Audio Production

93 Top Tips From Industry Music Producers

What advice would an experienced music producer give to aspiring music producers?

We were curious to find out so we sent out requests to music producers who run their own studios and do serious work. We’re talking about real people who produce music for a living. We didn’t interview wannabe producers so rest assured, the tips here are coming from people who have the experience.

We hope you’ll find this list of music production & business tips helpful for you to kickstart your career or perhaps kick it up a further notch. We believe the best way to shortcut your career success is to learn from the mistakes people have done before so you don’t repeat it. So without further ado, we present you the top 93 tips we have gathered from a total of 20 music producers.

Benson Chiang – Music Producer, Educator, Product Specialist (Vogelogue)

www.facebook.com/vogelogueBenson Chiang-Vogelogue
www.vogelogue.com
vogelogue@gmail.com

  1. Doesn’t matter what equipment you use, earphones or microphones. As long as you are familiar with how your equipment respond to the overall frequency range, you can still make good mixes with even a 10$ earphone.
  2. Master equalization. Know your frequencies.
  3. Avoid using loops as it is. Try to process it, chop it around, mix & match.
  4. Don’t shy away from scale, chord suggestion VST or arpeggiator. They will amaze you in times. Experiment with it, tweak it, make a suggested chords or lead even more articulated.
  5. Invest your Mula on a single great piece of hardware, instead of spending it on a lot of cheap gears.

Must-Have Gears:

Maschine is one of the must have for producers. With their latest 2.0 software updates, it is a very good tool for idea experimentation. Not to miss, the free production suite of instrument & effects VST bundled along including the famous Massive soft synth.

 

Grant Norwood – Music Producer & Audio Engineer (Shook one Music * Essential Records)

Grant Norwood-Shook One Musicwww.shookonemusic.com
www.twitter.com/shookone
grant@shookonemusic.com

  1. Get it right at the SOURCE! Mixing & Mastering audio is about taking a good quality recording, and fitting it in your mix and stereo field. You want your un-processed audio signal to sit in the mix as comfortably as possible. It is a general rule that the less amount of processing done to a piece of audio, the better. This might involve moving around mics to find the best placement for recording, or maybe tweaking oscillators and pitch to get the exact frequency range you desire. The goal is to get your starting audio right at the source of recording.
  2. Use a spectrum meter to get an exact idea of what frequencies you already have filled in, and which ones your song may still need to fill in the rest of the stereo field. Make it a habit to throw a spectrum meter on each channel, and monitor your frequency placement. This is especially useful when trying to fit your kick & sub bass together nicely.
  3. Create your own custom drum, and sample folders. Good practice is to start layering up your own drum samples, and export, and organize them for future use. This saves a lot of time in the long run, and gives you great, useable sounds right off the start! I like to use my drum sampler (Maschine) to do this, but you can just as easily stack, and export your drum sounds from within your DAW of choice. The most important part is organizing your sounds in folders, so that you may quickly and easily navigate through them in the future.
  4. Drums sounding a bit offset? Zoom all the way to the grid! Most of the time, there is a few milliseconds gap, or lead up to where the actual drum hit takes place. Dragging your drum sounds a few milliseconds to the left can make a huge difference in the overall groove of the track, and can even fix some minor phase issues.
  5. Use parallel processing. Most of the time, when you want to add more compression or reverb to a channel, you will attain much better results when you create a parallel track with these effects, and subtly mix in this second channel with the first one. This allows your sound to still retain it’s original punch, while also having the new FX elements mixed in nicely. For more advanced parallel processing, try applying the parallel effects to a limited frequency range. (For example, only apply a parallel reverb above 1-2.5Khz)


Must Have Gear:

Gregg Buchwalter – Old Boots Recording Studio

Gregg Buchwalter-Old Bootswww.oldbootsrecordingstudio.com
www.BuchwalterB3svc.com
greggb69@yahoo.com

  1. Learn how to listen to everything. Practice listening and picking out the key, the tempo, the different instruments and more by ear.
  2. DO NOT try to be hip and fresh. By the time yours music is released, the trend over and something new is getting the attention. Remember, people have the attention span of a flea.
  3. Listen and learn from classical recordings-point, counterpoint, themes, rebuttals, peaks, valleys & moods.
  4. Let the artist be themselves, every “Manipulated artist” eventually will return to their longing, so get there faster by listening the artist. If the artist has no clue and needs your guidance, by all means, help them to shine where shine the brightest, i.e. dont make a rocker into a crooner, rapper into a rocker,or a soul singer into a booty dancer. Let them shine where they shine the brightest.
  5. Practice your instrument if you play any. 

Must Have Gears:

i. MCI 2 inch 24 track tape recorder/reproducer, fitted with 16 track heads, formerly owned AND operated by the Great Ray Charles
ii. Universal Audio 2-610, 1176’s, Daking mic pre IV, Daking Compressors, Art pro vla limiters, tube condensor mic by Rode, Shure sm 57, 58 beta 58, Okatvia 319 fet condensor,Joe Meek Fet condenser.
iii. Ludwig drums, Hammond B-3 w/ Leslie, guitars, amps I built for guitars, Lexicon units….All the real deal stuff you guys are emulating.

 

Steve Stroud – Owner & Music Producer (Big Cloud Productions)

Steve Stroud-Big Cloud Productionwww.bigcloudproductions.com
www.facebook.com/bigcloudproductions
contact@bigcloudproductions.com

  1. Communicate effectively with your client. Talk to them in depth and make sure you know exactly what it is they’re aiming for. It’s no use spending hours making them sound like The Beatles, if who they really want to sound like is The Sex Pistols.
  2. Be open minded. Your client won’t always have the same opinions as you on instrumentation, arrangements, mixing etc, but remember, it’s their song. Try and find a way to make you both happy.
  3. Obviously, work really hard, take your work seriously, but it’s OK to enjoy yourself whilst doing this. It’s the best job in the world, lighten up! Put the client at ease. No one performs at their best with an uptight producer looking bored or growling at them.
  4. You probably need less gain, less compression and less reverb than you think!
  5. Have a watertight filing, storage and backup system in place for your sessions. Any of your clients could call you up in 3 years time wanting to remix something. Make sure it’s all still there waiting for them as they left it.

Must have gears:

For Vocals: Neumann Mic used with decent preamps
For Guitars: If you’ve got a Fender with single coils and a Gibson with humbuckers, you can cover a lot of sonic ground.

 

Rob Bee – Voiceover Producer & Audio Engineer

Rob Bee-Bee Productivewww.beeproductive.co.uk
www.facebook.com/BeeProductive
rob@beeproductive.co.uk

  1. Know your gear. It’s always nice buying new pieces of kit for your set-up, but it’s more important to know the kit you already have like the back of your hand. That way you know you’re getting value for money from your purchases.
  2. Get it right on the way in. ‘We can fix it in the mix’ is a dreadful way of working. Yes there are powerful tools at our disposal to rectify mistakes, but we make our job easier if we can get it right straight away rather than having to break out the audio first aid kit every job we do.
  3. Be personable. We are in charge of the mood in our studios. If we want to produce a quality product our direction and interaction with the client is just as important as our technical knowledge. We have to make the performers as comfortable in the recording environment as possible, so that they can relax into giving a stellar performance. Occasionally we may need an angry performance so we do our best to piss them off, but that’s an exception and order should be restored as soon as possible so we can maintain a healthy work environment.
  4. Keep your sessions organised. Filing is dull. But a well organised session is a real blessing when you have to revisit it years down the line. If other engineers/producers need to access your sessions and they are haphazard and messy, you will get a reputation for bad workmanship, if your sessions are clear and labelled you will be a hero.
  5. Continue to learn. There is so much to know, and particularly with the rate of change in technology, that we should never think we know enough. We should continue to stare wide-eyed at the audio world and soak it all up. We need to be passionate about what we do or we should be shelf-stacking in a supermarket.

Must Have Gears:

RCF Ayra monitors – lovely open sound, not too expensive!
Sontronics microphones – I find myself recommending these to more and more people.

 

Mike Russell – Creative Director (music Radio Creative)

Mike Russel-Music Radio Creativewww.musicradiocreative.com
mike@musicradiocreative.com

  1. When editing speech it often sounds better to cut words mid-way through. (See video below)
  2. Parametric Equalizer in Adobe Audition is like a periscope for audio. You can pop audio frequencies up and down to find what you want to keep and what you don’t.
  3. Always use the Fraunhofer encoder when saving mp3 files. It’s much better than the LAME encoder.
  4. Play your audio on multiple speakers to hear how it will sound to listeners in multiple environments. e.g. Studio monitors, studio headphones, earbuds, kitchen hi-fi and your car stereo.
  5. You can roll off below around 100 Hz on speech. Human speech doesn’t hit these low frequencies and, in doing so, you can cut out distracting bass rumble.


Cutting words mid-way through in Adobe Audition

Must Have Gears:

i. Heil PR-40 for podcasting!
ii. dbx 286s is an amazing mic preamp/processor.
iii. I love gear from Focusrite.
iv. I couldn’t live without my Mac too 😉

 

Brainiac Beats – Music Producer, DJ, Audio Engineer

Brainiac Beatswww.brainiacbeats.com
brainiaconthebeat@gmail.com
Production credits: Stalley, Kid Frost, Joell Ortiz, Inspectah Deck, ChinoXL, Serius Jones, AG (DITC), Vinny Cha$e, Emilio Rojas, Black Dave, Afu-ra, St.Laz, Cesar Comanche, Qwel, Euphrates, El Gant, Pete G, Noah Jones, SFDK, Lirico, Toteking, Capaz, Elphomega, Duo Kie, Juanin​acka and many more.

  1. Don’t follow any rules, just create your art freely. In my opinion that’s when the best stuff comes out.
  2. Develop a talented artist you can potentially grow with.
  3. Listen to loads of music, even learn how to DJ. All that will help to evolve your ear and musical taste as well as knowing what moves the crowd.
  4. Collaborate with other musicians/producers/songwriters.
  5. Study the game, how it works, the admin steps you need to do things professionally etc.

Must Have Gears:

My ears (Editor’s note: That’s all this man really needs! :D)

 

Peter Juul Kristensen – Music Producer & Mix Engineer (clear Music Production)

Peter Juul Kristensen-Clearwww.clearmusicproduction.com
clearmusicproduction@gmail.com

  1. Be nice, open and very service minded.
    It’s not your record – it’s the artists. You are working on a new one next week, they are not. This might be the only record they ever make? It might be their last record – or first? To you it’s just another record. But for God sake: Don’t treat it like just another record.
  2. Put in the vocal early.
    Put in the main instrument, (often a vocal) in the mix very soon when mixing. I often start with kick, bass and vocal. Then go from there. The vocal is half the song – so when mixing I try to spend half the time I spend on the song, mixing the vocal. Sound logical right?
  3. Always record.
    There’s no such thing as a sound check. Always be in record. Don’t use the shittiest mic you can find for the cue-vocal, record it as if it were “the one”. It just might be, and after all, it’s only (cheaper and cheaper) hard disk place you fill up. When dubbing in the old tape days, you actually had to make a conscious decision about “going over” a previous take. Not now.
  4. Mix with a small scaled mastering chain on your mix buss.
    I don’t have a full fledged mastering chain on my mix bus, but the closer you are to the final master, the finer adjustments you can make, knowing that you will instantly hear how you mix sound once it’s mastered. Don’t make a mix, and then put a multi band compressor on it at the very end.
  5. Learn all you can about (clear) music production and then forget the whole thing again! If it sounds right it is right.

Must Have Gears:

My Yamaha NS-10s. Everything else, is pretty much replaceable. For you, it could be another pair of monitors. For me it’s my NS-10s.

 

Luke – Musician, Composer, Sound Engineer

Luke L'Archet-d'Anémoswww.larchetdanemos.com
plus.google.com/luke.musician.composer
larchetdanemos@gmail.com

  1. To make good recordings: you need a room with good acoustics.
  2. You have to know how to place microphones and know what microphones to use in different recording scenarios. (ie There are a few microphones which cost cheaper but better than some expensive microphones. Brush up on your microphone techniques)
  3. Be good at using at least 1 complete channel strip (preamp, comp, eq)
  4. For mixing: you have to learn the frequencies of instruments and know their power utilities. Without knowing their frequencies, you’ll be simply mixing in the dark.
  5. For the mastering, EQ-ing is also the fundamentals of mastering.

Mike Schoonmaker – Mastering Engineer (Gigantic Mastering)

Mike Schoonmaker-Gigantic Mwww.giganticmastering.com
mike@giganticmastering.com

  1. The single most important part of mastering is that you’re happy with your mix BEFORE you send it to your Mastering Engineer.
  2. Low End – We all love low end, but you’ve got to keep it in check. If you don’t have a sub in your studio to hear frequencies sub-80hz clearly, remember to take a listen in your car and or check an analyzer to make sure you’re not pushing the low end to make up for what your monitors can’t reproduce.
  3. Always listen to your mixes or masters in several different places where you listen to music on a regular basis… Such as your car, your favorite headphones, home stereo setup or those little white earbuds you listen to while out and about.
  4. When looking for a mastering engineer – get several ‘sample masters’ from different engineers before you decide on who to use for an Album. Blind tests with these masters is always a great way to concentrate on what you’re hearing, rather than who it is and what it will cost.
  5. Communication is key. Have a question about a mix, or instrument in the track your mixing? Ask and move on until you have an answer, rather than presume and spend time later fixing something that could have been avoided.

Must Have Gears: 

As much as I love my analogue gear, I must say that 100% the most often used thing in my studio is Pro-Q2, an EQ plugin from FabFilter. It’s great for mixing or mastering, and just has oh-so-many options. It’s Mid-Side mode for mastering is key, as well it’s variable phase modes. (Find the Pro-Q2 at Plugin Boutique at really affordable rates

 

Nick Lewis – Mastering Engineer (Brighton Mastering)

Nick Lewis Brighton-Masteriwww.brightonmastering.co.uk
www.facebook.com/brightonmastering
nick@brightonmastering.co.uk

  1. If it sounds good, it is good. Doesn’t matter how you got there. End of discussion.
  2. Knowing your theory will help you make it sound good. Understand what a compressor does. Know your frequency ranges. Learn why you would choose one compressor over another.
  3. Accurate monitoring is important. But no monitoring is 100% accurate. Monitoring you know well is the most important. I honestly don’t know what anything sounds like until I’ve heard it on my speakers in my room.
  4. Follow the Occam’s Razor. Chances are, if you’re chucking a hundred plug-ins at something, you’re taking a wrong turn. Try stripping everything back and seeing what you can do with just an EQ and a compressor.
  5. It’s better to know a few processors really well than have a hundred you barely know at all. Every processor – analogue or digital – takes time to get to know. Don’t be a gearslut.

Isaac Cotec – Ableton certified Trainer

Isaac Cotec-Subaqueos Musicwww.subaqueousmusic.com
isaac@subaqueousmusic.com

  1. Take your time – When you first start making music the sounds in your head, and the sounds you can actually make will be different. It’s important to know your skill will develop over time. During this have patients with your self. You will get there, just take your time for each step along the way. Eventually what you want to hear and what you make will sync up.
  2. Simplicity is the key – A lot of producers start throwing sound effects and stack samples in their tracks. Having a simple and amazing foundation is more important than clicks and whistles. First write a simple and good track, then add layers only after a solid foundation.
  3. Develop your style not a genre – I think too many musicians get caught up with making a song exactly like other songs in a genre. Try to develop the sound and story you want. After you have made that, see what genre it fits.
  4. Learn an Instrument – Staying in the box will only get you so far. At some point in your career it is crucial to learn an instrument. The reason is that it teaches you a lot about just playing around and coming up with new ideas a lot faster than writing it in a DAW. I suggest any new producer should pick up at least one instrument as quick as possible.
  5. Learn the basics – So many producers are making great songs, but never learned what a compressor is. They just slap one on and see how it changes. By learning the very basics you will have many more tools to play with. Take time to learn compression, reverb, midi editing, volume mixing, and the basics. Like really learn it. This will be huge in the long run.

Casie Lane – DJ/Producer & Head Cheerleader at The Deejaypreneur

Casie Lane-The Deejaypreneuwww.thedeejaypreneur.com
ineedyou@thedeejaypreneur.com

  1. Find people to collaborate with in all processes of your career; remixing, promotion, creating events and building a sustainable business. Nobody can battle this world alone.
  2. Set up a fan-gate for free downloads to most your music. The old business model of getting signed to a label and making money is out the door. There is a new currency on the web and that is having an engaging tribe of people who are passionate about what you create. I HIGHLY recommend ToneDen.io, they are simply the best hands down.
  3. Find or start a promotion network on Soundcloud and/or YouTube. The exponential power of a network trumps any old promotional tactic.
  4. Learn the basics of visual brand strategies or find someone who is really damn good at it to do it for you. First impressions, especially with artwork like logos and release artwork can either work for you or against you when a potential listener comes across your music. Seeing is believing, hearing is feeling. They won’t give your music a chance if the artwork is wack.