Music Production Tutorials For All Ages

Posted by Katrina Watson on April 17th, 2019

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." - Chinese wisdom

A lot of people these days watch MTV or another Superbowl Halftime and wonder: "What if I was to make music - I'd have a totally different life!" The reality is - most people have never tried or researched how the music production and recording is actually done. The thing is - the process may seem overwhelming to begin with - you have to make the beat, record everything, mix and master the track, and a lot more - but it's pretty simple once you get a hold of it. In fact, the hard part is getting your music "out there", not the actual process of music production.

So why not start now. There are a ton of tutorials out there - you can check YouTube, Vimeo, or music production blogs if you'd rather read through the process instead of watching the videos (Blue Buzz Music as an example). To be real - even if you were to watch the tutorials for 8 hours a day for the rest of your life you won't run out of videos to watch - the market for home music recording and production has skyrocketed in the past years.

To build a music production studio, you'll need 3 items for a simple setup and 8 for an advanced setup. Clearly, professional studios can have 10s of items at their disposal but there is no point in comparing yourself to Metro Boomin and DJ Mustard, is there? Alright, I hope we got that figured out.

Here are the 8 elements of a recording studio setup:

As you can see - at the beginning you don't need more than a simple computer, DAW, and studio headphones. That's more than enough to make beats, mix, and master. The only reason to move further is if you want to simplify or upgrade your workflow and sound quality.

You need a MIDI keyboard in order to improve the groove of your beats, studio monitors to increase the mix quality due to double referencing, microphones to record vocals and instruments, and an audio interface to put and connect everything togethter - it's simple as that. If you follow the signal flow - you'll understand everything precisely! Check the video below for the reference:

So why not start producing? You have everything you need and with a small investment of a few hunded dollars you can start something you are passionate about. Offering a lot of both artistic and financial perspective, music production is getting more and more popular among all ages. 

There is only one thing to keep in mind - it's not easy to succeed - and most artists don't have patience and work ethic to do so. If you think you do - expect to work really hard for at least a year - or even longer. And don't get it twisted - you can learn all you want but you have to get to work at some point - and working isn't fun at all - especially in the beginning when things don't go right.

All you need to remember is that hard work will pay of at the end of the day!