FIVE MUSIC PRODUCTION PODCASTS TO LISTEN TO RIGHT NOW
Song Exploder offers a fresh take on the industry by taking listeners through the production of recent hits. The quick episodes are around 20 minutes and focus entirely on the topic at hand. Rather than presenting information in an interview format, only the artist's responses are heard, keeping chit-chat with the interviewer to a minimum. Guests include Fleetwood Mac, Billie Eilish, U2, Metallica, Haim, Solange, Lorde, Yo-Yo Ma, The Roots, Bon Iver, and more. The podcast has been given loads of accolades and has been hosted at festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Noise Pop Festival, Moogfest and was hosted at Sydney Opera House in 2016 as an artist-in-residence.
This podcast focuses mainly on contemporary hip hop and offers advice for young producers. They offer advice on how to get into the industry such as working for yourself, finding a competent manager, and how to get visibility and placement from labels. With episodes including topics such as “When to Quit Your 9 to 5 Job” and “How to Avoid Being Scammed,” there are tidbits of advice for beginners and intermediate producers. They describe themselves as “An all music production podcast. Raw & uncut. Featuring Grammy Nominated Multi-Platinum producer !llmind, Atlas The Plug, Perfection & GLAM.”
Sound + Process focuses on a more Do-it-yourself approach to music production by “deconstruct[ing] new electronic and experimental works through conversations with their composers.” All the contributors are major contributors to the LINES community, an electronic music message board. The structure of the podcast deconstructs a track while the artist discusses the individual steps of its formation.
Girls Twiddling Knobs, besides having a great name, is listed as the “No.1 podcast for female-identifying musicians eager to start self-recording their music.” A great find just in time for women’s history month, and a great listen to all year-round. The focus of the podcast is speaking with “womxn making music with technology.” Hosted by Isobel Anderson and features music techs, producers, and artists as guests.
This podcast is focused more on the educational side of music production offering advice on recording, mixing, mastering, as well as tutorials. “Get a radio-ready sound from your home studio! Learn recording, mixing, mastering, and music production on The AudioSkills Podcast. We give you simple techniques that you can apply to your music for immediate results. It doesn’t matter what type of music you’re creating, or what gear you use, these techniques are universal.”