#217: How to Use Reference Tracks to Finish Songs FASTER

Staring at a blank DAW is exhausting; staring at a mapped-out arrangement from a reference track is energising. Marc walks through a clear, repeatable reference track arrangement blueprint workflow that turns a single reference track into a full song structure, so you can stop looping and start finishing. From matching tempo and key to placing eight-bar markers, Marc shows how to label intros, verses, breakdowns, builds, and drops, then use that structure to guide creative choices without feeling boxed in.

Marc digs into why intelligent imitation is a craft skill, not a shortcut. By reverse-engineering the reference track structural DNA, you can learn pacing, contrast, and energy flow faster than via trial and error. He goes beyond markers to analyse macro dynamics, tonal balance, and how loudness shapes a listener’s journey. You’ll discover where spectrum shifts create space for vocals or bass, and how micro-changes sustain attention across long sections. With stem splitting from the reference, you learn drums, bass, and instruments in isolation and translate their function into your own sound.

The practical steps are simple: import your reference track, set BPM/key, add a one-bar buffer for alignment, then mark changes every eight bars. Use those signposts to automate builds, design drops, and maintain forward momentum. As your track evolves, reduce reliance on the reference and treat it as a launch pad, not a cage.

Marc closes with a challenge: pick a song that grabbed your ear, map its structure today, build your arrangement, and send him a work-in-progress. If this approach helps you move faster and think clearly, subscribe, share with someone stuck in loop-land, and leave a quick review to help more producers find the show.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Listen to Darklight

How to Make Progressive House from Start to Finish | Splice

Send me a message

Support the show

Ways to connect with Marc:

Listener Feedback Survey - tell me what YOU want in 2026

Radio-ready mixes start here - get the FREE weekly tips

Book your FREE Music Breakthrough Strategy Call

Follow Marc's Socials:

Instagram | YouTube | Synth Music Mastering

Thanks for listening!!

Try Riverside for FREE

Episode Transcript

Marc Matthews (00:23):
Ever stared at a blank door completely stuck on
how to start a song?
You are not alone, my friend,and in this episode, I'm going
to show you a technique thatuses a reference track to banish
writer's block and kickstartyour music production and
songwriting no matter what dooryou use.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,

(00:45):
Mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials, andinsights to help you level up
your music and smash it in themusic industry.
Let's dive in.

(01:06):
Hello, folks, and welcome tothe Inside the Mix podcast.
And a big welcome and hello ifyou are a new listener andor
viewer on YouTube.
Now, this episode is a responseto some questions from episode,
I'm looking at my notes here,213 with John Kunkel.
Finish tracks faster, workflow,hacks every producer needs.

(01:28):
And in that the in thatepisode, rather, we go through
or rather we discuss usingreference tracks and mapping out
a session using markers in aDAW to kick start the
songwriting process.
And I had a few messagesconcerning that um asking
basically where can I find thisvideo?

(01:49):
Can you put a link in theepisode description?
So I thought, you know what,I'll go one better and just
record a version of it myself.
So this is an interpretation ofJohn Grant's brilliant
tutorial, spice tutorial onprogressive house.
And I've taken a segment of it,and the segment that I use in
every production that I do now,and that is mapping out the

(02:10):
structure of a song using areference track.
And that's what I'm going toshow you in this episode.
But before we do that, considerjoining my YouTube membership
for less than the price of acoffee per month.
If you like what I'm doing hereat the Inside the Mix podcast,
you can join the YouTubemembership and you'll gain
access to benefits such aspriority reply to comments,

(02:33):
you'll get loyalty badges,you'll also get a shout-out on
the podcast, and you'll getearly access to Inside the Mix
podcast episode.
So that sounds like your sortof thing.
Click the link in the episodedescription and I'll see you in
there.
So let's go through thisprocess of mapping out the
structure of a song.
So in this example, I'm usingone of my own songs purely so I

(02:54):
don't get hit with a copyrightstrike by YouTube or Spotify.
And I'm using my tune DarkLight.
When you use this process, theidea is to reverse engineer
maybe a chart topper or a reallysuccessful song in your chosen
niche or genre, if you will.
And you're going to reverseengineer it.
And you're going tointelligently imitate.

(03:16):
You're intelligently imitating.
And you're sort of learning thestructural DNA of what makes a
successful song in thatparticular genre.
We are creating a structuralblueprint.
So I've imported Dart like intoLogic Pro and I've set the BPM
of the track at 124 of theproject, rather, which is the
same BPM as the track.

(03:37):
Because when I'm mapping itout, I want that BPM to be the
same because it just makesmapping, aligning the bars a lot
easier.
And then when I've done thatmapping, if I want to change the
BPM, I can do that later.
So in the first instance, Ikeep it as the same BPM as the
song that I've imported.
And I always give myself a onebar buffer.
And what I do find it, but itgives me a bit of a headache
when working out my maths,because I like to do in eight

(03:57):
bars.
So every eight bars I'll put amarker depending on what's
happening there.
So in this instance, it startson bar two.
Well, it kind of leads in, itfades in really at the beginning
of this track.
But in essence, in essence, itstarts on bar two in this
instance.
So I'm going to press optionapostrophe and add a marker, and
I'm going to put intro.
I like to do it in capitals forwhatever reason.

(04:23):
Not that I'm shouting intro atmyself, but I suppose it could
be.
Then I'm going to play itthrough.
And then when I get to bar 10,uh, which is eight bars, I'm
going to put another marker.
So let's play it.
Okay, so this is bar 10.

(04:50):
I'm going to get up.
It's not exactly, I'm going tomove the playhead.
Uh, apostrophe, comma, and thisis going to be intro two.
The reason I do that everyeight bars, and this goes back
to when I was doing songwritingand stuff at uni, I like to add
something new every eight barsjust to keep the listener
engaged and interested as muchas possible.
Or I might take stuff away.
Don't always have to add, youcan take stuff away as well.
Night and day.
So I'm going to play it foranother eight bars.

(05:11):
So we're going to get to bar18, and then it should, if I
remember rightly, it's my ownsong, go into verse one.
There we go.

(05:33):
So I'm going to press option,comma, and that's going to be
verse one.
Now, a little tip for you here,folks.
If you want to quickly navigatebetween um markers in logic,
you've got option comma andoption period.
And you can go back and forthleft and right.
So option, we've got to lookbeyond my microphone here.

(05:55):
Option comma will go left, andoption period will go right, and
then it's option apostrophe toadd a marker.
A little tip for you there.
Quite good.
Uh so we'll play on now.
Uh so we're at verse.
So I'm gonna add another onehere.

(06:25):
I've lost my uh bearings.
I'm gonna add another one here.
I'm not gonna go through thewhole track, I'm just gonna map
it out into like the chorus.
Uh, we'll go through the dropin the chorus just so you can
get an idea of what you're gonnado here.
And I think I might have putthat in the wrong place.
Uh I pressed the wrong button.
There we are.
And this is gonna be verse two.
I like my capitals.

(06:45):
I mean you can change thecolours of these as well, make
it easier to see.
Uh so uh we are now at bar 26.
Okay, so I put another markerhere.

(07:12):
I mean, and when it comes tothe naming conventions, you can
change these if you want.
You might end up calling itbuild or something else.
But the idea is you've got anidea you're giving yourself a
structure.
There we are.

(07:41):
So I think we're approachingthis.
Is longer than I thought.
Uh, we're approaching the drop,I believe.
This might be the build.
I might have to come back andre-rename this.
I should know, it's my owntrack.
I just remembered, I don'tthink there is a build in this

(08:12):
one, so it goes on if I rememberrightly.
I've got it mixed up withanother song.
So I think I'm gonna put versefive here.
I'm probably gonna need torename these because uh I've
just realized that there isn't aum a chorus in this.
I think it goes into a drop.
Let's continue playing it.
I should know it's my own song.
Yeah, so here we go.

(08:46):
So there isn't a build.
There will be a build out ofthis though.
So what we'll call this, I'mgonna put call this, we'll call
this breakdown.
We're moving into a breakdownnow, so I'm gonna call this
breakdown one.
We'll call this I supp I meanyou could call that drop, I

(09:17):
guess, but I'm gonna call itbreakdown for now.
I'm gonna call this onebreakdown two.
Yeah, bread break down two.
I'm gonna call this build.

(09:46):
So we're gonna move on to abuild now.
So I'm gonna call this buildbuild one send a time.
So let's call this build two.

(10:15):
That is the drop.

(10:39):
So that is drop one.
And we'll put uh drop twothere.

(11:00):
Now I'm actually going throughit all.
I said I wasn't going to, butI'm doing this because I totally
forgot the structure of thesong.
Sorry folks, I pressed thewrong key there and I opened up

(11:27):
loads of other stuff that Ididn't want in logic.
And so where were we?
Let's go find my bearings.
Uh 98, yeah, I don't know quitewhat happened there.
I pressed the wrong key.
Uh drop three.
This is the final one.

(12:21):
This is gonna be outro two.
I don't know why I just don'tleave the capital one.
It's false a habit to turn itoff.
Capitalization.
And there we go.

(12:46):
I said I wasn't gonna gothrough the whole thing, but I
did um because I forgot thestructure of my own song.
But now when I zoom out, I cansee I've got this nice
structure.
I've got intro one, intro two,verse one, two, three, four,
five, breakdown, breakdown,build, build, drop, drop, drop,
outro, outro.
Now, the beauty of doing thisas well is you've mapped this
out.
You could also use this toanalyze the sort of macro

(13:09):
dynamics and the microdynamicsin the track.
So, macrodynamics inparticular, sort of like the the
difference in loudness betweensections and also the
arrangement as well, and how itbuilds between sections.
And this is what I do a lotwhen I'm referencing and
analyzing other other songs, theinstrumentation, the
arrangement, and the flowbetween different sections, and
how it's taking the listener onthat journey throughout the

(13:31):
song.
So, this is a really good wayof doing it, and you could also
use this as a way of looking atthe tonal balance of the song as
well, and just uh again goingback to the the macrodynamics,
the loudness in in in particularsections.
What I have done with this aswell, and in logic, and other
DAWs may have this now as well,but you can use the stem
splitter.
So you could do the stemsplitter function and then even

(13:54):
analyze it further and think,okay, I've broken it down into
sections, and now I can use thestem splitter and really dig
into the individual track groupsthemselves in in terms of
what's going on in each sectionand use that as a launch pad for
your uh productions yourself.
Use the reference track as alaunch pad, not as a cage, and

(14:17):
personalize it to yourparticular taste.
The idea is as you move throughthe production and the
arrangement and yeah, basicallythe production of your track,
you are going to gradually stopreferencing the reference
track's arrangement, if thatmakes sense.
You might come back to it whenit comes to mixing and
mastering, but ultimately, thefurther you get into the

(14:38):
creation of your own song, theless you'll be paying attention
to the reference.
That's the way I do it anyway.
Uh others might say or see itdifferently.
But to recap, the key is importyour reference song, your
reference track into your DAW,and then map out eight bars at a
time, the sections throughoutthat song so you've got a full

(14:59):
structure.
I say eight bars, you can dofour if you want, you can do
sixteen, it's entirely up toyou.
But I do eight bars and itworks for me.
My challenge to you folks isthis open your DAW, import a
reference track, something thatyou've listened to recently that
really has caught your ear.
Top tip here.
I have a Spotify, a privateSpotify playlist where every
time I hear a song that I'mthinking, ooh, I like that for

(15:21):
whatever reason.
I stick it in that playlist soI can come back to it later and
potentially use it as areference.
I do have to go for a cullevery now and again as my tastes
do change over time.
Anyway, back to my challenge.
Pick a song, import it intoyour day into your door, your
DAW, map out the structure, andthen start working on that
arrangement and start producinga track.

(15:42):
And then send me a work inprogress.
Click the link in the episodedescription, send me a message
with a link to your work inprogress, and uh I'll give it a
spin.
And if you do finish a track,let me know, and I can give it a
shout out on the podcast.
Just hit that, send me amessage link in the episode
description.
And until next time, stayinspired, keep creating, and
don't be afraid to experimentinside the mix.