What single plugin or piece of gear is the most versatile and essential part of your own sonic toolkit, and why?

—

The recently released n1ghtmar3cat cover of Circa Survive’s “Flesh and Bone” was my way of paying tribute to a band that has significantly influenced my musical journey. Circa has been one of my favourite bands for nearly 20 years, leaving an imprint on several chapters of my musical career. In this article, I’ll share a few examples of ways they’ve influenced my work, which will help explain why creating my own version of one of their songs was such a special experience.

Discovering the Controlled Chaos of On Letting Go (2007)

I’ve been following Circa since discovering their second album, On Letting Go. It was unlike anything I’d heard before. Anthony Green’s singing was raw, poetic, and full of angst-filled emotion. The drums and bass were technical yet effortless, anchoring the songs. The foundation provided by the rhythm section was vital to the overall balance, considering the two hard-panned guitarists seemed to be off in their own worlds, playing individual guitar solos throughout every track - it was complete chaos that somehow just worked. The opening song from that album, “Living Together”, became my mobile phone ringtone for about ten years, back when custom mp3 ringtones were fancy.

Tracing the Influence in My Previous Work

Looking (and listening) back, I can point to several ways that my previous band, The Zoup, was influenced by Circa Survive. The Zoup was a collaborative project; the music we made was a true blend of the four personalities we brought into the practice room. While we ended up going our separate ways in 2016, we capped off the journey that year with our self-produced album Symbiotic, a record I’m hugely grateful for. Almost a decade on, I still think it captures the band’s creative essence incredibly well.

The singer and rhythm guitarist of The Zoup (my cousin JD) was into Circa Survive before me, which is how I was introduced to them. With half of The Zoup being fans, there’s a strong link to Circa as an influence. We both followed several of Anthony Green’s musical projects, from Circa to Saosin and his solo works, so I’m sure his lyrical style influenced JD’s songwriting to some extent.

Circa’s dual-guitar approach also influenced our tracks. Although JD was mainly the rhythm guitarist, he would occasionally layer in lead lines that interwove with Dom’s parts (which were more inspired by the likes of John Frusciante and Omar Rodríguez-López). As a result, some of our tracks feature two distinct, almost conversational guitar voices. I also have to acknowledge that my drumming style, especially the way I compose my drum parts, has been partly influenced by the work of Circa’s drummer, Steve Clifford.

Beyond the arrangements, the sonic richness of Circa’s mid-career albums Violent Waves (2012) and Descensus (2014) became a significant influence on my approach to the mixing and production work for Symbiotic. These albums captured the band in a way that sounded full and rich, as if they were playing together in a large studio space you could almost picture in your mind.

While many contemporary band recordings sound direct and impactful, making the most of modern stereo systems, there’s something a bit more nostalgic and emotionally resonant about the spacious approach Circa took with these records. Though well-polished, it sounds a bit closer to the vibe of a live recording.

While still sounding quintessentially like The Zoup, “Monuments” from Symbiotic is perhaps a good example of a track that shows several touches of Circa Survive’s influence. The lyrics and melodies are exploratory in a similar style to Anthony Green’s. Guitar lead lines weave throughout the song, mostly from Dom but with occasional responses from JD’s guitar. Though I didn’t consciously think about it at the time, the drums in this song clearly nod to Clifford’s approach, with a range of rhythmic feels throughout.

Flesh and Bone

Fast-forward a bit, and “Flesh and Bone” appeared toward the back of Circa’s sixth album, The Amulet (2017). I find this song both haunting and beautiful. Anthony Green’s writing can be quite abstract, but in some songs it’s clear he’s dredging up some dark experiences, and this is certainly one of those songs. It’s heavy with introspective themes of isolation, paranoia, personal struggle, and regret.

When I decided to put together a short EP of cover songs under my n1ghtmar3cat artist project, picking a Circa Survive track was almost inevitable for all the reasons mentioned above, and this particular track jumped out as one that I thought I could rework in my own way. Like with my covers of Elton John’s “Your Song” and “Anchors” by Secret and Whisper, which make up the rest of the Copycat EP 01 (2025), the challenge was to find the right spot between respecting what I love about the original and infusing it with a sound and style that is distinctly n1ghtmar3cat.

While Anthony Green’s vocal performance on the original is undeniably the heart of the song, the band’s instrumental work does a lot of heavy lifting to paint the picture and help convey the emotional depth in the words. Circa Survive have always been great at creating a sense of space and texture in their performances. From the outset, I knew that one of the challenges for my version would be to develop instrumentation that similarly supports the vocal performance, but with an in-the-box production approach instead of capturing that spacious vibe with a live band in a large studio.

I kept the instrumentation quite minimal, leaning on a hypnotic percussion loop and a bass guitar that drives the song, with some distinct synth parts that decorate different sections of the song. The n1ghtmar3cat version has a spacious electronic flavour compared to the original, but echoes certain key moments I particularly like from the band’s instrumentation. I really enjoy the percussion loop and synths in this arrangement - I plan to break down the production elements in a future article.

The Continuous Cycle of Creative Influence

Ultimately, covering “Flesh and Bone” wasn’t just a nostalgic nod; it was a chance to reflect on the core of my musical identity. By listening to music analytically and focusing on the elements that grab our attention, we can generate new ideas and shape our approach, gradually crafting our own style.

💬 What band or artist has had the most significant influence on your creative work, and how has it changed your approach?

In my home studio, I’ve refined the vocal and instrument recording setup down to a few key pieces of equipment. I’m a producer who leans more toward an in-the-box workflow, prioritising setup speed and portability. I use a laptop rather than a fixed desktop computer setup, as I often work in different places. I love spending time in recording studios that have lots of gear and beautiful recording spaces, but the reality for me is that about half of my work is done away from home, so the backpack studio approach fits well with my lifestyle.

That being said, most of the recording I do happens at my home studio, and it’s usually vocal recording. Here’s why I own two mics… but generally only use one of them.

The Mic That Lives in Its Case

For years, I’ve owned a nice tube condenser microphone. I think it’s useful to have a decent condenser mic available in your toolkit for when you need access to a sensitive mic that picks up a high level of detail, right up into the top end of the audible frequency spectrum. This mic sounds great; when I’ve used it in a well-treated room, it captures performances at a high level of detail. But there’s a problem: my home studio isn’t a single-use, acoustically treated space. It has some features that help to control and disperse sound (carpet, furniture, bookshelf), but it’s still a small, rectangular room with predictably average reverberation characteristics.

The sensitivity that makes the tube condenser sound great in a proper studio is its biggest downfall here; it picks up too much room sound. On top of that, it’s a bit cumbersome to set up, with a chunky external power supply box and specific cables that I don’t want to leave in place. It just doesn’t work for my space, so it sits in its nice metallic case, taking up room in my cupboard.

The Go-To: Shure SM7B

I use my Shure SM7B all the time. Once you’re familiar with this mic’s signature look, you’ll see it everywhere, from podcasts to live sessions at professional recording studios, and there’s a good reason for its popularity. Because it’s a dynamic microphone that is much less sensitive than a condenser, and it excels at rejecting background noise, it’s a great option to use in less-than-ideal acoustic environments. At the same time, I find I can still get professional-sounding vocal recordings with it.

It also has a built-in pop shield, so it’s really easy to use. I leave mine set up on a stand beside my desk, and I swing it toward me when I need it and shove it out of the way when I don’t. It’s always plugged into my interface, ready to go.

One thing to note about the SM7B is its low output level. It requires a significant amount of gain from a decent preamp to get a usable signal, and some cheaper preamps don’t have enough headroom, so you can end up with an unusably high noise floor if you don’t have an in-line FetHead or Cloudlifter (devices that use phantom power to add clean gain). My UAD interface has enough gain, but it’s still noisy, and I work around the issue using UAD’s noise-reduction software. If I were buying a mic today, I’d go for the newer SM7dB model, which solves this issue by including a built-in clean gain boost. No fuss, no extra gear needed.

On My Wish List: The Universal Audio SC-1

While the SM7B is my workhorse, there are times when a dynamic mic just isn’t the right choice. My next purchase will likely be the Universal Audio SC-1 Condenser Microphone. The SC-1 is a highly versatile, modern approach to microphone design. It has a reasonably flat response by default but is designed to be used with Universal Audio’s Hemisphere Modelling software, allowing it to emulate a range of iconic condenser microphones to a high degree of accuracy. It’s compact and doesn’t need a power supply box, so it will fit into a backpack, making it a more suitable choice for me compared to that tube mic living the quiet life on my shelf.

Between my dynamic mic (the SM7B) and a versatile condenser (the SC-1), I’d have my options covered for almost all single-mic recording scenarios. For anything more substantial, such as drum recording, I hire a professional recording studio anyway, which comes with its own collection of microphones and the expertise of a great in-house engineer.

For me, the key to a good setup isn’t having a massive collection of gear but having access to the right tools for the job. When it comes to my home studio, two mics are all I need - well, two mics, with one of them getting dusty in the cupboard.

💬 What are your go-to microphones, and why? Are there any mics on your wishlist?

As artists and composers, we rarely encounter simple, low-effort ways to maximise the impact of our releases. But there are some valuable assets that many artists will already have sitting on their hard drives that hardly ever see the light of day: instrumental mixes.

Artists generally ensure an instrumental version of a track is prepared alongside the main version for practical reasons, such as the possibility of future sync licensing opportunities. If a music supervisor wants to use your track in a film, commercial, or game, they’ll probably also want an instrumental to allow for flexible editing. If you don’t have one, you might risk losing the opportunity, hence most artists creating instrumentals by default alongside their regular masters without thinking much more about it. But with those instrumental masters just sitting there, waiting for a sync placement that may or may not happen, we could be missing out on an opportunity to connect with our current audience and explore other ways to leverage our music for basically no extra investment.

I think more artists should release their instrumental tracks online. It’s a simple extra step in the release strategy that could have multiple benefits and basically no downsides.

More Than Just a Backing Track: Uses and Advantages

Instrumental versions have a range of uses, perhaps moreso now than ever. Some of these uses include:

1. The Undistracted Listening Experience

Sometimes, listeners want to enjoy music while focusing on a task like studying or working. Vocals can be distracting - after all, they are usually designed to pull our attention. I know that if I listen to music with vocals when I’m trying to focus on something else, my brain struggles to not pay attention to the vocals!

By releasing the instrumentals, you provide a track that maintains your song’s mood, harmonic movement, and rhythmic energy without the cognitive interruption of the lead vocal. You’re basically allowing your audience to use your music in a different way.

2. A Deeper Appreciation of Production and Instrumentation

As producers and composers, we spend many hours honing the performance, arrangement, and overall sound of a track. Sometimes, intricate details can get partially overshadowed by the main vocal performance. An instrumental version can reveal different elements of the music.

I’m excited to say that I’ve just released “RAT RACE (Instrumentals)”, the instrumental version of my 2022 album, which is what inspired this article. Yes, it’s taken me a while to realise the potential value in this, and those instrumental masters have been gathering digital dust for over three years! While the regular album captures the full intent of my vision, the instrumental version is a completely different listening experience, letting you sink into the soundscapes and production detail.

I’ve had this experience with Eidola’s 2024 album, Eviscerate. I have nothing against the vocalists, but I’ve listened to the instrumental version far more than the regular one. The instrumental album provides a fantastic soundtrack for long walks and gym sessions, and the lack of vocals allows me to get fully immersed in the detailed post-hardcore instrumentation and progressive arrangements. A big thanks to Eidola for making the instrumentals available!

Releasing instrumentals is an open invitation for people to listen more intently to the instrumentation and production layers. It allows the listener to appreciate the work in a different way, picking up on elements of the mix, the groove, and the production that they may not have noticed before. For fellow music producers in your audience, this is a fantastic peek behind the curtain.

3. Serving the Content Creators

Release plans shouldn’t just revolve around Spotify. An increasing portion of music consumption happens via TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

For content creators, having an instrumental version of a song available is incredibly useful for background use. A creator might love the vibe of your track but not want the vocal track competing with their own voiceover or messaging. By making the instrumental available, you’re providing a clean audio asset that encourages people to use your music in their videos, driving further discovery of your work without any hassle on their end. The use of your instrumental track in user-generated content acts as a powerful, organic promotion tool.

Make the Most of Your Work

Whenever you finish a studio recording of a song and get it mixed, ask the mixing engineer to create an instrumental version, and get it mastered at the same time as the regular version. By doing that, you’ll tick the box of preparing for potential future sync licensing opportunities, but you might as well add it to your release plan and get more value from the time you’ve already put into the studio. You can add value for your listeners, support content creators, and expand your official catalogue.

💬 What’s your favourite track where the instrumental version completely changes the way you appreciate the production? Let me know in the comments!