Music Production: Easy, isn't it?

Saturday 06/02/21

Example of one of my Logic Pro X sessions

Producing music has become increasingly simpler and more accessible over the past two decades and whilst creative arts take time and dedication to truly master, recording and producing music is something that many musicians are capable of learning. Having studied songwriting at The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, I witnessed classmates who had never produced before, develop quickly as producers which is not only a testament to great tuition but also the usability of modern music technology.

It may have been the only way for The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Queen to immortalise their music, but the days of using tape and multitrack recorders are gone and technology has developed to a level where musicians can record, produce, mix and master their songs from the comfort of their bedrooms.

Digital Audio Workstations (or DAWs) have been developing since the early 90’s starting with platforms such as Cubase, which ran on the now ancient Atari ST computer. Nowadays though you don’t need specialist, top of the range equipment to record music as DAWs like Logic Pro, Ableton Live and Reason Studios are quite accessible, costing between £70-£200. (However this doesn’t include a computer or laptop to run them on). Luckily for beginner to intermediate producers, there are free workstations available such as GarageBand (Mac) and the perfectly functional free version of FL Studio (PC-Mac). GarageBand, much like its big brother Logic Pro, is very intuitive, can be learned quickly and is available on Iphone and Ipad, making it ideal for beginners to dip their toes in the waters of music production. However that’s not to say that free DAWs are only used by people starting out. On the contrary, songs like ‘Umbrella’ (Rihanna) and ‘In Rainbows’ (Radiohead) were both produced on GarageBand.

All DAWs, including the free ones, come with virtual instruments you can sample with a midi keyboard and audio effects to create different and unique sounds.

After learning the tedious technical skills required to produce good quality music, there is a lot of fun to be had. One of the most enjoyable, and important parts of music production, for me at least, is creating ear candy and throwing interesting sonic ideas into your songs. Confused? Let me give you some examples.

The car start up chime, blending into piano notes in Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Driver’s Licence’. The short, sharp breaths mixed into the finger snaps in the chorus of Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ (listen closely, they're in there!) The layers of breathy vocals creating the “Hey!” in between the lead vocal lines of the chorus in “Hey Look Ma, I Made It” by Panic! At The Disco. These are all examples of well thought out production ideas that elevate the songs and grasp the interest of listeners even if they’re unable to tell exactly what it is they are hearing.

If you listen closely to your favourite songs, you’ll start to notice little melodies, rhythmic patterns or just weird sounds going on in the background. Do this often enough and you may find it easier to inject a little ear candy into your own music.

So back to the title, is music production easy? Unfortunately there isn’t a definite answer as everybody’s skills and ability to channel their creative ideas are different. However, if you’re a

musician/ songwriter with basic (and I mean basic) keyboard skills, music theory knowledge and a creative mind, there is no reason you can’t try your hand at recording and producing your own songs.

Learning what works and what doesn’t takes practice but once you have the basic skills down, you can improve faster than you may think. Even by creating demos with acoustic guitar, vocals and basic percussion, with a few ‘ear candy’ ideas thrown in for good measure, you would be making a professional producers job a lot easier as you will be giving them a direction to follow to finish your song. (Several clients of mine have done this and trust me it really helps!)

Remember, Google is your friend! Everything you need to know is on the Internet and you can find some great tutorials for any DAW on YouTube. I may talk through some basic terminology another time so if that’s something you want to learn more about, leave a comment under this blog!

Are you thinking about producing music for yourself or others? Click here for a list of equipment to get yourself started!

-Will.