- Become Familiar with All Music
All music has artistic value. Whether it be the energy of House, the lyricism of Rap, or the smoothness of Jazz, don't be afraid to expand your horizons. No matter which genres you are interested in creating, or even if you are just a casual music listener, this is one of the most important aspects of music. Every musical experience brings something new. It's not necessary to like every genre, but you should know them. At the very least, you may find something you've never seen before, possibly even a sample that's been passed over at some point. There's so much music out there, and most of it is pretty good. Learn your classics, what shaped the music you listen to now. Listen to the Beatles, listen to Elvis, listen to Jimi Hendrix, listen to Run DMC, listen to Miles Davis, listen to Biggie, even listen to Beethoven. See what you think of it. A great music producer listens to more diverse music than anyone else alive. As I type this, I'm listening to Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye.
Mastering, mixing, and even a lot of production can be done without ever learning an instrument. If you plan on becoming a rapper, you can easily do so without ever picking up an instrument. But learning an instrument is exhilarating. It's not easy to play an instrument well, but the effort that goes into learning one is well worth it . Once you can play an instrument, you begin to see music in a whole new way. Playing songs that you like, you can pick up on patterns you've never noticed before. The best instrument to start off with is piano. You will learn everything you will ever need to know about music from a piano, and every instrument you try playing after will come to you more easily. Guitar is also something very good to learn how to play, but after those two instruments, the sky's the limit. Learn whichever instrument captures your imagination. As I type this, I'm listening to Alien Days by MGMT.
Almost an extension of learning an instrument, music theory is really learning what sounds good. It's simple to do and easy to look up. It quantizes what you may have noticed playing music, maybe making it easier for you to put into the words. I can't do anything but promote
guitarjamz.com for this. The creator gives out an obscene amount of free stuff, and he gives arguably the best guitar lessons you can find on youtube for free. If you are willing to pay, you can take online guitar lessons. As I type this, I'm listening to Diary by Free the Robots.
- Obtain a High-Quality DAW
The digital audio workstation is the single most important thing in contemporary production. The higher quality ones are expensive, as are some of the plug-ins, but well worth it. From the DAW, you can record and edit audio, create MIDI data, and do just about anything your heart desires from a musical standpoint. I recommend Logic Pro X, it's relatively inexpensive at only $200, and was released just this year. However, do some original research and determine which one appeals most to you. DAWs such as FL Studio, Pro Tools, and Ableton Live each offer a great product. Don't skimp on your DAW, because it's where you will do most of your work. As I type this, I'm listening to Years by Alesso.
- Learn about the Mechanics of Music Production
Once you have a DAW, it is important to learn what everything does. It can be a little overwhelming, but once you get past it, producing is a lot of fun. Don't start producing yet; I made that mistake as soon as I got my first DAW. It's not that it's impossible to use a DAW without knowing how a compressor functions, but if you are looking for a high quality product, learn about it. The best way to do this is to take an online course on music production. The course will help categorize everything, and will create a strong foundation. You can also learn about a lot of important fundamentals in music production from the internet, using sites such as wikipedia. I find wikipedia is helpful when researching musical concepts such as Fletcher-Munson curves. Knowing what everything means is important, and while you will likely never need to know the difference between dbfs and dbspl, it's always good to know, and can help clear up any confusion. While these two methods can supplement learning, the most important things however always remains to go into your DAW and figure out what works for you. Play with the compressor and each of the knobs on it, play with the flanger, the chorus, see what works with what. If you don't know what something does, play with it until you can figure it out. As a rule, you're better off not beginning to produce music until you have an idea of what most of the knobs do, and know what the most fundamental plug-ins do, in this case, dynamic effects (Modify amplitude, such as compressors), filter effects (Modify frequency, including EQ), and delay effects (Create space, such as reverb, chorus, flanger, etc...). At some point, it will also be a good idea to get into synthesis (Creating your own synthesizers). Synthesis can be very confusing, especially on the better DAWs and synthesizers, but being able to have full control over the timbre of your music can help transfer the music you want to paper more cleanly. As I type this, I'm listening to He Comes by De La Soul ft. Ghostface Killah.
- Purchase a Pair of High-Quality Headphones
The higher the quality of the headphones, the better it is. Some lower quality headphones won't pick every sound up clearly. Expect to shell out big money for a very good pair, preferably over-the-head. When I produce, I use Beats Pro, but there are tons of studio quality headphones out there. The first time I listened to music with them, I was surprised by how much I missed in music. As an example, when I was listening to O.K. by Mac Miller and Tyler the Creator, I never realized that the comments that come after some of the rhymes in the verses. Good headphones will make well-produced music sound good, and poorly-produced music sound terrible. The headphones aren't so much as important when writing lyrics (For lyric writing, I either use Beats Solo or speakers), but when producing, picking up every little sound is imperative. Try to avoid sound-enhancing headphones for producing, such as most Beats Headphones, because they will distort certain frequencies. Beats Solo headphones, for example, boosts the bass almost 10 decibels from 10hz to 160hz. Like the DAW, this is definitely not something to skimp on. As I type this, I'm listening to O.K. by Mac Miller ft. Tyler the Creator.
Learn to listen to music as it was written. Start to notice what instruments compliment each other, what the main loops are in music, how the lyrics match up with the instrumental. Try to notice which instrument the focus is on at a certain point, and ask yourself how the artist creates that effect. Does another instrument drop out? Think of all of the feelings you experience during the music, and think about what makes you feel that way. Don't just listen to music for the lyrics; not that lyrics are bad in any way, but try to notice the small things on the track that make it what it is. As I type this, I'm listening to Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones.
- Subscribe to a Good Magazine
Out of all of the bullet points, this is arguably the least important one. However, music production magazines can open your mind, while simultaneously teaching you the smaller things you won't necessarily learn otherwise. Sound on Sound is the cream of the crop here. You can subscribe to all their articles online for $36 a month. If you're not interesting in doing so, definitely look up old articles on
soundonsound.com and
musicradar.com. As I type this, I'm listening to What I Got by Sublime
- The Most Important Thing to Keep in Mind
The most important thing I've learned about music production is to keep in mind that you're creating a piece of music, not a musical piece. It's important to keep in mind the grand scheme of what's going on when creating music. It's so easy to get lost with the ease of adding effects to sounds to make them sound great
individually, but getting them to fit with everything else is the important thing. Creating music is completely subjective. A hardcore drumline fits in better in an aggressive death metal song than it does in a country song, no matter how cool it sounds alone. When producing, try to keep the instruments out of each others way. Don't allow frequencies to mix to the point that it creates a masking effect, unless that's the sound you're going for. Give your music width. A great tip to keep in mind is that the ear generally is attracted to the highest frequency, and the middle and higher frequencies are the ones you can have more control over. A bass line, drums, and the lower frequency instruments should generally stay in the center of a mix, not be messed with too much, etc... However, when it comes to high end sounds, play with the pan control, add effects. Try to create a focus at each point in your music, and have the rest of the mix compliment the focus at that time. Guide the listener through the music. While I'm on this topic, I'd suggest listening to
Drawing by Linkin Park. This was a demo created by Mike Shinoda before he became famous, and eventually turned into the song Breaking the Habit. This instrumental is crafted so perfectly, that lyrics actually get in the way of it. Listen to how you can easily isolate each sound if you focus on it, and how each sound blends well with each other. There are two loops that continue on throughout the entire song (The descending sound from the beginning of the song, and the sound that enters at 0:20). if you hear any of the instrument tracks alone, none of them will necessarily impress you the way, say, the lead synth in the chorus of the song Levels by Avicii will. But taken as a whole, and Drawing is a great piece of music. As I type this, I'm listening to Sleep Now in the Fire by Rage Against the Machine.
There's not much else to say. Producing is a lot of work, and if you're focused only on the end result, then it's not for you. You're going to have to learn to enjoy the process, each little part of producing, if you want to be a great musician/producer, especially today. Music will overcome a large portion of your day-to-day life if you take this route. Take myself for example, I'm always listening to music save for when I'm sleeping and playing hockey; on top of that, at a minimum I force myself to produce for a minimum of an hour a day no matter what is going on that day (Usually I end up doing more, especially on weekends when I'm not working, I find myself zoning out completely for 3-4 hours at a time), on top of practicing either piano or guitar every day, and writing lyrics. Take what I did today, an off day, for example: I woke up, produced for two hours, made breakfast, watched a rerun of a hockey game the night before, went to the gym for two hours, made lunch, read some of Nassem Taleb's The Black Swan, played guitar for an hour went out to eat and buy a new acoustic guitar, played the guitar for another two hours, made food, then typed this (Which surprisingly took almost two hours; I had the idea for it while I was working out). After this, I'm likely going to make a quick snack then write raps until I fall asleep. Tomorrow and the day after, my only plans are to finish writing the lyrics for a song I've been making (I've had massive writers block on this song, and have wasted a number of lyrics because they didn't fit into the grand scheme of the song; speaking of which, a good song idea would be a song about how many instrument tracks and lyrics are lost during the creation of a song) and then work on the nuances of the instrumental (I have a chorus, a main loop, a drum line for the verse, and I sampled Something in the Way by Nirvana to be used as the bass, but it surprisingly fits in well). Simply put, if you're not going to enjoy making music, don't bother making music. As I type this, I'm listening to Pig by Dave Matthews Band.
