Beginning the process of becoming a music producer is an arduous one - there is ton of things that need to be understood at a fundamental level to be successful: music theory, composition, recording, production techniques, software, etc. Fortunately, there is an incredible amount of material available on the internet for aspirating music producers. For users of Ableton Live, a simple search for "ableton tutorial" will yield thousands of videos of content showing how to do various things in Ableton Live, from setting up an introductory track to doing final mastering.
The easiest way to become skilled at creating full, complete tracks in Live is to become good at each individual part of the track creation process. Okay, this sounds obvious, but it gives us the basis for what you need to learn. In Dubstep music for example, three main parts have to be done well in order for the track to sound good: Kick Drum, Snare, Bass Wobble. Therefore a person with the desire to become a dubstep producer should spend large amounts of time understanding each of these first individually. This means watching many video tutorials of how different kick drums are created, including the effects that are used for the final product like compression and limiting. After understanding kick drums through and through, the learning producer can move on to snare drums and bass wobbles. Beyond learning the basics needed for the track, the additional parts need to integrated - additional drums, pads, background synths, sweeps/rises and more. Learning how to include this without "intruding" on the original audio takes practice. Finally, the producer can move to understand how to mix all of the individual parts together. This is the hardest part of the process.
Like many things, to become an effective music producer the process of: learn a little, practice a little, learn a little, practice a little, etc. is very effective over time. This can be done in a classroom for the big money that music schools ask for, or at home with a computer, a pair of monitors, and some YouTube Ableton Live videos. It's important however to find some resources that offer pointed and helpful tutorials and advice, as there are many free videos on YouTube by inexperienced producers who sometimes offer bad advice! A particular example I can recall was of a guy who applied saturation(distortion) and equalization to a clean acoustic guitar recording and ended up with it sound much worse in the mix. If someone just learning Live were to watch his video, they might think that this was normal for music producers to do. I recommend finding resources that offer expert advice, so you know you're not wasting your time or working in the wrong direction.
Good Luck Producing!
Tyler Roth is an electronic music producer from Denver, Colorado. For helpful Ableton Live video tutorials, please visit Ableton Production Tutorials.com
No comments:
Post a Comment