10 Music Production Secrets Every Producer NEEDS To Know (2021)

hello and welcome to the 10 music production tips that every producer should know about now i've chosen a range of tips including actual production techniques and also tips on how to improve your creative workflow as well so without further ado the first tip i want to share is a few ways to add character to your drums and percussion so a lot of beginners fall into the trap of having no variation within their drum loops which can result in a robotic overly sequenced effect one way to add a little character to the beat is by slightly moving specific sounds for example if you're layering a wide clap over your snare try moving the clap slightly before the snare which gives a bit of texture to the overall drum hit as well as adding some groove and making it more interesting for the listener another method is to use individual hi-hat variation to add realism and again make the drums more interesting to listen to so instead of each hi-hat sound being exactly the same we can use subtle dynamic and spatial changes to mix things up a little and we can add small pan variations like this or subtle changes in the volume or changes in the individual pitch of specific hi-hats or of course you can do a mix of all three so yeah these small subtle changes can add an immersive natural feel to your drum loops next up is to understand the importance of saturation now if you're not too sure what saturation is it's essentially a lighter version of distortion which can be used to add warmth and natural harmonics to a sound for me saturation is one of the most important effects i use if you have a sound that's a little thin or need some presence in the mix adding some saturation usually does the trick the effect originates from the analog days where audio recordings ran through various pieces of hardware and it ranges from adding some warm fuzz to the sound to harder edged effects as well as a quick example here's a dry hip-hop sample with no saturation and here's some saturation using fabfilter's saturn 2. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] as a side note you don't need a plug-in as extensive as saturn 2 to add saturation it's just my personal favorite there's also ivgi which is a free saturation plug-in i mentioned in my last video but if you do want to check out saturn 2 i'll leave a link to that in the description as well so on that note tip number three is that you don't need tons of expensive plugins to make great music now i know i just showed you saturn 2 which is a paid plugin but generally speaking you don't really need to spend that much on plugins i've done multiple videos on the best free plugins you can find and there are so many more free powerful versatile plugins out there for example if you download vital surge tyrell n6 monique and dext all of which are completely free synth plugins you've already got a huge amount of creative options and presets to get you started now having said that there are plugins out there that are definitely worth the money and don't really have a free alternative but if you think spending thousands of dollars on plugins will instantly make you an amazing producer then you need to change your mindset and understand that patience hard work and creativity is what makes you a good producer tip number four is using foley or fx sounds to add texture to a track now the type of effects you use really depends on the genre you produce for example if you're a lo-fi producer sound beds are extremely common such as coffee shop ambience rainforest sounds city sounds that kind of thing i do recommend adding a high pass filter to these sound beds so you get rid of any low end noise but this is a great way to add atmosphere to a beat and if you're a house or edm producer crowd noise is a great choice of effects for adding energy to a track especially if you sidechain it to the kick you can also use foley to add texture to individual drum hits and you can get really creative here for example the sound of an axe swinging tip number five is to download as many free sample packs as you can find even if it's not in the genre you produce you can find some absolute gems hidden away in free sample packs including drums synths foley recordings and much more on top of that get in the habit of bouncing your own tracks after you finish them this way you can easily reuse loops and sounds from previous tracks which can massively speed up your workflow if you are wondering where to find free sample packs i did a video run through of 50 free sample packs so i'll leave a link to that in the description if you do want to check it out tip number six is to try and work with as many other artists as possible to gain experience and knowledge even if it's not in the exact same genre working with other producers and musicians can give you some great insight into how other people create music remember there's always more to learn and your techniques aren't always the best ones i've worked with other producers and learned some of my favorite production techniques that i might have never known without those sessions the next tip is to focus on achieving big wins before moving on to the other parts of the production process for example work on the arrangement the songwriting and track layering first making sure you have the foundations of the track this gives you a sense of momentum as it feels like you're getting more done then after you have the foundations you can start working on the details like compression and eq if you're working on a track and you spend the first two hours creating the perfect sounding drum loop it's going to be really hard to motivate yourself to finish that track as at the end of the day you haven't really achieved that much but if you spend the first two hours adding instruments and arranging the song you'll feel that momentum and it's much easier to keep going and finish the track tip number eight is to study the masters in your genre take a look at the artists that inspire you and compare that to your own tracks using reference tracks is a great way to judge your own mixes so just drag a similar track into your door and listen to each track one after the other now if you're a beginner this can be pretty disheartening remember the pros usually have their tracks professionally mastered so use reference tracks with a pinch of salt however it is a good technique for spotting deficiencies with your mixes that might not have been obvious before so this tip is more of a mixing tip but it's important that you use high pass filters to remove unnecessary low end frequencies the worst mixing mistake you can make is having too many overlapping elements in your base frequencies which can lead to what's commonly called a muddy mix a lot of the time this can come from simply not high passing certain sounds for example vocals and high end percussion if you have a vocal track and there's some low rumble on the original recording if you don't remove that it's going to interfere with your bass sounds and possibly ruin the mix and finally the last tip is the one that nobody wants to hear in order to become a master at music production you need to learn music theory this is advice i probably need to give myself because my music theory isn't the best but the music theory i do know is a massive help especially when it comes to writing chords and melodies if you have absolutely no knowledge of music theory writing midi patterns can be really time consuming and also kind of demotivating as well now i'm not saying you have to learn everything but having a decent understanding of the main concepts of music theory can go a long way and there we have it so that was the 10 music production tips that every producer should know about hopefully this video was helpful and maybe you can start using some of these tips in your tracks in the future if you did enjoy the video make sure you give it a like and subscribe to the channel it really does mean a lot also comment down below any production tips that you use that you think other producers should know about and as always thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Producer Sphere

Views: 1,708

Rating: 4.9359999 out of 5

Keywords: music production tips and tricks, music production secrets, music production tips 2021, beatmaking tips and tricks

Id: J2MyXDJZVBI

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021