Not wasting any time, Mike Shinoda jumped into the newest production session on Tuesday, March 2, skipping the usual conversation with viewers and shout-outs he usually does at the beginning of a live stream. Preparing to work on the latest track from musician Joe Turone, titled “Strong,” Shinoda played Turone’s original vocal and piano tracks for viewers as he was making last-minute adjustments to record in the live room.
“I think this song has a lot of really classic elements to it — it’s partially the chord progression. I feel like there’s a little like Queen going on, a little Beatles maybe, like maybe even some Elton John, I don’t know. But it’s got all that good stuff in it, so it’s gonna be hard. This is not going to be an easy track to produce today, but we’re gonna go for it.”
After playing Turone’s original song, Shinoda then did things a little out of order compared to what viewers are used to. Beginning production in the live room rather than in the control room, Shinoda recorded live drums using Pro Tools. While never having used Pro Tools before on one of the #ShinodaProduceMe tracks, Shinoda wanted to use it, as it gave him better control over the drums compared to Ableton, which is his usual audio software.
“For the sound of the kick and the snare, because I wanted it to sound a little more like those references I was talking about [Queen, The Beatles, Elton John], it’s like a plastic snare … treatment cover … you put it on top of your snare and it makes it have that nice deep … kind of sound. And if you listen to the kick, it has a softer kind of sound … And also the beater on the kick … is very soft and has a whole different shape to it, which I thought fit the song.”
After editing the drums, which is much easier to do in Pro Tools than Ableton, Shinoda then bounced all the tracks for Turone’s song into Ableton to produce the rest of the song in that program. The transfer did have a few timing issues at first between the new drum tracks and Turone’s original vocal and piano tracks, which, luckily, Shinoda was able to fix quickly, allowing him to move on to the next steps of production. However, while this was the first small problem Shinoda would encounter during this production session, it would not be the last.
As Shinoda began populating the song with more instruments, such as the tambourine and piano, he ran into another problem when listening to the MIDI piano track that Turone had re-recorded and sent to him in addition to the other more mono piano. The MIDI piano, which Shinoda was going to use, had the wrong chords, making it incompatible with the rest of the song; this meant Shinoda had to record the piano part again himself. Shortly after, while recording live bass to add into the track, the sound for the live stream cut off for about fifteen minutes before Shinoda noticed. Luckily, the rest of the stream had audio as Shinoda recorded live electric guitar to wrap up Turone’s track for the day, going back to finish it the following day on Wednesday, March 3.
Joe Turone is a singer, songwriter, and producer based in Hertfordshire, UK. Turone has been making music for about six years, starting with the release of a 2017 EP titled “Trial and Error” created in collaboration with artist Sydney Brown, which can be found on Soundcloud (they came out with an album later in the year as well). Turone then came out with a few more releases in 2017, such as the single “Take Your Time” followed by a solo album in 2018 titled “Getting By”. He also recently dropped a second album in 2020 called “Into Nowhere,” along with the acoustic versions of a few of his original songs — most of which can be found on Spotify or Apple Music. A few of Turone’s songs also have official music videos, which he has uploaded to his Youtube channel, along with a few covers of popular songs, such as “Along Again” by Gilbert O’Sullivan and “All I Found” from the second Frozen movie.
If you weren’t able to see Joe Turone’s “Strong” be produced live by Mike Shinoda, you can still watch the Twitch replay below! Make sure to check out Turone’s music, as well as Shinoda’s previous production sessions. Stay tuned to Shinoda’s Twitch channel weekdays around 10 a.m. PT for more live production sessions!
As a follow up from the last announcement, Judison has announced a new release date for his #ShinodaProduceMe track! “I Can’t Feel A Thing” is now set for release on March 12 and will be available on all streaming platforms.
