Produce Like A Pro

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! My children have shaped who I am more than anything else in my life, and this one is very close to my heart, the code DADDY26 was actually my daughter’s idea. Haha. To celebrate, you can get 50% off Produce Like A Pro Academy with code DADDY26 here: producelikeapro.com/academy/

2 days ago | [YT] | 100

Produce Like A Pro

When we were making The Fray’s second album, “You Found Me” was actually the very first song idea the band brought in.
At the time, it didn’t have a chorus yet and the song was simply called “Amistad,” taken from the first line of the first verse: “I found God on the corner of First and Amistad.”
The melody and lyrics weren’t finalised until the last few days of recording the album. It took months of writing, rewriting, shaping and living with the song before it finally became what you hear now.
That process can be frustrating, however sometimes the best songs need that time. They reveal themselves slowly.
“You Found Me” became the first single from the album and went on to be a huge hit, so all of those months spent chasing the final version were absolutely worth it.
Have a marvellous time recording and mixing.

3 days ago | [YT] | 226

Produce Like A Pro

The Record Opens the Door, The Live Show That Brings Us Together

I found these old ticket stubs recently and they reminded me why live music is still the future of the music industry.

Neil Young at Wembley Arena. Buddy Guy and Junior Wells at the Town & Country Club, The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Tower of Power, Albert King, Eric Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall.

As a kid, those shows were not just entertainment. They were education. They taught me feel, phrasing, tone, dynamics and the sheer power of being in a room with people making music in real time.

So much of the music conversation now is about recorded music, streams, playlists, algorithms, catalogue value and short-form content. All of that matters, of course it does, after all I have spent my life making records!

However, the record is the invitation, the live show is the communion.

When people get together with music, something remarkable happens. Every performance is unique. The room is different, the audience is different, the band is different and the moment can never be repeated in quite the same way.

That is also why live music matters even more in the age of AI. AI can imitate sound, it can generate endless recorded material. However, it cannot stand in a room with you. It cannot feel the audience inhale before the first note. It cannot create that one night where something happens that nobody planned.

Artists also need to understand scale. Not every tour is going to make hundreds of millions. Not every artist should be chasing arenas. A 150-cap room can be a triumph. A 500-cap theatre can be life changing. A small, intentional event can build a deeper fanbase than a huge show that loses money and leaves everyone exhausted.

The future is not just bigger shows. It is smarter, more human experiences.
Because when people get together with music, something magical happens.

1 week ago | [YT] | 153

Produce Like A Pro

AI Music Is Not the Future of Creativity. It Is the Future of Convenience.

The argument for AI music usually arrives wearing very attractive clothes.

It promises access. It promises speed. It promises that anyone, regardless of training, money, background, or technical ability, can suddenly make a finished song. That sounds wonderful on the surface. Who would not want more people to feel connected to music?

However, underneath that promise is a far more troubling idea: that music is not a craft to be learned, shared, struggled with, and passed down, it is a consumer experience to be packaged, gamified, monetised, and sold back to us.

That distinction matters.

Suno, one of the most visible generative AI music companies, has positioned its vision of the future around the idea that music should become more like video games. Its CEO, Mikey Shulman, has repeatedly suggested that music is too passive, that it needs to be more interactive, more engaging, more social, more like Fortnite.

On one level, I understand the sales pitch. Video games are active. They are immersive. They generate enormous revenue. Investors understand them. Venture capital understands them. If you can turn music into something users do every day, pay for constantly, and spend hours inside, you have not just built a music tool, you have built a platform.

However, music is already interactive.

It is called playing an instrument.

Music is already multiplayer.

It is called being in a band.

Music is already a deeply engaging experience.

It is called singing with people, playing in a room, writing with a collaborator, arguing over a chord change, finding the right groove, making mistakes, trying again, and finally feeling something click.

The problem AI companies are trying to solve is not that music is passive. The problem they are trying to solve is that craft takes time, and time is difficult to monetise at scale unless you can compress it, automate it, and turn it into a subscription.

That is where the language gets revealing. The AI music pitch is full of words like speed, iteration, engagement, experiences, interaction, and consumption. This is not the language of musicians. It is the language of product design. It is the language of apps, growth curves, investor decks, and customer behaviour.

When you apply that language to music, the danger is obvious. The value of the process disappears.

A song is no longer the result of years of listening, learning, practising, failing, absorbing influences, developing taste, working with others, and discovering a voice. It becomes an output. A result. A finished product generated as quickly as possible.

That might be useful in some contexts. It might even be fun. However, we should not confuse convenience with creativity.

One of the most important points raised in the transcript is that when users were asked what Suno allowed them to do that traditional instruments or DAWs did not, the most common answers were not musical. They were practical. It saves time. It saves money. It works like a collaborator.

That says everything.

The selling points are not harmony, melody, groove, feel, emotion, taste, or expression. They are speed, cost reduction, and the replacement of other people.

That is a profoundly lonely vision of music.

Real collaboration is not just having something give you options. A collaborator challenges you. A collaborator brings their own taste, history, limitations, brilliance, and stubbornness into the room. A collaborator can tell you when something is not good enough. A collaborator can frustrate you, surprise you, and make you better.

AI does not do that. It flatters. It produces. It gives you something back. You accept, reject, regenerate, and continue. There is no negotiation. There is no accountability. There is no human being on the other side whose instincts you have to respect.

That is not collaboration. That is ordering.

And ordering food does not make you a chef.

The same is true of the argument around taste. We are increasingly told that skill matters less now, because taste is what really counts. That sounds sophisticated, especially when people bring up someone like Rick Rubin, who is famous for saying he knows what he likes and what he does not like.

However, that argument badly misunderstands what taste is.

Taste is not something that floats above craft. Taste is developed through craft. You hear differently after years of recording. You hear differently after trying to play like your heroes and failing. You hear differently after tuning vocals, editing drums, choosing microphones, balancing a mix, writing a chorus that does not work, rewriting it, then finally finding the line that does.

Taste is not merely selection. Taste is perception shaped by experience.

That is why role models matter. Musicians grow by looking up to other musicians. We hear Jimi Hendrix, Jaco Pastorius, Stevie Wonder, Queen, The Beatles, Prince, Joni Mitchell, or whoever opened the door for us, and we think, “How did they do that?” That question is the beginning of a life in music.

AI prompting often removes that question. There is no hand to watch, no breath to hear, no room to imagine, no human decision to study. There is only output.

That is why the issue of deskilling is so serious. If musicians start relying on AI systems to make creative decisions for them, the danger is not simply that the work changes. The danger is that the musician changes. The muscles of decision making weaken. The ear becomes passive. The instinct becomes outsourced.

In music, the slow part is often the meaningful part. Learning patience is part of learning how to make anything worthwhile. Sitting with an idea, wrestling with it, getting annoyed with it, abandoning it, returning to it, and finally understanding what it wants to become, that is not wasted time. That is the work.

AI culture often treats friction as a problem. However, in art, friction is frequently where the identity is formed.

Of course, there may be ethical and interesting uses for generative AI in music. As a memorisation tool, it could help people retain information through melody. In certain therapeutic contexts, it may provide comfort or connection. For someone who has always felt ashamed to make music, AI might even act as a doorway into creativity.

Those possibilities should not be dismissed.

However, they also should not distract us from the larger business model. This is not simply about helping people sing again. This is about building platforms that own the tools, control the experience, shape the behaviour, and monetise the user’s desire to feel creative.

That is not democratisation in any meaningful sense. If the people do not own the means of production, if the platform can disappear, change the rules, raise the price, restrict access, or decide what kind of music gets promoted, then we have not democratised music. We have rented creativity from a tech company.

Real democratisation would mean funding music education. It would mean giving children access to instruments, teachers, rehearsal spaces, choirs, studios, and communities. It would mean rebuilding the casual, communal relationship with music that so many people lose as they get older.

The tragedy is that the social problem AI music identifies is real. Many people feel locked out of music. Many people believe they are not talented enough. Many people were shamed out of singing, playing, or creating. That is heartbreaking.

However, the answer should not be to sell them a machine that does the work for them.

The answer should be to remind them that they are allowed to make music badly at first. They are allowed to learn. They are allowed to be beginners. They are allowed to develop a voice. They are allowed to discover that the joy was never only in the finished song.

The joy was in becoming the kind of person who could make it.

That is what AI music, at its worst, threatens to remove. Not just jobs. Not just income. Not just copyright. Those are huge issues, of course. However, the deeper threat is philosophical. It asks us to accept a world where the appearance of creativity is enough, where the result matters more than the person, where convenience replaces craft, and where human musical experience is reduced to a meaningful consumption experience.

Music deserves better than that.

Musicians deserve better than that.

And listeners deserve better than that.

The future of music should not be built by people who think the problem with music is that it is not enough like a video game. It should be built by people who understand that music is one of the oldest, deepest, most human things we do.

Not because it is efficient.

Because it connects us.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,076

Produce Like A Pro

R.I.P. Sonny Rollins.

One of the true giants has left us.

I first heard Sonny Rollins as a little kid, pulling records from my Dad’s collection. A Night at the Village Vanguard was one of those albums that made an impression before I could even properly explain why. There was something so direct, so fearless and so alive in his playing. Just tenor saxophone, bass and drums, no piano, no safety net, just pure invention.
Sonny had that rare thing all the greatest musicians have. You could hear his personality in the first few notes. Huge sound, incredible rhythm, total command and yet always searching.

A couple of years later, like millions of people, I heard him on The Rolling Stones’ “Waiting On A Friend.” That solo is beautiful, lyrical, effortless and completely unforgettable. I remember how impressed my Dad was that the Stones had brought in someone of Sonny’s stature. It was one of those wonderful crossovers where the worlds of jazz and rock met, not as a gimmick, however as a genuine musical statement.

That meant a lot to me. I grew up loving music across all boundaries and Sonny Rollins was one of those artists who made the boundaries feel irrelevant. He could be deeply sophisticated and completely human at the same time.

From Saxophone Colossus to A Night at the Village Vanguard, from “St. Thomas” to “Waiting On A Friend,” Sonny Rollins gave the world a lifetime of music that will continue to inspire musicians, producers, engineers and music lovers forever.
Rest in peace, Sonny. Thank you for the sound, the spirit and the endless pursuit of something deeper.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 527

Produce Like A Pro

I’ve been making records for a long time as a producer, engineer, songwriter and musician and I can tell you this:
Perfectionism has stopped more music being made than lack of talent ever has.
I’ve seen incredibly gifted artists sit on songs for months, sometimes years, because the vocal wasn’t “perfect”, the guitar sound wasn’t “there yet”, the lyric needed “one more pass”, or the mix wasn’t quite finished.
At some point, perfection stops being a standard and starts becoming fear wearing a very convincing disguise.
There’s a Japanese idea called wabi-sabi, which finds beauty in imperfection, impermanence and the unfinished nature of things.
I absolutely love that.
Because that’s what great music is.
It’s not always the most technically flawless performance that moves us. It’s the slight crack in the voice. The pushed snare hit. The guitar bend that isn’t perfectly in tune however somehow says everything. The bass note that arrives a hair late and suddenly the whole groove breathes.
Those little “imperfections” are often where the humanity lives.
And in this ever increasing world of AI in music, those things become more and more important.
Because as music becomes easier to generate, polish and perfect, the real value of human creativity may be found in the very things machines struggle to replicate:
Feel.
Instinct.
Taste.
Risk.
The moment where someone sings a line and you believe them.
When I listen back to records I love, I’m not listening for perfection. I’m listening for emotion. Intent. A point of view.
My dear friend, the late, great Dave Jerden once asked me to name my 5 favourite albums. He pointed out that none of them were 'perfectly' recorded, they were all performanced based, littered with 'mistakes' and 'imperfections'.
Music is supposed to feel alive.
That means it will change. You will change. The artist you are today is not the artist you’ll be in ten years, and that’s a wonderful thing. Don’t wait until you’ve become some mythical perfect version of yourself before you start releasing music.
Make the song now.
Record it with what you have.
Use the room you’re in.
Use the gear you can afford.
Lean into your limitations, because limitations are often where originality begins.
Some of the greatest records ever made were created under pressure, with limited tracks, imperfect equipment, tiny budgets and people making decisions quickly because they had no other choice.
They weren’t perfect.
They were powerful.
So, if perfectionism is keeping you from creating, remember this:
Your job is not to make something flawless.
Your job is to make something honest.
Have a marvellous time recording and mixing.
www.producelikeapro.com

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,248

Produce Like A Pro

Huge thanks to Sound On Sound and Joe Matera for featuring me in their How I Got That Sound series, talking about the guitar sound on The Fray’s “Never Say Never.”
This was such a special song to be part of. We recorded it at the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito, with The Fray becoming the last band ever to record there before it closed in 2008.
For the guitar sound, we wanted it to sit right alongside Isaac Slade’s vocal, not tucked behind it. The idea was for the guitar and vocal to feel like a true duet, each one carrying emotion, space and urgency.
Dave Welsh played a Fender Telecaster Deluxe with humbuckers, running through a ’65 Fender Deluxe and a Vox AC30 in stereo. We placed the amps in the stone live room, opened the door into the main room and let the sound bloom naturally through the space. Add in some beautiful ambience mics, a little DI for pick attack and the room itself became a huge part of the performance.
That’s what I love about great guitar sounds. It’s not just the amp, the guitar or the microphone. It’s the part, the player, the room, the song and the emotional reason for the sound.
Thank you again to Sound On Sound for the lovely feature. It’s always a pleasure to talk about the records, the rooms and the moments that stay with you.
Have a marvellous time recording and mixing.

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 377

Produce Like A Pro

Remembering Ike Willis
I was very saddened to hear of the passing of Ike Willis, a truly remarkable musician, singer, guitarist and, by every account I had personally, a lovely human being.
Most people will rightly remember Ike for his long and extraordinary association with Frank Zappa. Born Isaac Willis in St. Louis, Missouri, Ike became one of Zappa’s key collaborators from the late 1970s through the final Zappa tours of the 1980s. He was the voice of Joe on Joe’s Garage, sang on Tinsel Town Rebellion, You Are What You Is, The Man from Utopia, and played the title character and narrator in Thing-Fish. He was also a guitarist, vocalist and performer who could inhabit Zappa’s beautiful musical insanity with humour, precision and soul.
Ike passed away on May 16, 2026, in North Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 70. His family described him as a musician whose voice, humour and artistry left a lasting imprint on the music world, especially within the Zappa community where he was loved not only for his talent, however also for his generosity and spirit.
I feel very blessed that I got to work with Ike.
A few years ago, I was at Sunset Sound with my dear friend Tony Franklin and the incredible Vinnie Colaiuta, working on a Shawn Clement track. It was one of those pieces of music that makes you grin because it is so gloriously, wonderfully mad. Multiple tempo changes, key changes, twists and turns everywhere, all sorts of beautiful musical insanity, the kind of thing that requires not only great players, however fearless players.
And Ike was exactly that.
There was also a very special moment in the room because Ike and Vinnie had not worked together since their days with Frank Zappa. Seeing the two of them reunited was wonderful. There was history there, real history, not the manufactured kind. These were musicians who had stood inside some of the most demanding and inventive music ever made, and here they were again, laughing, playing and locking into something complex as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Ike’s rhythm guitar playing was funky, intelligent and completely musical. He had that rare ability to play something that felt great, served the song and still had character. It was precise without being stiff, loose without being sloppy and full of personality. A few days later he came over to Spitfire to do some additional guitar overdubs, and once again he was just a joy to be around. Warm, easy, musical, generous and completely present.
That is how I will remember him.
Of course, Ike’s legacy is enormous. To be a mainstay in Frank Zappa’s world for so many years says everything about his musical ability. Zappa’s music demanded memory, discipline, humour, feel, intelligence and the ability to move between the absurd and the profound in a heartbeat. Ike could do all of that. He sang it, played it, understood it and helped carry it forward long after Frank was gone.
However, beyond the credits, beyond Joe’s Garage, beyond the legendary tours and records, I will remember the man I met in the studio. A lovely fellow. A deeply musical person. Someone who brought joy into the room and made difficult music feel alive.
Rest in peace, Ike.
Thank you for the music, the humour, the funk and the fearless musicianship. You were part of something truly unique, and I am grateful I had the chance to share a room, a song and a few wonderful musical moments with you.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 464

Produce Like A Pro

Happy 80th Birthday ‪@RobertFripp‬

King Crimson changed my life.

There are certain artists who do not just make music you enjoy, they seem to rewire the way you hear music altogether. Robert Fripp is absolutely one of those artists for me. His way of playing, his musicality, his writing, the discipline, the danger, the intelligence, the sheer emotional depth of it all, it fits perfectly with my brain.
Yes, the song is “Frame by Frame”, and I have always found that piece strangely calming. To some people, those interlocking patterns might feel intense or complex, however to me they create order. They settle something in me. That is the magic of King Crimson, music that can be angular, fearless, powerful, deeply beautiful and yet somehow completely human.

From In the Court of the Crimson King, which helped redefine what progressive rock could be, to the extraordinary evolution through Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Red, Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair, Robert has never stood still. He has constantly pushed forward, not by chasing fashion, however by following the music wherever it demanded to go. His compositions use unusual rhythms, classical and folk influences and an utterly distinctive approach to the guitar that is not rooted in the usual blues vocabulary of rock, however in something far more personal, disciplined and exploratory.

Three of a Perfect Pair is one of my favourite albums ever. Whether people call it their best, their most fascinating or simply one of the most unique albums of the 1980s, it absolutely speaks to me. The sound of that band, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford, is like a machine with a soul. Precise, emotional, playful, terrifying and beautiful.

And of course, Robert’s influence goes far beyond King Crimson. His work with Brian Eno, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Blondie, David Sylvian and so many others is astonishing. The fact that his discography includes contributions to more than 700 official releases says so much, however even that number cannot capture the real impact. His sound is instantly recognisable. His musical mind is unmistakable.

King Crimson resonate with me in a way very few bands do. They speak to the part of me that loves melody, tension, intelligence, risk, beauty and discipline all at once. Robert Fripp’s music has challenged me, inspired me, calmed me and opened doors in my imagination.

Happy Birthday Robert Fripp. Thank you for a lifetime of fearless music, beautiful noise and creative courage. You have changed the way so many of us listen, play, think and feel.

Happy 40th Anniversary to you and ‪@Toyah‬!

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 986

Produce Like A Pro

“Don’t Let Them Become Pros”
Remembering My Friend and Mentor, Jack Douglas
Some interviews age differently.
This one means more to me now than it ever did when we filmed it.
It was one of the very first proper videos I ever made for Produce Like A Pro, long before anybody really knew what it was becoming. At the time, Jack and I were in the studio together making a record with the French rock band Black Rain. We were spending every day tracking, talking about music, laughing constantly, and somewhere in the middle of all that I pointed a camera at him and said, “Let’s do an interview.”
What came out was pure Jack Douglas.
Funny, self-deprecating, deeply insightful, occasionally chaotic, and full of hard-earned wisdom disguised as jokes.
The first thing he does is mock the title Produce Like A Pro.
“Do you know any pros?” he asks me immediately.
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever been accused of.”
That was Jack.
He hated pretension. Hated ego. Hated people taking themselves too seriously.
He used to joke that whenever somebody complained about a mix, they’d say, “Well, let’s get a professional.”
Then he’d grin.
Because underneath all the legendary credits, all the classic albums, all the history with Aerosmith, John Lennon, Patti Smith and countless others, Jack never lost the mentality of somebody who simply loved making records.
To him, we were all just “picking strawberries.”
That line still kills me.
He talks about getting fired from moving furniture before finding success picking strawberries, then says:
“That is what I use in this thing as far as I’m concerned. We’re picking strawberries. Putting them in a bushel basket and selling them.”
That was his philosophy of record making. No mysticism. No inflated sense of importance. Just work hard, make something beautiful, throw away the rotten strawberries, and keep moving.
However, buried inside the humour was extraordinary depth.

1 month ago | [YT] | 91