Some Music Production Tips to Help You Out

Hey guys, in this short article I’m going to go over some tips on how to greatly improve your music production skills. Before I begin however you may interested in reading my dubturbo review. It’s a great piece of software and I recommend you check out my thoughts on it. Anyway back to music production tips

Use your equalizer more!

An equalizer is used primarily to remove unwanted frequencies from an instrument or sample. This is what you should be using it for. Most amateur producers do not use this tool nearly enough. For example with everything other than your kick and bass you should be rolling off the low end. Also try to keep your mid bass clean as it can quite muddy when adding multiple synths and other instruments.

Ensure your beats are not too robotic

I have seen so many people repeat the same 4 bar beat for 64 bars. A hat hitting on every beat for the majority of a song is boring and the ear gets tired of hearing it. Ensure you vary each bar up slightly and especially every 4 bars. The change doesn’t have to be significant, maybe a blip or sound effect added or a kick or snare removed or added. It all makes a huge difference and keeps your beats interesting.

Use some reverb!

Most samples are very dry in that they have no effects added. It’s up to you to add your own and usually this begins with adding some reverb. The effect should be slight. For example adding a small amount of reverb to your snare can make it sound much more interesting. Adding some reverb to your synths in a high register can make the sound more full and complete. Final mixing should involve heavy use of reverb as well to fill the spaces created by your sounds.

Vary up your hats

I have mentioned this before but hats are important. Ensure your hats do not continually repeat without variation and be sure to use all hats including closed, semi closed and open. Add some reverb and spatial separation to ensure you hats are not front and centre. Another good tip is to remove the low end of your hats with and equalizer this ensure they don’t muddy up your mix.

Use all the frequencies

Modern tracks are extremely full. By this I mean they cover the entire frequency range with different sounds. For example the beat and bass cover the low end. The bass and low end instruments cover the mids and high end synths, hats and cymbal cover the high end. All this put together makes your track feel full and will realty improve the quality and enjoyment of your track.

8 Amazing Tutorials from Audio Tuts

Hi fellow producers. In this post I’m going to point you in the direction of AudioTuts. I love this site hundreds of professional skilled producers contribute regularly and the site is overflowing with great content. What follows are 8 of my favorite tutorials from AudioTuts.

10 Best Affordable Microphones for the Home Studio

In this tutorial Joel Falconer covers 10 of the best and most affordable microphones for your home studio. While not an essential piece of a studio at least for many amateurs microphones can add a great deal to your capability. Many people associate microphones with vocal recording however they can be used for a great deal more. For example a microphone can be used to record your own sound effects, something Rusko (a dubstep producer) is very fond of doing. They can also be used to record your own samples. Have a drum kit why not try recording it with a microphone to create some unique samples for your next track?

Tutorial

The Basic Functions of Harmony

In this tutorial Ryan Leach guides us through some music theory backed up by some examples. I don’t know about you but my music theory is awful and something im spending time working on. This tutorial is not for complete beginners. You should know what chords, intervals and what a 4 chord is A is composed of. However if you have learned the very basics and what to learn some harmony theory for your compositions this tutorial will help you out.

Tutorial

How to Make a Dubstep-Style Wobble Bass in FL Studio 8

I love dubstep its one of my favourite genres and in my option one of the funniest to produce. The characteristic wobble bass of modern dubstep is a very misunderstood topic and there are more ways to create this sound than to create the sound of a drum. In this tutorial Luke Wolfenden takes us through one method to create the signature bass sound with FL studio and a VST plugin called Z3ta+. Its extremely useful as a basic introduction to bass sound design so go and check it out!

Tutorial

How to Recreate Lil’ Wayne’s Lollipop in Reason 4

If you enjoyed Lil Wayne’s Lollipop track (if you haven’t heard it look it up on YouTube real quick) and wanted that awesome synth line this tutorial will help you out. Eric Shafer goes into way more detail than I expected in recreating this synth and actually covers the drum and bass line to build up the entire track from scratch. Also included are some patches to help you.

Tutorial

8 Easy Steps to Better EQ

If you have been in production for any amount of time you should understand that EQ, equalization is incredibly important to any mix. Removing frequencies is basically the root of getting a clear mix and removing any mud that may interfere with your awesome instruments. In this tutorial Mark Garrison takes us through a methodological approach to EQ, from fidning the right frequencies to removing things that don’t belong. Well worth a read.

Tutorial