Check it out, it’s not one of his bluesy records, more an 80s synth moment from him. But we’d also listen to a lot of contemporary dance music and all sorts of other influences such as Moombahton and Reggaetón.ĭuring the making of Clean Bandit’s “Symphony,” one of the records we referenced was Behind the Mask by Eric Clapton. They all studied it, as I did too with classical guitar. Jack and Luke, Grace and I all have a real appreciation of classical music. That musicality and that style gets embedded in you as you grow up.Ĭlean Bandit is a good example of that. The young generation who are making music now were listening to that as kids via their parents. It’s interesting because I think historically, music is often influenced by what was made 15 to 20 years previously. How do you take these classical instruments back to the future in the mix? Your production style has a signature blend of synth and classical instruments. My job then is to listen and find a way of putting them together with all the sounds that are going to help the record turn people's heads. I’ve also got the luxury of having people come to me, day after day, who've already got their own ideas, and the germination has already taken place. Not every song I write starts the same way, but it’s always interesting to switch over and see if you’ve still got a great song. When we’re trying to work things out, we sometimes play these songs on the piano and work for a while like that. But I can also play a bit of piano, and often I work with Jack of Clean Bandit, who is a very good pianist. I’m a guitarist by trade that’s how I started. My songwriting process naturally happens with a guitar. When you strip a song down to an instrument that plays chords or even just a counter-melody and a vocal on top, you’ve got nothing to hide behind. When composing on guitar or piano, how much of the final sound do you have in mind?Ī good song needs to work completely stripped back, as well as work within a much more complex production. So that’s probably the reason a lot of people like myself have honed our skills in all three areas. It's often very difficult to say where songwriting finishes and production begins and the same is true at the other end, between production and mixing. Yes, the lines have been blurred, because today people use the same medium – the computer, the DAW – to perform all three tasks. Do you think the lines have blurred between songwriter, producer and engineer these days? Mark, you’ve co-written and co-produced Years & Years’ Communion co-produced and mixed Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye” – all UK #1 hits. We’ve asked producer, mixer, songwriter and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Ralph to share his insights on being a musical polymath and combining all these aspects of studio work – as well as his unique approach to layering diverse sounds in new, surprising ways in order to create a greater whole. We peeled back the layers and got to the core of his symphony of hits.Ĭan anyone call themselves solely a producer, songwriter, or mix engineer anymore? Don’t we all wear different hats in the studio? From mixing and composing to recording and performing, knowing only one of these skills is rarely enough nowadays. Studio Renaissance-man Mark Ralph (Clean Bandit, Jax Jones, Years & Years) has graced some of the biggest synth/electro bangers of recent years with his eclectic layering of dance and classical sounds.
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