What do you absolutely need to know when starting to produce?

Producing a good track takes years of experience and learning, so if you’re starting out, don’t expect too much for a while.
I like to see producing as a 3 stage process: composition, mixing, mastering. So when you’re starting out, just focus on your composing and arranging. You might find that when you’re beginning you’ll be able to churn out tracks left right and centre and that’s a good thing! As the weeks/months go on they’ll start coming out slower as you realise there is so much to be improved.
The key is to keep improving and learning. Don’t get stuck on a loop for more than about 20 minutes when you’re still arranging your track. You’ll learn to eventually incorporate the mixing stage when composing, but make sure it doesn’t replace it!
The best time to start a new track is in the morning – I can’t remember why but it’s got something to do with the left/right parts of your brain and the creative one working better when you wake up haha 🙂
Keep your volumes out of the red, eq out lower frequencies when you’re not using them. Just basic mixing.
Set yourself deadlines as well, don’t get stuck in front of the screen for too long.
There’s so much to say so I won’t let myself ramble too much. Have fun

Both great posts by kubin and little komodo.

My biggest piece of advice I can give anyone starting out producing. Is to just dig deep and start unraveling back the secrets of your DAW. I think of producing as a giant Wood block. The DAW is the tools to chip and chime away at this wood block. And your journey to produce a track is like chipping away at the wood to create a sculpture. Its a time consuming journey but once you figure everything out (Which you never will since theres always new techniques and new ways to produce things coming out the A$$ best part about producing!) but enough so you can slowly start cultivating these amazing statues.

But the biggest BIGGEST THING anyone has to remember, is that its a journey, you don’t bang out banger tracks right away! Unless you are a musical prodigy which I am not therefore I can’t say I’ve made banging tracks. (still on my own journey, finding my sound) producing is an investment. It is the only thing I can truthfully say will give YOU what you give IT.

So just open up that DAW, load up some tutorials and just start hammering away. Experience is learnt not taught.

Nick Powers, post: 35504, member: 2466 wrote: My goal for the New Year is to at least produce one okay track, what do I NEED to know when I sit down and start doing something? Thank you for the advice.

You just read my mind!!! I had opened the forums to create the exact same topic only to see that you had already made one
I have a couple of questions.
Do we first produce basslines , buildups , drop, beats separately and then mix them in or create it as we go?
Where do we learn the basics?

What you need to start serious producing:

• Understanding of the basics of musical theory
• Understanding the basics of song writing
• Playing a musical instrument is a good thing
• Understanding the basics of rhythm theory
• Deep knowledge of the genre you want to produce for and the application of musical and rhythm theory on that genre
• Deep knowledge of the scales used in the genre you want to produce for
• Deep knowledge of the history of the genre and its origins you want to produce for

I knew nothing when i first started a year ago and i have come along way since then. Its easy to think of what you wanna make its another thing to actually be able to make the sounds. I ve just started learnig basic chord theory and it helps a lot. Stay persistant and you will be fine! GL!

I agree on the fact that learning to produce is a tough process. I got started over a year ago using Reason, felt disappointed oh-so-many times about the sound quality (the sound either being to harsh, lacking punchiness, not enough bass or too much of it etc etc) and composition. Although the end product still sounds like crap, I feel a lot more comfortable working with the software and I have a better idea what I’m doing now.

If you would like to get started using Reason, http://www.boyinaband.com is a good site to start. It has many videos on creating a track in a certain genre in a couple of days, e.g. 7 day dubstep tutorial, 7 day electro tutorial etc. It taught me the basics on sound synthesis, composition and mixing / mastering.

I have no idea. Some people play guitar for 20 years and never even learn how to read notes or know what scales they play in, as they only trained pre defined riffs their teachers gave them.
Of course being a percussionist I would think you got beat composition at least in part down, but if you know about all the beat accentuations I do not know. I know some percussionists who just like to “feel” etc. and they will never reach the perfection of a studied jazz percussionist who knows the composition of beats perfectly. No idea where you would fall into.

Same with sax. Not an easy instrument (played a little myself) playing it three years can mean you learned some note reading and basic harmonies, but if you know about musical scales and modes, their composition, their history and how they came to be: I do not know.

So for example for my latest production the rapper I produced for wanted “some asian” influence in his song. So I had to blend a hip hop beat based on a delayed 4/4 with a Phrygian Mode synth, blending in Hirajoshi Mode percussive strings. If you have no idea what I am talking about in this sentence, then yes playing that instrument 3 years does not make you a composer/producer.