Jintae Ko is a GRAMMY Award-winning songwriter and producer for the Disney Music Group and its subsidiary Hollywood Records. He writes and produces music with artists such as Bea Miller (Crash & Burn), Olivia Holt (In The Dark), Paty Cantu (Rompo Contigo), Jason Derulo, Julia Michaels, Lindy Robbins, Sasha Sloan, Natalia Druyts, ZZ Ward, the groups Forever in Your Mind and Joywave, and a whole lot more.
Jintae believes in the power of collaboration, and he uses Avid Pro Tools to create and share music with songwriters. When writers work on songs together, the ability to relate and develop a human connection is everything. The best way to create music that is truly new is to establish a rich rapport with other artists and songwriters. This human approach is what separates Jintae from many other producers.
A typical day begins in the studio, and might include working on a rhythm track to get a groove, exploring ideas on a guitar or keyboard, or listening to samples. Jintae and other artists sketch out melodies and lyrics, and use Pro Tools to capture the ideas that always spring from this process.
I spend pretty much every day of my life writing and creating and working with different artists. Collaboration has to do with everything. Being able to have that human connection with the artist is what really differentiates a great producer.
Jintae calls Pro Tools the mothership of all digital audio workstations, because it lets him hear every detail, and manipulate other ingredients, like loops, and enhance every detail. He can really hear what is happening, and build upon that to get great ideas.
Every song has a vision, and bringing it out relies on the producer’s ability to work with the artists to find an original sound. Pro Tools lets the producer create music more easily, because it gets out of the way and gives you a clear idea of how your music sounds. According to Jintae Ko, “It makes you better and makes you sound better.”
Turning an idea into a scratch track can take 5 or 6 hours from listening to grooves, getting ideas going, working with artists, and getting sounds together. Organization is key to Jintae’s process, so he keeps a Go-To folder with sounds for hip-hop, EDM, J-Pop, and other styles, so he can find a kick for dance, or a snare sound with the right pitch and rasp to it.
Maybe I get a cool loop going on a machine, it’s going to end up in Pro Tools, and I can enhance it in a way and I can hear back all these little details I wasn’t able to hear before.
After the idea-building stage, polishing a song can take a lot longer, Jintae says, because you work with it, you tweak it and listen to it again, at different times, in different moods, and if it sounds great every time, you have something. It can take weeks to really make it sound ready for production and distribution.
Because there is so much noise on the Internet, Jintae seeks to create the most original music possible to cut through that noise and reach the people who want to listen. He says life is about growth and collaborating, and doing that through music is something that Jintae Ko feels very fortunate to be doing. Jintae brings a passion for writing great music and working with fellow artists, and Pro Tools helps him produce songs people will love.