0:22

Hello , inside the Mix podcast fans

0:24

, it's Jake Major from Well

0:26

, what Can I Say ? I'm a one man band

0:29

and can be found on all streaming

0:31

platforms . That does include YouTube

0:33

, where there is bonus content as well as my music

0:35

. And if you head to my Instagram at

0:37

JakeMajor1 , you can click the link in my

0:39

bio . You can pre save my new single

0:41

. Then , just through Space and Time , as

0:44

Jean-Michel Jor asks you , to orchestral

0:46

synth anthem , which releases everywhere

0:48

on the 8th of July . As

0:50

well as that , if you're in the Newcastle area

0:53

, come on down to HMV Eldon

0:55

Square at 3pm , on release date

0:57

, to hear me play the single live for

0:59

the very first time among some of

1:01

my other tunes . You are listening

1:03

to the Inside the Mix podcast , and

1:05

here's the main man , your host

1:08

, mark Matthews .

1:10

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast

1:13

. I'm Mark Matthews , your host , musician

1:15

, producer and mix and mastering engineer

1:17

. You've come to the right place if you want to know

1:19

more about your favourite synth music artists

1:22

, music engineering and production , songwriting

1:24

and the music industry . I've

1:26

been writing , producing , mixing and mastering music for

1:29

over 15 years and I want to share what

1:31

I've learnt with you . Hey , folks

1:33

, and welcome back to the Inside the Mix

1:35

podcast . If you are a new listener

1:37

, welcome , and don't forget to hit that subscribe

1:40

button . And if you are a returning

1:42

listener , as always , a big welcome

1:44

. Back . Now in this episode , i'm

1:46

very excited to welcome my guest I say this every time , i'm

1:48

excited , i am excited my

1:50

friend Eric Eric Jung , also

1:53

known as the producer artist , dream commander , and

1:55

he's here for a producer kickstart

1:57

strategy session . Hi

1:59

Eric , how are you ? how are you doing today ?

2:01

Hey , mark , i'm doing really well and thanks

2:03

for having me today .

2:06

No , it's my pleasure . I know we've been back and forth

2:08

a lot in the Facebook community group and on

2:10

Instagram and various other platforms as well , so

2:12

it's cool to finally talk to you as well . I

2:14

really do enjoy these chats because you sort of build

2:16

up a relationship with people on social

2:18

media and it's an image , it's an avatar

2:21

, as it were , so it's always nice to actually start to

2:24

talk to people . That's what a podcast

2:26

is , essentially . That's what we're trying to do here . So

2:28

you're here today for a producer kickstart session

2:30

, so you've got in contact with me . With regards to music production

2:32

, which is quite an overarching

2:35

term , can you just tell our

2:37

audience a little bit about your journey so

2:39

far ? So you're alias , as it were

2:41

. Your artist's name is Dream Commander . Where

2:43

are you at in your music production journey ?

2:45

Good question . I often wonder myself

2:47

where I'm at

2:50

. But yeah , basically I've

2:52

kind of put out a couple releases , a

2:54

couple EPs , and

2:56

I've been playing live a little bit , just

2:58

trying to kind of explore that whole thing , because

3:01

I've always been a live

3:03

playing musician I guess my whole life

3:06

. So I feel like , even if I'm making electronic

3:08

music , i want to be trying to

3:10

do that as well as

3:13

far as playing live goes . But yeah

3:15

, you know , i'm just kind of in that little . I

3:17

still feel like I'm in the beginning phases of

3:19

, i guess , my quote career , if you would

3:21

call it that , and I'm just always

3:24

looking for ways to improve and any

3:26

kind of honest feedback I can get is

3:28

kind of hard . It's kind of rare to

3:30

find honest feedback these days . So

3:33

, you know , that's why I thought I'd sign up for this

3:35

and give you a chat

3:38

.

3:39

Yeah , fantastic , and I do agree it's

3:41

when you send your material

3:43

off for people to feedback on , because

3:45

I've done this and I know when I've fed

3:48

back on material and work in the past

3:50

, then you kind of you

3:52

can be quite reserved sometimes with feedback , but

3:54

that's not really helping anyone . So I

3:56

totally understand what you're saying here . So

3:59

, with regards to your journey , where do you

4:01

think you would like to be in six months time with your

4:03

sort of music production journey ?

4:05

Well , the way I envision

4:08

that , i would say , in

4:10

six months time I'm definitely going to be

4:12

releasing some more music

4:14

. I'm already kind of

4:16

booking some stuff for like a live

4:18

performance or two in that time

4:20

frame . So I'll definitely be probably releasing

4:23

a couple , at least one or two new songs

4:25

and kind of promoting them with some live

4:28

performances and obviously

4:30

other avenues of promotion

4:32

involving social media and that kind of stuff

4:34

. So you know , just kind of I call it the slow

4:37

grind as far as you know

4:39

, kind of putting stuff out getting a little

4:41

bit better every time hopefully . And

4:43

I've seen some trend in that

4:45

in my like music

4:48

I put out a couple years ago , obviously the stuff

4:50

I'm doing now sounding a little bit better

4:52

and I'm pretty happy about that . So I just

4:54

want to keep that trend kind

4:56

of moving forward , you know .

4:59

Yeah , 100% , and I know you're

5:01

using the producer growth scorecard

5:03

that I put together and there's actually going to be or

5:05

the retrospect . now there is an episode dedicated

5:07

to that which would have come out probably previous to this one

5:09

. So I know you're using that and you are right

5:11

. The more you do it it's with anything , isn't it ? The

5:13

more hours you invest into it , the more you do , the

5:16

more you'll improve . But in

5:18

the same breath , you kind of it goes back to that feedback

5:21

, what you mentioned just now , and you need to know that

5:23

what you're doing is pointing you in the right

5:25

direction , and there is a wealth

5:27

of material online

5:29

in terms , in particular , sort of tool

5:31

format , content whereby everybody's

5:33

throwing ideas and tips

5:36

and tricks at you on social media

5:38

now and it's knowing which ones to follow and which

5:40

ones not to . you know

5:42

, because I think everybody is not everybody

5:44

, but there is a lot of that content out there at the moment

5:46

. So , with that in mind , what is

5:48

your sort of biggest pain point with regards to music

5:51

production at the moment ?

5:52

Well , i have to admit that , and

5:55

I've heard other people say the same thing

5:57

but it's kind of like when you're making

6:00

the music and you're mixing it , mixing

6:02

down and you know , doing

6:04

the proper steps that you're supposed

6:07

to do to get like a final product , it

6:10

feels like sometimes , when you hear

6:12

it out in the world , it doesn't really

6:14

hold up the way you envisioned it

6:16

in your head or maybe on your all

6:19

the different systems you tried it out

6:21

on , etc . Etc

6:23

. And so I don't know why

6:26

that is or why I feel that way , or if it's just

6:28

like a personal insecurity . But

6:31

yeah , i just definitely feel like my

6:34

stuff kind of compared to , like you

6:36

know , the general

6:39

stuff you hear could

6:42

just use a little bit more or something

6:44

. I'm not quite sure what that is . I don't know

6:46

if you know it's because I'm kind of coming

6:48

at it from a DIY angle

6:50

that maybe I need to hire

6:53

more personnel to kind of help me get over that

6:55

hump . But you know , obviously

6:57

financial obstacles

7:00

are a thing and those are real

7:03

. So you know I'm kind of trying to cut corners

7:05

in that regard . But yeah

7:07

, i guess basically just like trying to get my

7:09

stuff up to that level of quality that

7:11

you kind of like . When you hear it you're like

7:13

, wow , that sounds like a really nice produced

7:16

song or whatever you know .

7:19

Yeah , i mean , there's a few things to unpack there

7:21

And I think I mentioned this in a previous Producer

7:23

Kicks that episode that a lot of the time

7:25

. I say a lot of the time , but sometimes , when you do listen

7:28

to your release , compared to others

7:30

you are at the detriment

7:32

of your recording environment , sorry , your mixing

7:34

environment as well . So , do you mix with

7:36

headphones ? Are you mixing on loudspeakers

7:38

? Is it a combination of the two ?

7:40

Yeah , so I have like some studio

7:42

monitors in the subwoofer that I'm

7:44

using you know when I'm mixing as well

7:47

as cross referencing in like a

7:49

decent pair of studio headphones

7:51

.

7:52

Yeah , and when you're mixing , are you

7:54

referencing your mix against other tracks

7:56

at the same time , or at least one other song ? Do

7:58

you have that sort of a reference in the DAW

8:00

on ?

8:00

the top or the bottom . Yeah , no , i definitely

8:03

probably need to do some more of that

8:05

. Maybe I'm not doing quite enough of

8:07

that , and that's a really good suggestion

8:09

.

8:10

Yeah , because one thing that I do with every

8:12

even when I'm I say when I'm songwriting

8:14

, if I find that the tracks influence me . But

8:16

certainly with mixing I'll get a reference

8:19

and it will sit along the top in my DAW and

8:21

I'll just call it reference for argument's sake

8:24

. And then I will get a gain plugin

8:26

or , depending what DAW you're using

8:28

, like Pro Tools and Reaper . You can just do clip gain

8:30

and bring it down And then I'll

8:32

level match it . I'll sort of set

8:35

a balance with my mix

8:37

and then I'll level match it with

8:39

the reference , because obviously if you play the reference at

8:41

its mastered volume , it's going to sound different

8:43

And our ears

8:45

, i mean it's kind of a bad in a way , but

8:47

our ears are attuned that when we hear something loud

8:49

we're automatically like , oh , that sounds way better

8:51

just because it's loud , but it doesn't

8:53

necessarily mean it is . You want to put that reference

8:55

in there and then use clip gain

8:57

or a gain plugin , bring it down to a level

9:00

similar to your balanced mix not the finished

9:02

mix , but the balanced one And then

9:04

you can start to A , b in terms of

9:06

frequency , content , a

9:08

really good thing to do actually , and this is I'm

9:10

going to shout out to R9 for this one , because he's

9:12

a big advocate of this is actually

9:15

monitoring at low volume as well . So

9:17

get it down to a

9:19

point where you can hear it . You can just about

9:21

hear it and that's a really good thing to do . So you

9:23

can reference in that respect as well . So pull

9:25

the volume down on your monitor Your

9:27

monitor is your headphones And then listen to the

9:29

reference compared to your ear And see what in the

9:31

reference in particular , see what's poking through Is it

9:33

the snare , is it the vocal ? What's most

9:36

dominant , and then A , b , that against yours

9:38

and see what's happening with yours . And then you'll

9:40

start to see sort of commonalities

9:43

with with released music . So that's

9:45

a really good thing to do . The key is

9:47

is to make sure that you do pull

9:49

that output down on that reference track

9:51

so you're not flicking AB and it's suddenly

9:53

like ridiculously loud you

9:55

know That's a really good

9:57

thing to do , because then what you can do is you can look at the frequency

9:59

content , for example . if your songs

10:02

, when you release them , you think

10:04

actually there's a bit of a lack of low

10:06

end there or there's a lack of presence

10:08

, you know around between sort of 500

10:10

to 4k , then you can see

10:13

what other artists or engineers

10:15

rather have done with other mixes and you can start

10:17

to . I mean , it's not an exact science

10:19

. What you don't want to do is get like an EQ match

10:21

, plugin , record

10:23

or type or stamp the

10:25

reference and then apply it directly to your

10:27

own because the timbres of the instruments

10:29

are different . but that's a really good place

10:31

to start . I think if you're not using a reference , it's certainly

10:34

use a reference . I mean , how does that sound ?

10:36

No , that sounds interesting . I need to do that

10:38

more and that's like something you

10:40

you pull into your DAW

10:42

, like when you're kind of in the mixing process

10:45

. Is

10:47

that right ?

10:48

That's right . Yeah , and I do sometimes

10:50

pull it into the songwriting process .

10:52

Oh really .

10:53

Yeah , a lot of the time I'll hear

10:55

a song I'm like , actually I really like that

10:58

beat , i really like that bass , that vocal

11:00

, that lead line , and then I'll pull that song

11:03

into my DAW and

11:06

I've got a template for all my songwriting , depending

11:08

on what genre I'm working with , and then I'll

11:10

chuck it in there and then I use that as a reference

11:12

. I'm thinking , okay , so this is structured that particular

11:15

way . I won't copy it verbatim , but

11:17

it gives me a really good place to start in terms

11:19

of songwriting , because I'm like , actually I really like that

11:21

beat , so I'm going to try and reverse

11:24

engineer that beat and then

11:26

from that I then spark

11:28

a whole song in itself , and a lot of the time

11:31

it goes in a totally different direction to the reference , but

11:33

it gives me somewhere to start . So , yeah , sometimes

11:35

I don't do it all

11:37

the time when I'm writing , but I do when

11:39

I'm mixing , definitely and most certainly when

11:41

I'm mastering as well . When it comes to mastering , i

11:44

have a reference and then I'll also have like

11:46

a mix reference as well if it's somebody

11:49

else's master that I'm mastering

11:51

or mix I'm mastering . Which

11:53

kind of leads me on to the next question Do you do your

11:55

own mastering , or do you upload it to Lander

11:58

or Yeah ?

12:00

the thing I've been using lately

12:03

is called cloud bounce

12:05

, and yes , yeah mastering

12:07

service online . You can just use it to

12:09

do it . Yeah

12:11

, I guess they call it AI based

12:13

or generated mastering , Yeah

12:17

.

12:17

I mean , that's a good place to start , i think

12:19

, with regards to getting an idea

12:21

of how your master finished song

12:24

will sound when it's mastered . Another good thing you could

12:27

do as well is during the mixing

12:29

process . Now , don't mix into I'm not

12:31

saying mix into a limiter , but you

12:33

could have it on the on the master

12:35

or the mix bus , mix

12:37

bus Yes , stick it on the mix bus and then

12:39

you could quickly flick it on to see how your

12:41

mix would sound when it's at that sort of competitive

12:44

level . So whether that's sort of sat

12:46

between sort of minus eight to minus eleven loves , but

12:48

it really depends on the music . That's

12:50

a good thing to do as well . You could just have that sat there

12:52

Now , don't leave it on when you're mixing , but you can

12:54

quickly flick it on to see what it would sound like . It's

12:57

an approximate . It's not an exact science . Again , it

12:59

just gives you an idea of what it

13:01

might sound like when it's at that sort of competitive

13:03

ish level . Now , one thing

13:05

I would say is , having listened to your

13:08

stuff on Spotify because

13:10

I listened to , listened to so much music

13:12

the Sentinel , and

13:14

you've got Savannah . Savannah's a wonderful

13:16

piece of music , by the way , really nice and chilled and ambient

13:18

, and then you've got sent the Sentinels very

13:20

much the same as well . So audience listening , do go check

13:22

it out and I'm going to put a link to it in the show

13:24

notes for this episode as well . But

13:27

the sort of overall it sounded quite

13:29

quiet in terms of Master

13:31

, because when the next

13:34

song came in there was sudden

13:36

spike and I had to turn it down . And now purists

13:39

might say that that's what you should do . I mean , that's

13:41

why the volume control is there , so you can control

13:43

the output of the song that you're listening to . But I

13:46

think one of the things you might

13:48

be experiencing is why your song isn't

13:50

sort of standing up against the other

13:52

release songs . Is that it's that final stage

13:54

? Is that mastering Is getting into that competitive

13:56

level ? I mean , what are your

13:58

thoughts on that ?

14:00

Yeah , that's pretty much nailed

14:02

it on the head And that's kind of what I'm hearing

14:04

too , as far as

14:06

my biggest pain point

14:08

, if you will , is just getting that final like boost

14:11

of volume , and I guess I need to figure

14:14

out what I'm doing wrong to get that

14:16

to solve that issue . But

14:19

yeah , i pretty much agree with what you're saying as far

14:21

as how you just described

14:23

it .

14:25

Yeah , it's tricky without seeing

14:27

the mix as to know where

14:30

it's sort of falling short in the mastering

14:32

. It could be the

14:34

tonal balance of the mix . It might be that

14:37

you've got stray peaks which

14:39

are creating this incredibly varied

14:41

crest factor which , in terms , if you've

14:43

got these stray peaks throughout your

14:45

composition , it then means your sort

14:47

of peak level is . then your potential

14:50

for loudness is brought down because you've got these stray

14:52

peaks . And that can a lot of the time

14:54

be where the issues rise , because

14:56

if you smooth out those peaks in the mix

14:58

it then gives you that extra little bit of headroom so

15:00

you can then push it that tiny , that little

15:03

bit louder again . But it's like I

15:05

said , it's hard to say without seeing the mix . So

15:07

my bit of advice would be I know it all

15:10

comes down to sort of money . I'm

15:13

not going to go out and hire a mastering engineer , but

15:15

I do know I'll send you a link to

15:17

this there's a really , really good course on mastering

15:19

. It's reasonably priced

15:22

as well and you can do it in installments over three

15:24

months I think it is . But it's a really , really

15:26

good course to check out

15:28

for mastering

15:31

if you're doing it yourself , because then it will

15:33

highlight all the little bits and pieces I've just said

15:35

there . I don't have a course per

15:37

se that does a similar thing , but I know of one

15:39

that's really , really good . I can certainly send you

15:41

that way and it's really reasonably priced , and I think

15:43

in doing so , in doing

15:45

that , i reckon that will

15:47

take your final products to that

15:49

level , or approaching that level

15:51

, that you want . I mean , how does that sound ?

15:53

I mean , yeah , i'm definitely interested in

15:55

doing something like that and I

15:57

totally appreciate the feedback

16:00

and the suggestion , for

16:02

sure , 100% .

16:04

Yeah , i think the only . I mean

16:06

moving on slightly again

16:09

. I say slightly again maybe a segue , maybe

16:11

it is , and I'm not sure , but with the Sentinel

16:13

. One thing I was going to mention about production wise with the

16:15

Sentinel is when you're

16:17

songwriting and producing so this is moving away

16:19

from mixing . Now , how are

16:22

you writing it to keep the listener

16:24

engaged in the song itself ?

16:26

No , i think at the

16:28

time I'm writing , i'm the listener and

16:30

so I'm thinking how can I engage

16:34

myself ?

16:34

maybe That's a selfish way

16:36

to come at it , but No

16:39

, i think that's a good way to come at it because ultimately

16:42

, i think when we're writing music you

16:44

are writing , i know I do , i write it for myself

16:46

. Now , more often than not , i'm thinking I like the sound of that

16:48

. I'm going to continue on that way because it's what I

16:50

like . But another

16:52

bit of feedback I was going to have . Savannah sounds great . I

16:54

really liked it , and Sentinel is a really good track

16:56

as well . But what I felt was it

16:58

kind of needed a bit of variety in

17:00

the production to keep

17:03

me engaged until the end

17:05

. Really nice piece of music . But it's

17:07

hard to pinpoint what it could be . I mean it could be

17:09

in terms of adding more or

17:12

making more space . I mean it's quite

17:14

an open mix . Anyway , it's an open production . So

17:16

maybe taking instruments away wouldn't work

17:18

, but maybe adding a bit of ear candy

17:20

here and there . Some risers

17:23

may work , but just little flourishes

17:25

here and there , maybe switching

17:27

up the chord progression slightly if you're using

17:29

a minor , maybe you go to major , major , minor and do

17:31

the relative minor thing , just little bits and pieces

17:34

like that I think . I think when it comes to

17:36

songwriting , you may know this already , but

17:38

you kind of want to do it like in eight bars and

17:41

like every eight bars just have something

17:43

different happening within the songwriting

17:45

. So that was my other little bit of feedback for

17:47

the Sentinel , which just maybe it could do with a

17:49

bit more just to keep knocking

17:51

. I've rearranged the studio here so I'm not

17:53

used to having everything on my right and I keep knocking

17:56

it because it's usually on my left . But

17:58

yeah , adding a bit more variety there just

18:00

to keep the listener engaged .

18:02

That's a really good suggestion as

18:04

well , and I think , for whatever reason

18:06

, with that particular track

18:08

I was somehow sucked into some

18:11

more of like a meditative kind

18:13

of vibe or state which

18:16

it kind of made me want to just keep it on

18:19

one , like a one or two track , like

18:23

creative lanes , so to speak . But

18:25

yeah , i don't

18:28

know , maybe , maybe that could have been

18:30

good to know at that time . It could have

18:32

maybe made it even better . So , thanks so

18:34

much . I appreciate that .

18:35

No , you're welcome . Just to add a bit

18:37

more to that , the the example I gave you

18:40

earlier of how I would bring in a song

18:42

as a reference in the songwriting and

18:44

I do that a lot when I

18:46

want to . For that reason , if I think the

18:49

songs struggling to go somewhere

18:51

or I'm hit a bit of a road bump or

18:53

some speed bump , or however

18:55

we call it , that's sometimes when

18:57

I'll bring in that song and just listen to

18:59

what other artists are doing . Okay , so they've

19:01

got to this point . What are they doing

19:04

to keep me engaged in listening , what have they added

19:06

? and then , once again , reverse engineer . I

19:08

think reverse engineering is is not referenced

19:10

enough when it comes to mixing and songwriting and

19:12

just listening to what other people have done successfully

19:15

. And then reverse engineering and

19:17

then and where I think I had the conversation with

19:19

Dan Furr for productions a while

19:21

back and he does the same with regards to sound

19:23

design reverse engineering a sound and

19:25

then trying to recreate it . You create something totally

19:27

new . But in this you're

19:30

you're learning and creating something at the same time

19:32

. So that would be my other thing , i think

19:34

to help you come up with ideas

19:36

to keep the listener engaged . Maybe consider bringing

19:38

in a reference track of a song similar to

19:40

the one that you're writing okay

19:43

yeah thanks so much .

19:44

That's really good to know . Definitely

19:47

, no , you're welcome . Definitely taking notes fantastic

19:50

.

19:51

I mean , it's gonna be an episode as well , so you can

19:53

go back in and listen to all again

19:55

. And what I will do is I've got a notes

19:57

file , so everything that we've gone through today I'll

19:59

send over to you in a notes file as well

20:02

, with the links that I've mentioned . So the

20:04

link to that , that course I mentioned I

20:06

should get an affiliate for that , really . But there you

20:08

go and I'll send that over to you as well

20:10

. And even if actually , to be fair , even

20:12

if you don't go for the course , his

20:15

YouTube channel has so much great

20:17

information , free information on mastering

20:19

and you could probably be just consume

20:21

that and it will give you a really really good start

20:24

and kickstart you want from there . So

20:27

I'll send that to you as well . And I've realized

20:29

we're for the producer kickstart . We're at 20 minutes now

20:31

. So , yeah , fantastic . Eric , do

20:33

you want to give the audience an idea

20:36

of whether they can find you online ? where can they find your music

20:38

and yourself as well ?

20:39

yeah , i know . So the project I'm

20:41

doing is called dream commander and

20:43

I'm on Spotify , instagram

20:46

and all the major social media

20:48

platforms , so you can just type

20:51

me up and look me up in there and give it a

20:53

listen if you'd like to check out my music

20:55

.

20:56

I will put all that in the show notes as well . Fantastic

20:58

, eric . Thank you very much . So okay , folks , if you want to be like

21:00

my friend here , eric , and become

21:03

a producer kickstart

21:05

strategy session participant , go

21:07

to the website wwwinsidemixpodcastpodiacom

21:11

. Or if that has changed

21:13

, which it will do at some point , it's

21:15

probably easy just to click on the link in the episode description

21:17

for this episode and get signed up and come and join

21:19

me on the show . Eric , it's been a pleasure and

21:22

, yeah , same deal . Catch up with you soon

21:24

. Awesome thanks for having me .