Top Five producers you've heard... but not heard of

When it comes to modern pop music, often the singer eclipses the producer who actually composed the music they are singing over.   These people lie just out of the limelight, with the whole world hearing their songs sometimes without even knowing their name.

So who are these mysterious songwriters?   Let's take a look at 5 of the best producers to ever create pop music and remain out of the mainstream's ever-watchful eye...


5. Scott Storch

Songs You've Heard: Justin Timberlake - Cry me a River, Dr. Dre - Still D.R.E

A Jewish Canadian producer who is responsible for the riffs in Dr. Dre's "Still D.R.E" and for co-producing Justin Timberlake's "Cry me a River".

Storch has veered towards the hip-hop side of things, not only musically but personally.   He's had "beef" with Justin Timberlake for not properly crediting him on the MTV awards for producing the song, where JT said Timberland was the producer.

He's also pushed the buttons of big-time producer Lil' Jon, who was quoted as saying Storch was "Biting his style" - stealing his unique sound for those not fluent in hip hop.

While he has earned over $70 million in his career, including $17 million in 2007, in mid 2008 he had an arrest warrant issued for failing to pay child support and for late property taxes.   So his music-writing skills may be considerable, but unfortunately for him, that doesn't mean his money-saving skills follow suit!

4. Evan Bogart

Songs You've Heard: Beyonce - Halo, Rhianna - SOS, Pussycat Dolls - Jai Ho!

Even Bogart was born to well connected parents - Casablanca records founder Neil Bogart and music manager Joyce Bogart-Trabulus (who co-managed KISS.)

Starting out as an Intern in Interscope records at age 16, Evan Bogart grew up to join the A&R department, working to promote such massive artists such as 2Pac and Eminem.

Several years on in 2006, he joined the record label and publishing company "Beluga Heights" as the head songwriter.   It was then that he went on to write for Beyonce, Rihanna, Britney, Kylie amongst a lot of others.

He was responsible for the #1 single SOS by Rihanna and Halo by Beyonce, so it's definitely skill that put him where he is today, not his parents!


3. Ryan Tedder

Songs You've Heard: OneRepublic - Apologize, Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

Now here's the first one on the list that you'll have heard their voice on a track without possibly knowing his name.   Ryan Tedder is the lead singer for OneRepublic, the act that broke records for the best selling single of the decade and the most played song on radio with 10,331 plays in a week.

He was knocked off the top spot only five months later when Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" got 10,665 plays - another song he co-produced.   Nice going, Ryan!

So his name might not be on the songs, apparently preferring to give his band the promotion, but it hasn't stopped him from rubbing shoulders and producing for Ludacris, Backstreet Boys, Chris Cornell, Whitney Houston and even DJ Tiesto.

Not bad for a little boy of humble origins, growing up with a religious family in Tulsa - his parents apparently encouraged him to practice piano by offering him candy corn as a reward.   He learned music via the "Suzuki Method" - where the tutee is taught by ear rather than by reading notes.


2. Christopher Stewart

Songs You've Heard: Umbrella - Rihanna, Single Ladies - Beyonce, Me against the Music - Britney Spears feat. Madonna

Another entrant into this top 5 who has beginnings in Pop-Rap.   His first major success was co-writing the single "Who Dat" for JT Money, which became #1 on the rap charts.

He then went on to discover several artists such as Blu Cantrell, then achieved worldwide renown by producing the song "Me against the Music" for both Britney and Madonna.

He had a musical upbringing, allegedly writing songs since the age of 12.   He started writing for major artists through a link from his older brother to his business mentor Louil Silas Jr.


1. Max Martin

Songs You've Heard: Britney Spears - Oops I did it again, Backstreet Boys - As long as you love me, Five - Slam dunk da funk, Katy Perry - Hot n Cold, Pink - So What... Yeah, pretty much every other massive #1 in the past 15 years.

Max Martin is the undeniable king of producers the make massive hits but keep a low profile.   His production record pretty much reads like a list of billboard number one hits.

His versatility as a producer has meant he can go from dance-pop songs to epic ballads to pop-rock with the click of a finger... or rather the sign of a paycheque.   With the literally hundreds of famous artists he's produced for, he's probably not going to be short of cash.

It's his ability to adapt himself to different artists while maintaining the signature #1 pop smash hit formula that has ensured his success.

He was originally a singer for an 80s glam rock band; "It's Alive", which was unsuccessful, but during his time on the label they were signed to, he was noticed by producer Denniz Pop, who became Max Martin's Mentor and Moulded him into a Monster Hit-Making Machine!

The History of Modern Christmas Music

Music is an intrinsic part of the Christmas spirit.   Carols are sung pretty much the world over and anyone who's been shopping during December in the past 50 years is sure to relate sleigh bells to a specific month of the year.

But these are old stereotypes - in the past few decades, many songs have been written which are now engrained into the psyche of the public.   How do they do it?   When did this obsession with Christmas pop music begin?

Let's have a look...

Popular Christmas Music

Popular artists have been making festive music for years and years now, from Paul McCartney to Gwen Stefani.   They don't have to be religious; In fact, popular Christmas music tends not to be religious, rather focusing on fictional fat men, gift-giving and nasally-outstanding reindeer to attract a wider audience.

Some so-called Christmas music doesn't even relate directly to Christmas, but have been adopted by the public.   This list includes the massive "Winter Wonderlandî, "Let it Snow" and "Jingle Bells", which was originally written for Thanksgiving!

But while music that sings about Christmas is certainly festive, one undeniably large element of Christmas music is the...

Christmas Number One

This is a pretty much exclusively British phenomenon - where every year, the position of number one in the charts is even more prized than normal during the week before Christmas day.   Quite possibly because the winning single will sell a considerable amount more.   The songs for the most part aren't anything to do with Christmas, instead either being a huge hit around the time or a novelty song such as "Mr Blobby".

That said, Band Aid has been the biggest selling Christmas number one with "Do they know it's Christmas?" after selling over 3.5 million copies with all of the proceeds being donated to charity.

Charity plays a big part in Christmas number ones, with several incarnations of Band Aid, as well as Queen's second entry into the Christmas number one position with "Bohemian Rhapsody" racking up millions for various charities.

Another method that people are introduced to Christmas music is...

Christmas Movie Soundtracks

A large number of songs have been initially popularised by movies.   "White Christmas" in the movie of the same name, "Holly Jolly Christmas" in an animated special "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "Let it Snow!" in "Die Hard" and "Jingle Bell Rock" in "Lethal Weapon" for some examples.

But it's not just movies that popularise Christmas songs - let's go back to some of...

The Bigger Christmas Pop Hits

Let's take a look at some of the biggest hits and see their story.

Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody

This track saved the band Slade - after their drummer, Don Powell, was involved in a car crash, the band was on tenuous ground, but after grouping together and pushing through Powell's short-term memory loss they wrote Merry Xmas Everybody as the first song they'd recorded layer-by-layer in the studio as opposed to live.

So it was that Slade went on to make horrendous amounts of money and the British Public was "treated" to Noddy Holder's scream of "IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAS!" every year since.

Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime

As the other Beatles John and George had tried their hand at festive singles, Paul didn't want to be left out and created his massive hit "Wonderful Christmastime".   Incidentally, the synth riff was played on a Prophet-5, one of the most popular synths of the time.

Wham! - Last Christmas

The Pop duo Wham! brought out their hit "Last Christmas" for an expected battle for Christmas number one against "Frankie goes to Hollywood".   However, the "Band Aid" project which Wham! was a part of took the top spot.   It became the biggest selling single ever to not reach the number one spot with over a million sales.

How much money?

So with all this popularity and coveting of the number one position, how much do these songwriters and performers make?   Well, it's difficult to say, but apparently 1/3 of the money the music industry makes is during the run up to Christmas.

One example I could find was the tune "I'll be Home for Christmas", which apparently is number 9 in ASCAP's "Most performed holiday songs" list.   In 2002-2003, it earned over $18,000 in royalties for the composer.   Not bad considering it was written in 1943!

The Bing Crosby version of "White Christmas" is the biggest selling single of all time, with the Guinness book of records attributing over 100 million sales to it.   It was initially a poor seller, but has been so consistent in the charts ever since that it's taken the all-time top spot.

So if you're looking to make some serious money in music, perhaps you should start thinking about what your Christmas hit should be!

Top 10 Best Selling Christmas number 1s

So now the rush for the number one chart spot at prime selling time is over, it seems a good time to look back and see what other songs made it to number one over the Christmas...

10. Tom Jones - Green Green Grass of Home
Sales: 1.2 Million
Date: 1966
A Country song that Tom Jones covered and brought up to Christmas number one, breaking The Beatles' 3-year run of consecutive Christmas number ones.

9. Whitney Houston - I will always love you
Sales: 1.36 Million
Date: 1992
The second cover in this list, Whitney covered Dolly Parton's song "I Will Always Love You" and spent 14 weeks at the number 1 spot on the billboard singles chart.

8. Beatles - We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper
Sales: 1.39 Million
Date: 1965
The world's first double A-sided single was also a Christmas number one.   The Beatles' third successive Christmas number one.

7. Beatles - I Feel Fine
Sales: 1.41 Million
Date: 1964
A riffy rock song took the top spot in '64 when Lennon reworked a riff from "Eight Days a Week" into a smash hit.

6. Human League - Don't You Want Me
Sales: 1.43 Million
Date: 1981
The first electronic track to hit this list, the 80s British synthpop group The Human League took the top spot and the single remains their most commercially successful release.

5. Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand
Sales: 1.75 Million
Date: 1963
This was the first Beatles song to use a 4 track recorder and to be produced in Stereo.   It was also their first number 1 in America and began the British invasion of the US music charts.

4. Boney M - Mary's Boy Child / Oh My Lord
Sales: 1.79 Million
Date: 1978
The first song in the list to be related to Christmas, Boney M brought their interpretation of Harry Belafonte's 1956 hit to the masses with an upbeat pop track that was recorded just a month before it hit the number 1 spot!

3. Wings - Mull of Kintyre
Sales: 2.05 Million
Date: 1977
The first single to be classified "Rhodium" (after "Platinum"), Paul McCartney's tribute to the place in Scotland that he lived and recorded was the biggest selling single of all time.

2. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Sales: 2.1 Million
Date: 1975/1991
Freddy Mercury wrote Queen's Magnum Opus as something a bit different, with an unusual "mock opera" format that didn't have any specific chorus.   The public loved it, however, and it shot straight to number one in 1975 and again after Mercury's Death in 1991.

1. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?
Sales: 3.55 Million
Date: 1984
The biggest selling Christmas number 1 ever, Bob Geldof's brainchild to raise money for famine in Ethiopia brought together some of the biggest selling British and Irish musicians of the time.   From George Michael to Bono, Sting, Kool and the Gang, Status Quo and Boy George among others, the single outsold every other song in the chart put together.   Quite an accolade!

Special Mention: This year (2009), Rage against the Machine was the first artist to get in the christmas number one spot through downloads alone with the backing of a facebook group who decided they'd had enough of the X-factor contestants taking the chart year after year.

The "Killing in the Name" campaign was supported by celebrities such as Dave Grohl, Sir Paul McCartney (who actually appeared on the X Factor as well) and the band Muse, as well as comedians Stephen Fry and Bill Bailey.

Just goes to show what you can do with the Internet!

Synaesthesia - People who see Music

Have you ever seen someone wearing a painfully coloured T-shirt and thought to yourself; "Man, that's a loud shade of green!"?

Well, if that person suffers from synaesthesia, they might be thinking "Man, that's a green shade of loud!"

Synaesthesia is when stimulation of one sense involuntarily stimulates another sense.   In this article I'll be talking about musical synaesthesia - when hearing music can make you see colours.

As many as 1 in 23 people have some form of this phenomenon - A friend of mine who does describes high register piano notes as pink and low ones as deep reds and blacks.   She even sung a song in yellow when she was in my studio once - it's fascinating.   With no formal musical education, she is able to estimate the pitch of a sound by the colour.

Though not all synaesthesia sufferers (though as far as I'm aware there's no suffering involved barring your musical friends constantly asking "What colour is this song?!") agree on a universal colour code for music.   Classical Composers Liszt and Rimsky Korsakov famously disagreed on the colour of certain keys, for example.

They universally agreed on louder tones bringing brighter colours and higher tones bringing smaller and lighter patches of colour.

It was described to me by my previously mentioned friend as like seeing the world through a filter - as such, she is unable to watch the new 3D movies that come out, since the sound messes with the filtering on the 3D glasses!   So I guess there's another reason for calling her a synaesthesia sufferer.

Music is difficult to define - different people see sound in different instances, with some only hearing it to music whereas others can turn a dropped plate into a lush palette of swirling colour.   It tends to be melody rather than percussion that triggers it, though.

It's amazing what the human brain is capable of cooking up accidentally.   It can turn techno into teal, rock into red and blues into... also red, apparently.

So next time you write a piece of music, you might want to ask... is this song colourful enough?

10 ways to make the most of your samples

So you've just got a new sample pack and you're looking to do some interesting stuff with them.   Here are 10 suggestions to help you make the most out of your samples!

1. Stutter - Cut up your samples into tiny little pieces and place them next to each other.   Try it with a snare, cutting a 1/32 long slice and repeating it to create a brand new, glitchy, stuttery snare!

2. Filter - Try an extreme high pass above 3khz on a clicky kick drum to turn it into a hi hat, or a band pass on a snare to create some really unusual mid-range electro-percussion!   Filtering opens up a massive range of new sounds.

3. Drastically EQ - Emphasizing usually less prominent frequencies can change the focus of a sample so it sounds entirely different.

4. Cut - Cut a sample short to make it tighter, cut out little sections to give a more interesting, stutter-like effect or even cut out quiet parts of the sample, normalize them and use them as entirely new percussive samples!

5. Distort - Pretty self explanatory, you can seriously change a sample's tone with some distortion.   It can make it hit harder whilst still maintaining the characteristics of the sound if you're careful with how much you apply!

6. Layer - Put samples on top of each other to create new ones, really useful for making massive snares.

7. Compress - Make samples much punchier with compression, or add heavy multi band compression to make them feel bigger and give them a completely different tone!

8. Reverse - Not just for build ups; reversed samples, when cut short, can make for some interesting percussion!

9. Pitch Change - Turn your hi hat into a bass drum or your bass drum into a multi-sampled synth! (You can make a great Venga Boys style synth with a hardcore Gabba kick drum pitch shifted!)

10. Slow/Speed up - Get some massive, heavy explosive sounds by slowing a kick drum, or some really sharp Jungley snares from speeding up slower, Hip-Hoppier ones!

In the Ring - Musique Concrete vs Elektronische Musik

It's a battle between the pioneers of electronic music!

Two different takes on using electronic equipment will duke it out (an old expression for some old genres) to see which is the most influential!

In the red corner we have Musique Concrete, the sampling-obsessed French genre that loves its microphones and manipulation!

In the blue corner we have Elektronische Musik, the German synthesizer-savvy style that values computer-generated sounds over real recordings any day of der Woche!

Let the battle commence!


Roots of Concrete

Let's start in France, 1948, when the French Composer "Pierre Schaeffer" created the first pieces of musique Concrete - a style where acoustmatic music (acousmatic sound is when you hear a sound without seeing the thing that causes it.   Acousmatic music is when this recorded sound is used in a musical context.) was used for the entirety of the composition.

Now, considering the music at the time was mainly big band stuff, this was quite a diversion from the norm and was (and still is) met with considerable criticism.   Many people failed to see how resampling trains was musical.

But that didn't stop Schaeffer from carrying on with his microphones, mixing desk and even some seriously old school effects (some very rudimentary filters and mechanical reverb were used)

During this time, a german composer named Karlheinz Stockhausen worked in Schaeffer's studio.

In comes Elektronische Musik...

Karlheinz eventually wrote Elektronische Studie II, which was the first electronic music piece to have a score.   He was not the only founder of what they defined as "Elektronische Musik" however.

German music theorists Werner Meyer-Eppler, Robert Beyer and Herbert Eimert joined him and completed the four horsemen of the noisy apocalypse.   This apocalypse intended to eclipse the naturally generated sounds that Musique Concrete valued with electronically produced signals.

So that's how they began, where did they go from there?

If we follow Musique Concrete through the 50s and into the 60s, it began popularizing the art form of sampling sound for music.   The "Groupe de Recherches Musicales" - a collection of experimental musicians working under Schaeffer pushed the envelope of acousmatic music...

They created devices such as keyboards that could be used to change the speed of playback, machines with several playback heads that could create an echo effect and a "replay tape" which could play loops at a variable range of speeds.

Elektronische Musik, however, inspired bands such as Kraftwerk, who formed in 1970 - revolutionizing music by bringing melody into synthesized sound for the first time in a popular context.


So where are they now?

Take a look in the charts - They will be dominated with Synthesizer-ridden pop music and sample-studded Hip Hop.   Both ideologies live on long after they were first created, but in very different forms.

Sampling has become commonplace in the electronic music scene, with samplers like the Akai MPC bringing it to a massive market, and of course synthesizers, not ones to be left in the dust, have been developing too, with pioneers like Moog pushing them until they are so powerful that we take for granted that we can get a powerful multi-oscillator Saw-tooth wave at the touch of a button.

A large amount of synthesizers involve some element of both sampling and synthesizing and have done for a while, for example, using a sampled attack from a piano sound and using a synthesized tail to the sound for more control over it.

So when it comes to asking the question: "Which was the most influential?" Take a look in the charts.   Do you see something synthesized or do you see an artistic sampling of something you've seen before?

Chances are it's a sample of something that was synthesized in the first place!   In which case Musique Concrete and Elektronische Musik have been used in conjunction to create the biggest hits of this generation!   And that's a message we can all learn from (Sorry for the cheesy end, I just had to do it!)

Top 5 most influential Electronic Musicians

Electronic Music has thousands of famous people associated with its evolution and its progress marches inexorably forward.

But of those names, who has influenced the widest audience with their innovations?

Here are the top 5 most influential Electronic Musicians ever...


5. Gary Numan

Whilst not revolutionizing style (Maybe someone found a way to clone David Bowie in the late 70s...), he pushed the envelope for Electronic Music.  

He single-handedly triggered the "Keep Music Live" campaign after performances of his number 1 hit song "Are 'Friends' Electric?" made the Musicians Union angry that he wasn't performing live enough for them since he was cutting out the need for live musicians.

4. Kraftwerk

The inspiring German electronica group started in 1970 that made countless catchy songs.

They popularized the use of vocoders and computer-generated vocals and used both synthesizers and electronically mangled live instruments such as band member Florian Schneider's flute performances which ended up sounding more like a bass instrument!

3. DJ Kool Herc

Referenced as the founder of Hip Hop music, this Jamaican DJ came up with the clever idea of using two turntables to keep the danceable break beat from funk songs going all through the party!   He also arguably began rap music by punctuating the beats with rhyming slang!

For one guy with a funny hat he's accomplished more than many could dream of.

2. Robert Moog

Whilst not a famous musician as such, Dr. Robert Arthur Moog founded the Moog Music company which created the world-famous Moog Synthesizer followed by the "Mini Moog" which became one of the first synthesizers to be portable and affordable, meaning you didn't have to be a millionaire or a scientist to create electronic music!   Quite an accolade.

1. Pierre Schaeffer

The father of Electronica.   The first man to decide to use machines for music, he inspired people who inspired people who inspired people who... you get the picture.

A genuine legend, he created the Musique Concrète movement and began the use of artistic sampling.   While his pieces may not be to everyone's tastes, I'm sure that whoever made the music that is to your tastes can trace their influences back inevitably to him.

The Prime Loops Sale!

We've had a great year at Prime Loops, and we wouldn't have been able to expand our studio, offices, and team without you guys, so as a way to thank you, in-tune with the festive season, we are now offering 25% off ALL our sample packs for a limited time only!


You can expect some very exiting updates coming your way in the new year (top secret!) We feel we really have the power and artillery more than ever before to push the boundaries of sound, and deliver higher quality sounds with every new release. We will be moving forward in 2010 with our tasty array of world-class musicians, DJ's and engineers to provide even more releases weekly with the very best audio possible today, and of course, continue to provide our much-loved music production articles, tips and tricks every week.


You will also see some major changes to the website (you may have noticed a few small ones already) coming over the next few months, these are designed to make your browsing experience easier, quicker and more fun! If you have any suggestions, do get in touch!


So from the whole Prime Loops Team, enjoy what's left of 2009 and make 2010 your year!


The Prime Loops Sale is now on, so go get some!


Ben Jayakody - (Director)
Rene Steuns - (Content Manager)
Tom Oldfield - (Graphic/Web Development)
Nick Howard - (Distribution Assistant)
Mathew Yost - (Audio Formatting)
Anup Pereira - (Audio Assistant)
David Rose - (Mastering/Production)
David Brown - (Media)
Dimitry Vasilyev - (Production)

10 Plug-ins to Improve Your Synths

Wondering how to make your synths more professional and interesting?   Here are 10 suggestions for things to do to your sounds, from pretty conventional ones to downright destructive ones!

Here are 10 plug-ins to improve your synths...

1. Chorus

A brilliant way to simply widen your synth or to turn it into something reminiscent of an epileptic Dalek.   Chorus is great for some mental modulations!

2. Dynamic EQ

A plug in I've found much more useful than conventional EQ when it comes to playing with sounds, you can actually carve out the frequency spectrum you want rather than simply boosting certain frequencies!   Brilliant for emphasizing those important parts of the sound that are a bit too quiet.

3. Bit Crusher

Need a bit more of an edge to your synth?   Bit Crushers can turn your synth into a lo-fi sledgehammer when used correctly!

4. Enhancer

These are nice plug ins that combine a few things - they can widen, do rudimentary EQing and limiting or compression depending on the plug-in you get.   Great for doing a lot with a small amount of processer overhead (as opposed to using loads of separate plug-ins!)

5. Harmonic Exciter

Sometimes also called enhancers (can get pretty confusing with the above plug-in!), harmonic exciters deliberately distort the high end of the spectrum to bring back some of the brightness lost in the recording process.   This can really lift a synth up in the mix!

6. Stereo Imager

These are absolute gold when making immense synths or epic soundscapes.   They push the synths to the far left and right in the stereo spectrum, widening it and making it feel bigger.

7. Limiter

Makes the synth effect as loud as possible while stopping the synth from peaking - really useful on crazier, unpredictable synth effects!

8. Multi-Band Compression

Limiting not making your synth loud enough?   Try Multi-Band Compression - it separates the sound into several different frequencies, boosts each filtered section, then puts it back together, making the apparent volume much louder without affecting the overall volume!   Ridiculously useful.

9. Filter

Filters are great for making synths sound completely different - just isolate a certain section of the frequencies with a band pass filter and listen to the difference!

10. Delay

Instant talent - Delay makes everything sounds so much bigger and better... just be careful that you're not totally drowning your synth in the stuff!