Music Production Lessons
About the Lessons
With the recent introduction of high-quality-low-cost software and hardware, the tools of music production are now available to the masses. Albums are made in bedrooms as well as studios. On the surface this is liberating. Anyone can make an album for the low cost of a couple pieces of gear and a software package. But, if you dig deeper, you will find that it is not so easy. Producing music requires knowledge, dedication, and creativity.
Knowledge is where this course comes in. No matter what kind of music you are making, there is a large set of tools that you will need to use. Each lesson of this course will demonstrate a different set of music production tools, loosely following along the music production process of recording, editing, and mixing.
We will start with some background on the nature of sound and how we perceive it. We will then examine the components necessary to record audio into a computer, so that you understand the devices that sound must travel through in a music production process.
Once recorded, sound must be organised along a timeline, a process known as editing. It allows us to give the impression of perfect performances and create many of the sounds we hear in contemporary music. The contemporary editing tool is the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), a piece of software that stores and organises all the assets of a musical project. We will focus on the editing tools that are essential in contemporary music production and that all DAWs provide.
After editing, sounds must be combined or mixed together, so we look to the mixing board—a very creative place if you know how to use it. We will explore the basic functionality of both hardware and software mixing boards, including volume, pan, mute, solo, busses, inserts, sends, and submixes. The mixing process, however, includes more tools than the mixing board provides on its own. Sound must also be processed, modified from its recorded state to fit the context of the music. We will look at compression, equalisation, and delay, and examine the many audio effects that are offshoots of these devices and how they are used in a musical context.
We will then explore the synthesiser, a major tool within the production of contemporary music. Yes, great music can and will be created without the synthesiser, but learning how a synthesiser works will give you a language to describe sound. Music is a collaborative art form, so there is nothing more powerful than effective communication.
In the end, the music production process relies on your creativity. Creativity is a product of the mind and will stay there, unexpressed, until the right tools are used in the right way to share it with the world. If you have an idea in your head, it will take numerous steps, each with an important tool, to reach your audience. You bring the dedication and creativity, and this course will bring you the knowledge to make that happen.
Disclaimer: As with all instruments including Music Production, a teacher is vastly better at correcting mistakes than a website tutorial or Youtube video.
Logic Pro X: Use beat mapping on audio regions
Beat mapping audio regions works similarly to beat mapping MIDI regions. If the audio regions don’t contain tempo information, they must be analyzed to find transients (short amplitude peaks, usually at rhythmically prominent positions), which can be mapped to a ruler position, before you can use them for beat mapping.
Transients appear as blue vertical lines in the lower part of the Beat Mapping track, aligned to peaks in the audio waveform. If no transients are visible on the selected audio regions when you open the Beat Mapping track, analyze the regions before applying beat mapping.
Detect transients in audio regions
Select the regions to analyze, then click the title “Beat Mapping” in the Beat Mapping track and choose Analyze Transients from the shortcut menu.
After the regions are analyzed, the transients appear as blue vertical lines in the lower part of the Beat Mapping track.
Tip: It may be difficult to identify transients if the waveform overview is too small. If transients are hard to see, click the Waveform Zoom button in the Tracks area menu bar to visually resize the waveform in the Beat Mapping track. The remaining steps for beat mapping audio regions are the same as for MIDI regions. To follow those steps, seeUse beat mapping on MIDI regions. There are a number of ways to improve the beat mapping accuracy of audio regions. When you choose Analyze Transients, those transients above a certain threshold are displayed. You can adjust the threshold using the Minus and Plus (–/+) buttons in the Beat Mapping track.
Increasing the number of transients can be useful when beat mapping regions with less distinct accents—such as soft drums in a loud mix. However, a high setting can result in extraneous transients, with no real meaning for the rhythmic structure, being displayed. In general, it’s better to begin with a lower setting, and move to a higher setting only if transients are missing for obvious rhythmic elements in the music. Sometimes, your MIDI recordings may contain note events that fall on musically meaningful positions, and should not be affected by beat mapping applied to audio recordings. In this case, you can choose the Protect MIDI option to keep existing MIDI events at their current ruler positions when beat mapping audio regions. You can also make beat mapping easier by moving one or multiple selected audio regions, so that the first transient marker in any of the regions is located on the nearest whole beat position.
Change the threshold of transients displayed
Do one of the following:
To decrease the number of transients displayed: Click the Minus button (−) in the header of the Beat Mapping track.
To increase the number of transients displayed: Click the Plus button (+) in the header of the Beat Mapping track.
Protect MIDI events from being beat mapped
Click the title “Beat Mapping” in the Beat Mapping track, then choose Protect MIDI from the shortcut menu.
Move the first transient marker in a region selection to the nearest whole beat position
Control-click the beat mapping header, then choose Move Selection with First Transient to Nearest Beat from the shortcut menu (or use the corresponding key command).
The first transient marker in the region selection is moved to the nearest whole beat position, with all selected regions moving with it.
Beat Mapping, Basic Drum Programming
CREATING YOUR FIRST BACKING TRACK