Music Production Tips to Enhance Your Sound

Elevate your tracks to new heights using simple music production tips:

There are plenty of music production tips and techniques that you can use in your studio to give your music its own unique twist and to help it stand out. These tips can inspire new directions in your music, or assist you when you're struggling for ideas.

There are as many production techniques as there are producers - everyone working in their own studio will have their own personal style and method of creating music. But there are certain approaches that work consistently well, along with tried and tested tips that can add interest and flavor to your sound.

How to Produce Music:

Vocal Effects

The Aural Exciter and the Audio Enhancer

There are many areas to think about when producing your own music. Each area can be thought of individually, but you need to think about how they interact with each other as well.

Some of these key production areas are:

Rhythms and beat making
Chords/Key
Sound design
Editing
Choice of instruments
Effects/Processing
Signal routing
Microphone technique
Abstract techniques, such as Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies

Audio Production Tips

When working on your own productions, it can be very tempting to use as many instruments, plugins, and tracks as you possibly can. But more often than not, this isn't really the best way forward.

Ideas are the most important thing, not the tools you use. In fact, I think that the less you use, the better it is for your music's development. A few of the key advantages to this idea are:

You'll learn much more about each tool you use
You can be more creative with what you use as you have to get more out of each tool or device
You'll finish more tracks and get more done, as you won't be wasting loads of time trying different plugins or settings

So, keep things simple, and limit yourself to a few high-quality tools of choice. Try to look for inspiration and new ideas in as many places as you can - look for music production tips in genres of music you wouldn't usually listen to, or in new places you find yourself outside the studio.

Enjoy what you do and get plenty of practice. If you put the time in, you're pretty much guaranteed to get better and to develop your own unique sound.

The Music Production Process

A good understanding of music production process is perhaps the most common hangup of the novice producer, engineer or songwriter. Without the experience of watching professionals do their thing, the novice is left with either a trial and error approach, or will end up following production concepts they read in an industry magazine.

The music production process itself is always unique to the artist. There is no single method, one could use, that would work for every artist. Most of these situations require years of recording and production experience to fully understand. Working in a commercial recording studio is absolutely the best way to gain this experience. By watching many producers and engineers work their craft you be filled with a tremendous number of ideas for approaching the day-to-day problems that arise when producing music. Let's begin.

Music Production Basics

The study of any art or discipline always starts with fundamental building blocks. These are typically considered tried and true methods or ways of working that yield positive results on a consistent basis. In music, these music production basics are the basis from which all other decisions are made. Once a stumbling block in the process comes up, intelligent decisions can usually be made to achieve the desired result.

Over the years I have found that the procedures and tools used by most professionals in the music production process are very similar in concept and design. The reason is simple, they work! Even though the personalities and the dialog may appear different on the surface, the underlying process is mostly the same.The following articles will outline many of the concepts and working methods of the music producer when approaching various production situations. How these methods are applied will vary from artist to artist.

Music Production Step by Step

Let's start by breaking down the music production process into it's most basic traditional formula. While many people will skip some steps outlined here, in my experience, when the steps are followed and completed individually, better results are typically achieved.

• Writing the Song
  
• Recording a Demo
  
• Rehearsals
  
• Basic Tracks
  
• Overdubbing
  
• Editing Music
  
• Music Mixing Part 1
  
• Music Mixing Part 2
  
• Music Mixing Part 3
  
• Mastering

Each step is critical and has a specific purpose in the music production process. Skipping steps or combining steps usually results in a less than desirable result. There is a myth that skipping steps in the process outlined here will somehow save time and money. The fact is that if you skip any of the steps outlined above, the process will take far longer and create far more work in the long run.

If you were building a house and paid little attention to the foundation and all your attention to the part of the house that you see, eventually you will start to have problems. To then go back and deal with the foundation properly will become extraordinarily more difficult and time-consuming. Recording a song is no different if you ignore the early steps of creating a demo and rehearsing the song you will not have built a solid foundation to work from when laying the basic tracks. Every subsequent overdub will then be compromised, and fixing the recording will become an exercise like a dog chasing its tail.

We'll Fix it in the Mix

There is an old joke in the recording industry that revolves around this idea of working too quickly to get things done. When anything in a music production is not addressed and completed fully, there is a residual effect on the rest of the production that brings the production as a whole down. As soon as you start piling issues on top of issues, you are doomed.

When these issues are left to be dealt with later, it will take hours of time to get back into the intricacies of the performance, enter the same mindset and make good decisions about how to correct the problems. Often these issues are better addressed by spending an extra five minutes to just do a better take, or taking the time to finish your comps or edits before moving on to the next task.

To complete the story here, when issues in the tracking session are not dealt with properly, the saying is: "We''ll fix it in the overdubs". When the overdubs fail to correct the issues of the tracking session: "We'll fix it in the mix". And when the mix does not have the luster of a finished production, "We'll fix it in the Mastering". I think it was Frank Zappa who famously said once in a Mastering session, "We'll fix it in the shrink wrap".

The bottom line here is that any compromise in the production process is one that will leave the overall product in a state that is less than its potential. For thousands of years music has been a live art form. It was an expression of ideas, feelings, insights and emotion that when well presented, leave the listener in a transformed state.

Relatively, the art of capturing that art in physical form has been going on for a very short period of time and the technology is changing faster than the artist can keep up with. As soon as one loses sight of this fundamental truth, the technology takes over the production process and what you are left with is something that may look shiny and powerful on the surface, but is really hollow and lifeless and soon forgotten.

The Music Production Process Begins

Every recording starts with an idea, an inspiration or an 'accidental' occurrence. Whatever jump starts the process, a song is written. It is inspiring and full of emotion and promise to the songwriter. Because the songwriter wrote the song, it makes perfect sense to them, but not necessarily to anyone else. The music production process has then begun...

It is in this spirit that I present to you a tried and true music production process that keeps the bigger picture in mind while attempting to make use of all the incredibly valuable tools that have been provided to us. This is not about making technology right or wrong, it's about putting it in its proper place. Any tool misused, will create a bad product. The same tool used for the right reasons and with respect to the best interests of the song can be incredible.

The following articles will break down each step in music production process while keeping this larger vision in mind. Remember, it's all about the song.

Learn the Art of Music Production and Engineering

This website has been designed to promote the art of music production and engineering through the use of educational and career development techniques. The information provided ranges from beginner level all the way through advanced production techniques. These are the techniques, approaches and methods of producing music that I have learned over the last 30 years and continue to learn on a day-to- day basis.

The fundamental principles of producing and engineering music, outlined in the pages throughout this website, are built from my personal observations of working with some of the best music producers, artists, musicians and engineers in the industry. These principles underscore techniques and methods that are tried and true and prove themselves over and over in the studio.

When understood and practiced, a foundation will be built that will allow you the freedom of creativity and expression that are the fundamental basis for creating great music and great music productions. While many of the techniques discussed are simple, they require a lot of practice, discipline and attention to master. Each new production you undertake provides challenges that will require careful attention and application of these principles.

Passion is the Key

It is our passion for music that brings us to want to create it. Passion is the key to all success in the music industry and life. Your passion for producing music has brought you here. That passion must be fed with an insatiable desire to learn more and more about the art of producing music. It is in this spirit that I provide what I have learned to this website.

It was my passion for music production that led me to New York City over 26 years ago to work in the best studios in the world. Working with many of the top artists in the music industry, I learned the working behaviors of hugely successful music producers, musicians, engineers and music business professionals. They taught me, knowingly or not, exactly what the word "professional" means. The desire, attention to detail, and unrelenting work ethic showed me how the best of the best become successful.

The lessons learned laid the framework for a career in the music industry that has lasted close to 30 years. These are the working methods, attitudes and approaches I have used in every phase of my life to achieve success. I hope that you will join me in learning these principles so that you too can make a career in the music industry and fulfill your own music production career dreams.

Eliminating Bad Habits

The most difficult thing to learn in the pursuit of a producing music is how to overcome mistakes. Every situation provides you with an opportunity to grow and learn how to "do it better" the next time. It requires an unrelenting thirst for new knowledge and approaches to the challenges that arise with each new music production venture you undertake. Without a professional guide, bad habits can easily settle in.

It is for this reason that working side by side with a professional in the music industry is key to your success. While this is not possible through a website, I will encourage you over and over again to pursue your career goals by putting yourself in professional situations as often as is possible.

The objective of this website is to help you to be as prepared as you can possibly be when entering those situations. I will help you to get the most out of your opportunities, learn from them, and turn them into a career in music production. Remember, it is your passion that drives your success. Knowledge without passion yields no results…

Growing Every Day

This website will be expanding with new information every day. The direction that expansion takes will be largely driven by your feedback and the information you are looking to know more about.

While my career and experience expand across a wide variety of music styles, no man is an island! My intention is to provide what I have learned about the art of producing music in a way that is informative, entertaining and easily understood so that you can make quantum leaps in your own music productions.

I encourage you to submit questions, requests, likes and dislikes about the website so that I may provide the information you are looking for. If the scope of information you are seeking is outside the realm of my expertise, I will gladly guide you in a direction that provides the quality content you are looking for.

I hope that you find the information I have provided on this website valuable. I look forward to hearing your comments, answering your questions, and shaping a website that will help you achieve all of your music production goals.