Music Production

What is music production?

Music production is the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music for public presentation. Music production can refer to the entire lifecycle of a piece of music—from songwriting and composition to recording and sound design to mixing and mastering.

Despite the broad definition, every workflow in modern music production has one thing in common—digital tools.

Thanks to today’s technology, music production is more accessible than ever before.

For the lowest price in history any musician can set up a home studio and get started producing music.

Here’s all the basic information you need to start producing music.

What does a music producer do?

A music producer can have several different roles depending on the genre of music and the type of workflow. In the traditional recording process, a music producer acts in a similar way to the director of a film. They create a vision for the material and advise the musicians artistically on how to realize it. During a recording session the producer acts as a coordinator and provides organizational help. They also offer creative input and notes on the musicians’ delivery and the technical choices made by the engineer.

But the term producer has come to mean a wider range of duties in other genres. In R&B and hip-hop, the term producer most often refers to the person who created the beat the artists are singing or rapping over. In EDM the words producer and artist are often used interchangeably, with most artists producing their own material.

Today more and more artists are opting to self-produce, even within traditional genres like rock, indie or singer-songwriter. No matter which combination of these roles describes you best, if you’re using a DAW to create or record—you’re a music producer. With the basics out of the way, let’s get into the pillars of music production you need to know to get started.