Production Tips From Producer Greg Kurstin – A Deep Dive Find of a Forgotten Apple Article

Hope you and yours are doing well through this trying time. By now it’s no secret that the world around us is doing its best to mitigate concerns around Covid-19.

Now I’m not here today to burden you further with these concerns. But I can’t say I haven’t been thinking to myself, “is posting about Logic really all that important right now?”

But what else can we do? I think the options are:

• Do our best to help each other out in ways that don’t negatively impact anyone
• Keep living our day-to-day as thoughtfully as we can

Okay then. I’m not a doctor, city or state official. So I’ll leave it at that. But I do hope you have the ability to stay safe.

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There’s nothing like learning from the pros. YouTube folk (like myself) is one thing. But how about learning from the hitmakers themselves?

For a while, Apple had an amazing interview on its website with producer Greg Kurstin.

Though you may not have heard his name before, you’ve definitely heard his work. He’s worked with everyone from Paul McCartney to the Jonas Brothers. The Beck demo song that comes included with Logic is one co-written and produced with Kurstin.

That article on the Apple website revolved around Kurstin’s work with Adele on her hit album ’25.’ And it was such a fantastic look inside the world of producing and songwriting at a high level.

Of course, any article on any company’s website is designed with marketing in mind. Greg Kurstin is a Logic user. So why not show off how Logic is being used?

So yes, it was a promo piece. But it was freaking awesome promo piece.

But eventually, the sun set for that article. And one day Apple removed it from its website.

That bummed me out hard. I thought it would be so cool for Apple to conduct similar articles showing users how Logic is being used in the professional world.

Well, thank goodness for readers like you! In an email exchange with Zander J., I mentioned the article and how awesome it was, but how Apple had taken it down.

Zander had the good intuition to check the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine for the article. Lo and behold, he found it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160314091708/http://www.apple.com/logic-pro/in-action/gregkurstin-adele/

This article is gold. I love how Kurstin explains how he prepares for co-writes with artists.

• From sampling his own synth collection for easy transport
• To compiling templates chock full of sounds that he thinks will fit an artist
• To pitch-shifting Adele’s “Hello” down a half step with a plugin, versus replaying the piano part

It’s a testament to the value of preparation and making use of all the tools one has.

So thanks very much for digging up this article Zander!

P.S. Looking for some extra reading material? Here’s a Sound on Sound article with Greg Kurstin on his work producing and mixing for Lily Allen. Which he mixed her hit single using only the Logic plugins:

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/secrets-mix-engineers-greg-kurstin