6 Stages of Music Production That You Must Know

Music production today is far from anything like it used to be in the old days. You can automate effects, mix up genres and create something that works well for the audience. However, just because there are no boundaries doesn't mean you should have no rules for producing music.

If you're a musician who's just starting, you just landed right! We've compiled an interesting guide for you. We'll take you through 6 key stages of music production. Regardless of the type of music you produce, what we share here will help you organize the music process in your brain.

Songwriting

The first stage of music production is songwriting. Free yourself from all sorts of distractions. It's time for an experiment. Allow your mind to work freely. You can brainstorm ideas with free association. It's great to have good lyrics, but good lyrics on their own are not enough. Your song may be perfect from a literary viewpoint. However, your lyrics must bond with the music when the vocalist sings.

Take an example of a good song as a pathway littered with surprises. A key element of quality music is attracting the reader and making them want to listen more. It should be so good that the listener is fully immersed in it and pays careful attention to the composition. You want to catch their attention throughout, from the start to the middle to the end.

The melody must also perfectly fit in harmony. You must have noticed that quality music arouses you to listen more by creating a pattern. Before a transition, you're already too tempted to groove to the pattern. Transitions are smooth, and you tend to enjoy the rhythm.

The old-school way of songwriters is to sit with their guitar and notebook while they compose a pleasant tune. A rule of thumb for knowing whether the composition is heart-touching or not is to ask a couple of simple questions.

Are you grooving to it?

Is the tune magical enough to play in your head after the music stops?

Arranging

The arrangement stage is often neglected by most musicians. Ideally speaking, it's the arranging stage that defines how interesting the song is. A repetitive tune or disturbing pattern can result in the creation of music full of distaste.

Also, the order of instruments playing in the background and transitions in the following sections are part of the arrangement stage. Arranging requires you to be careful as a musician and listen to your tune on loop to identify anything that is too repetitive. Make sure to have a buildup. Adding all instruments at once would be nothing but a pain to the ears.

You might want to mix it up a bit. There are endless possibilities. Instruments could and should be used to their best to charge you up with energy. A good practice for arranging is to listen to the song and figure out what sections make you groove to the music. Separate them and continue listening to them. Extracting the best part will allow you to give the listener music pleasing to the ear.

Tracking

Writing a song and composing are essential parts of music production. But your song exists in only thin air if you haven't recorded it yet. A recording is at the core of music production. We call it tracking in music production.

Playing live, too, may be entertaining for the audience. But, when the performance is over, everything vanishes. The art of tracking is what blows life into music and turns it into a tangible commodity. Hence, recording music in a digital form only will provide you the freedom to listen to it whenever you want.

When you push the record button, make sure to give your best. Play instruments and sing as you can feel the music.

Editing

It is the stage of music production that requires you to be laser-focused. Songwriting and recording are like push, whereas editing is like pull. You cannot do both simultaneously. Therefore, it's better to focus on one step at a time. Also, know that editing is secondary. Enjoy your composition and recording. Plus, digital editing has made the editing process easier than ever. So, you can always edit at a later stage.

Mixing

It is the stage where you'll need a lot of energy. So, it's better to get your creative juices flowing. Right after editing, you can explore several possibilities to see what new you can add to turn your composition into a masterpiece. Mixing is more about discovering the intention of the music. It's good to check if your composition has depth and motion. Quality mixing requires rigorous practice and a lot of experience.

Mastering

Mastering is the final stage in music production. However, for many home music producers, mastering is the latter part of mixing. Mastering engineers are responsible for correcting any deficiencies in sound quality. A major job of mastering engineers is to ensure consistent sound quality for all tracks in an album. However, to save budget, most musicians allocate more to mixing. Hence, the mixing engineer takes care of the last stage of music production.