Bobby Owsinski's Inner Circle Podcast

Female artists who hire producers risk losing creative control before a single song is released.
On this week's podcast episode, Xylo Aria, founder of Music Production for Women(MPW), tells us how she learned this the hard way, by paying for sessions where male producers overrode her vision, leaving her with music she never put out and studios where personal safety competed with creative freedom.
Seven years building MPW taught her that the real barrier isn't technical knowledge, but confidence and the self-imposed belief that production simply isn't for women.
She shares how she dismantled those barriers and why owning your production is the only way to fully own your art.
Xylo started writing songs at 12, spent four years as a corporate accountant, then quit after a close friend died suddenly, moved to the UK, and launched MPW about two weeks after leaving a contract role.
The platform runs a year-long Master Your Music program, alongside free online and in-person events throughout the year.
Students range from complete DAW beginners to demo-makers with knowledge gaps, spanning electronic, folk, singer-songwriter, and sound-healing genres.
Xylo's sharpest takeaway from her years of teaching is that 70 percent finished is great. Stop tweaking, release, and move on because productivity compounds when you let go.
For women who have paid for sessions and walked away with music they never released, she advises to open the DAW now, build muscle memory across your own genre, and take the first step before you feel ready.
Waiting until you're further along is the trap, because every finished project you own outright is one where no one else controlled the outcome or the room.
Connect with Xylo:
LinkedIn
Website
MPW
Instagram
TikTok (MPW)
Thank you for tuning in to Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle, the podcast that takes you deep inside the music industry. Each week, Bobby shares insights, news, analysis, and conversations with the movers and shakers shaping today’s music world.
📌 Explore Bobby’s best-selling books
🎙️ Nail that pro vocal sound: clear, upfront, and mix-ready. Learn how in Bobby’s Vocal Mixing Mini-Course
🎧 Discover more mixing and production courses
📲 Follow Bobby for more tips, insights, and updates:
Facebook
LinkedIn
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Bluesky
🎙️ New episodes release every Tuesday at 9AM Pacific on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.

Music. Business. Creativity. Straight from the Inner Circle.

Produced by APodcastGeek
https://apodcastgeek.com/

On this week's episode, Elliot Easton, guitarist for The Cars and Creedence Clearwater Revisited, takes us through his journey with the band and beyond.
Easton looks back at The Cars' origins, from getting a label deal the old fashioned way, to connecting with famed producer Roy Thomas Baker, to recording the band's initial albums, to how his many influences shaped his solos in the studio.
He then tells us about his time with Creedence Clearwater Revisited, and the broken tour with The New Cars where bad management sunk a potentially good thing.
Finally we talk about Elliot's Rickenbacker 12 string and his signature Gibson Tikibird Firebird, which has become somewhat of a collectors item.
If you've ever enjoyed The Cars music and Elliot's playing, you'll love the ground that we cover in this episode.
Connect with Elliot:
Instagram
Facebook
X
Ad link: Explore The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (6th Edition), the go-to guide for modern mixing.
Thank you for tuning in to Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle, the podcast that takes you deep inside the music industry. Each week, Bobby shares insights, news, analysis, and conversations with the movers and shakers shaping today’s music world.
📌 Explore Bobby’s best-selling books
🎙️ Nail that pro vocal sound: clear, upfront, and mix-ready. Learn how in Bobby’s Vocal Mixing Mini-Course
🎧 Discover more mixing and production courses
📲 Follow Bobby for more tips, insights, and updates:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
Bluesky
🎙️ New episodes release every Tuesday at 9AM Pacific on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.

Music. Business. Creativity. Straight from the Inner Circle.

Produced by APodcastGeek
https://apodcastgeek.com/

Music business professionals who still see major labels as career partners need to hear what Bobby Owsinski lays out plainly: Universal Music Group's pursuit of a $3 billion Spotify stock sell-off signals that labels have shifted from artist development engines into financial instruments that happen to license music. 
The failure mode is assuming the label is on your side when, as Bobby explains, artists are a line item on a balance sheet. 
His counterintuitive fix is to stop waiting for label validation and recognize that AI flooding submissions without capturing listeners, and stagnating streaming growth, are signals that independent builders have more leverage now than at any point in the modern music business.

Bobby walks through specific pressure points across the business. 
YouTube raised individual plans from $10.99 to $11.99 and family plans from $16.99 to $18.99, compounding recent hikes from Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon that together push subscribers toward cancellation. 
Universal Music Group's proposed $3 billion Spotify stock sell-off earmarks roughly $850 million for artists, but under an artist-centric model that concentrates payouts on Taylor Swift and Drake rather than developing acts. T
he BMG-Concord merger introduces private equity firm Great Mountain Partners at 33% ownership. IFPI data shows 837 million global streaming subscribers, doubled since 2020, yet growth in high-revenue Western markets is stalling.

Listeners leave with a clear-eyed framework for evaluating every major-label conversation. 
Bobby's evidence shows labels are optimizing for catalog margins and investor returns, not artist development, so traction you build independently is no longer a stepping stone to a deal but leverage you already own. 
Private equity now shapes both BMG and the UMG acquisition bid, compressing the window where a label adds more than it extracts. The practical move is to treat label infrastructure as a specific tool for scaling from star to superstar, and only if you are already there. Otherwise, the balance sheet math works against you before the contract is signed.
Ad link: Explore The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (6th Edition), the go-to guide for modern mixing.
Thank you for tuning in to Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle, the podcast that takes you deep inside the music industry. Each week, Bobby shares insights, news, analysis, and conversations with the movers and shakers shaping today’s music world.
📌 Explore Bobby’s best-selling books
🎙️ Nail that pro vocal sound: clear, upfront, and mix-ready. Learn how in Bobby’s Vocal Mixing Mini-Course
🎧 Discover more mixing and production courses
📲 Follow Bobby for more tips, insights, and updates:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
Bluesky
🎙️ New episodes release every Tuesday at 9AM Pacific on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.

Music. Business. Creativity. Straight from the Inner Circle.

Produced by APodcastGeek
https://apodcastgeek.com/

What matters more in the music business, mastering every plugin, or becoming the kind of person people want to hire again?

On this episode of Bobby Owsinski's Inner Circle Podcast, Bobby talks with songwriter, producer, engineer, and educator Gary Gray about music licensing, post production, rhythmic integrity, AI, immersive audio, and the character traits that keep people working in a changing industry.

Gary shares how his early life as a drummer, his music theory training, and his work alongside artists and mentors like Quincy Jones shaped the way he approaches production and problem solving. He explains why he often fixes rhythm first when a deadline is tight, why written music licensing briefs can leave composers guessing, and how You Score the Scene helps composers submit music synced directly to picture.

The conversation also gets into Gary’s work studying cinematography, shooting professional footage on an iPhone, the stigma around AI tools, consumer demand for immersive audio, and why “character counts” may be the most important business advice for anyone in music, production, or post.

Connect with Gary:
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
You Score the Scene
Ad link: Explore The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (6th Edition), the go-to guide for modern mixing.
Thank you for tuning in to Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle, the podcast that takes you deep inside the music industry. Each week, Bobby shares insights, news, analysis, and conversations with the movers and shakers shaping today’s music world.
📌 Explore Bobby’s best-selling books
🎙️ Nail that pro vocal sound: clear, upfront, and mix-ready. Learn how in Bobby’s Vocal Mixing Mini-Course
🎧 Discover more mixing and production courses
📲 Follow Bobby for more tips, insights, and updates:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
Bluesky
🎙️ New episodes release every Tuesday at 9AM Pacific on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.

Music. Business. Creativity. Straight from the Inner Circle.

Produced by APodcastGeek
https://apodcastgeek.com/

What can a 1956 recording console teach us about the future of music production?

In this episode of Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle Podcast, Bobby talks with Tom Camuso, Director of Engineering at The Les Paul Recording Studio, and Michael Braunstein, 3rd Generation Les Paul Manager.
They discuss the newly restored Les Paul Recording Studio in Los Angeles, Les Paul’s groundbreaking recording innovations, and why his original Fairchild based console still feels ahead of its time today.

Tom and Michael take us inside the restoration of Les Paul’s original gear, including his 1956 console, early multitrack machines, lathe, sound on sound system, and studio setup. 
They also explain why the studio is designed as both a working space and an educational resource, how Les Paul’s inventions shaped modern recording, and why today’s DAWs still follow many of the same ideas he was using decades ago.

You’ll also hear how the Les Paul Foundation supports music education, preserves Les Paul’s legacy, and funds hearing related research, including tinnitus research.

Connect with Tom and Michael:
LinkedIn (Michael)
Website
The Les Paul Foundation
“Les would be over the moon knowing his studio exists again.”
Les Paul’s Groundbreaking Recording Gear Gets Back to Work – Part 1
Ad link: Explore The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (6th Edition), the go-to guide for modern mixing.
Thank you for tuning in to Bobby Owsinski’s Inner Circle, the podcast that takes you deep inside the music industry. Each week, Bobby shares insights, news, analysis, and conversations with the movers and shakers shaping today’s music world.
📌 Explore Bobby’s best-selling books
🎙️ Nail that pro vocal sound: clear, upfront, and mix-ready. Learn how in Bobby’s Vocal Mixing Mini-Course
🎧 Discover more mixing and production courses
📲 Follow Bobby for more tips, insights, and updates:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
Bluesky
🎙️ New episodes release every Tuesday at 9AM Pacific on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.

Music. Business. Creativity. Straight from the Inner Circle.

Produced by APodcastGeek
https://apodcastgeek.com/