If you haven’t noticed, the music industry is drastically changing. These days, there is a DIY ethic when it comes to music production – you can write music in the comfort of your own home and three weeks later hear that track is on the radio. Indeed, it’s an amazing time. If you are a lover of music and music production, now may be the perfect time to start your career. Before you put yourself out there, it will help to have some of the basic groundwork laid out. If you want to make it to the top, you need to start off on the right path. Here are some music production basics for newbies.
- Set up your studio. Before you do anything, you will need to set up your studio. In most cases, the only space you will have to set up your equipment – including your mixer, computer and equalizer table – is your bedroom or living room. If you are lucky enough to have a garage or basement, you can outfit that space too, but you want to make sure your neighbors are okay with it, because it could get noisy.
- Get used to all your equipment. It is also important to test the waters with all your equipment. For all intents and purposes, your equipment will basically be your instruments, so you want to become proficient at everything. In the beginning, you will be doing a lot of messing around and looking at tutorials. You want to get through this trial and error period because when it comes time to start showing off your stuff to artists, you want your skills to be clean and polished.
- Score some great beats. On top of everything else, you will need to build a library of great beats. If you think about it, your beats will be like your salt and pepper. This is why you want to source some amazing beats from artists. You can create the beats yourself, but this could take a long time – it can be nice to fill your library to begin with so that you have a full repertoire. It can also be nice to have beats to practice with.
- Practice mixing. It is also important to practice mixing your songs. In order to be a great music producer, you will need to be able to craft some great pop or rap songs. This is why you want to practice putting together beats over lyrics and vice versa. You can easily find some up and coming artists in your city or community to lay down some tracks that you can work with.
- Promote, promote, promote. Of course, if you want to cement your place in music history, you need to promote your music. Ideally, you want to get your music out to as many people as possible. When it comes down to it, you want to send out CDs, you want to throw events, curate concerts, and you want to boost your social media presence. In the end, it will be tough to get anywhere as a producer without promoting yourself.
