My buddy Ben sent me this question:

Sound quality or song quality, which would you say impacts a listener more?

A few non-helpful answers come to mind.

Like “both” or “it depends.”

While they’re not super-helpful answers by themselves, I think diving into each one will uncover some stuff that might help you.

Both

I think the obvious answer is that we’d all like all of our recording projects to be awesome songs with awesome sound quality.

That’s the Win-Win.

That’s the goal.

Aside from the fact that it’s simply nice to have a great song recorded with great quality, they both really feed into each other.

You work harder to get great sound quality when the song quality is so good. In a sense, you don’t want to mess it up.

If I’m recording a song for a client, and it’s just plain boring, I’m going to have a hard time really focusing on on a great-sounding recording. I wouldn’t really see the point.

Chances are no one wants to listen to a really fantastic recording of a sinfully boring song.

“It depends.”

There’s a flip-side, though.

Sometimes a really great song can out-shine a really mediocre recording. I’ve said this before with regards to recording, but the same applies to music-making, too — talent can overcome many obstacles.

If given the choice between really great gear and a really great musician, I’ll choose the musician.

In a perfect world you can have both, but alas, life ain’t perfect.

This is the kind of conversation that could go on for days, but I will say that there are plenty of songs out there that many, many people consider to be really bad songs…and they’re wildly popular.

In the end the public (i.e. your fans or clients) will answer your question for you.

Pursue excellence. Do the best you can. Put out stuff you can be proud of.

For behind-the-scenes access to a lot of projects I’m working on (plus a 20% discount on my products), check out:

www.homestudiocorner.com/vip

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3. What Are Your Steps to Recording a Song? (Need Your Feedback)

I got a very nice email a couple days ago. The guy was simply writing to say that he really liked my song “I Won’t Fly Away” (from my latest album Out of Indiana).

He gushed about how he loved the songwriting, the arrangement, the mix, the vocal tone…”everything from start to finish” (or something like that).

I was flattered, of course.

But it made me wonder what it was exactly that made THAT song stand out so much to him?

It’s kind of an interesting story how that song evolved.

I wrote it on acoustic guitar (like most of my songs). When I started recording the songs for the album, I just assumed it would be a fairly typical, groovin’, acoustic guitar-driven tune. Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary.

After recording the acoustic guitar and scratch vocals (all to a click), I got this weird urge to see what the song would sound like with a sort of hip-hop drum loop over the top.

(If you know me, I’m as non-hip-hop as they come.)

I was honestly just goofing around, never intending to use anything like that, but then it just clicked. The drum loop took the song in a completely different direction and made it really, really cool.

The rest of the parts I recorded fit around that drum loop and the new groove I had created. It was still a guitar-driven song, but that silly drum loop took it to a completely new place.

How does this apply to you?

When you’re working on a song, do you think about the mix while you’re still recording? Or do you simply record stuff and worry about mixing later?

I’ll tell you this — the better the song’s arrangement, the better the mix will be.

If you’re wrestling with a mix that you just can’t seem to make sound nice and full, maybe it’s not your mixing skills. Perhaps the arrangement isn’t complete. Maybe you need to add a new instrument you hadn’t considered before.

Or on the flip-side, maybe you have a mix that’s bursting at the seems with lots of tracks, but it just sounds wrong. Perhaps you need to strip it down. The arrangement might not fit the song.

I’ve done that before.

I’ve worked up this huge, awesome arrangement for a song, only to decide that a simple guitar/vocal was the best thing for the song.

Don’t assume that all the hard work happens during mixing. The harder you work to get a good arrangement, the easier the mix will be.

You’ll have one of those awesome moments where you haven’t even put a plugin on a track yet, and the mix already sounds killer.

A good arrangement plus good recording technique can get you there.

If you’ve got a tune you could use some advice on, either from an arrangement or mix standpoint, I’m doing mix critiques for my VIP members tomorrow (Thursday). You can get in on all the fun here:

www.homestudiocorner.com/vip

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3. Listen to the Artist, Not Just the Music

The day I sold my bass was a good day.

I had a problem.

See, I assumed that simply because I was capable of recording all the instruments on my recording projects that I should.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I bought that little Fender Jazz bass, thinking to myself, “Wow, Joe. You’re so impressive. Imagine how it’s gonna feel when you tell someone, ‘Yeah, I played all the instruments on this song.’ They’ll think you’re amazing. Heck, you’re like Dave Grohl.”

I’m not like Dave Grohl. If you’re dripping with THAT much talent, then yes, you can probably pull off playing everything on the record.

I’m not Dave Grohl, and chances are neither are you.

I sold my bass once I realized that I suck at playing bass. Sure I can get the notes out, but I don’t think like a bass player, and I sure don’t play like one.

Rather than agonizing for 3 hours over a bass line, my brother-in-law Joel Bezaire can lay it down in 10 minutes, and it sounds awesome.

Just because I CAN play the bass doesn’t mean I should.

“But Joe, I can’t pay people to play on my projects.”

Really? REALLY?

If you don’t have the cash to pay someone, that doesn’t categorically mean that you cannot pay them in some other way.

Enter the barter system.

Sometimes I wish I lived back in the day where I could take one of my goats into town and come back with a loaf of bread, a wheel of cheese, and a basket of eggs. Ah…the good ol’ days.

We don’t do a lot of bartering anymore. We buy things with money. We do work for money. But there is still real value in a fair trade.

Trading Skills for Skills

What are your skills? What are you good at? What would people pay you to do? There’s a good chance you can offer those skills as a form of payment.

I do this all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I still 100% agree that you should charge for your work, but sometimes charging can come in the form of trading something other than cash for your service.

Are you good at graphic design or photography? Maybe you could hire a local drummer to play on your tracks, and in exchange you’ll do the photography and album artwork on his band’s next album. You’re both getting something valuable, without spending money.

That’s what my buddy David Dewese did for me. I hired him to design the album artwork for my album Out of Indiana, and instead of payment, he asked me to mix one of his songs. (See, he’s a musician, too.)

My bro-in-law Joel plays bass on all my projects. Sometimes I simply write him a check. Other times he has me track some guitars or vocals on one of his projects. (I’m a singer/guitarist, he’s a bass player…another nice trade.)

Or take my buddy Tim Horsley for example. Monster drummer here in Nashville. He’s starting to offer drum tracking to clients through the internet. I need a drummer on my next album project. So? He’s offering me a discounted rate in exchange for help building up his online business. (He’s a drummer, I run HomeStudioCorner…yet another fair trade of skills.)

I could share a bunch more examples, but you get the point. Sometimes you just pay the guy. Other times you can negotiate a nice trade that leaves all parties happy.

What do you think? Is this something you already do? Tell us about it. If not, tell us how you’re going to try it on your next project. What gear or instruments do you need to sell and start “hiring” other people to play/work on your projects?

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Mixing is ridiculously fun. It’s one of my favorite parts of the process.

Sadly, though, people tend to put almost too much emphasis on mixing, so much so that they don’t take the time to properly plan, record, and edit their tracks. Those steps really need to come first before you start mixing.

Once you’re ready to mix, though, let the fun begin! Here are 6 tips to help you stay on track with your mixing. This is what I do when I mix, and I love the results I’m getting.

1. Static Mix

Before you start adding tons of plugins, start with a completely blank session. Remove all plugins, leaving you with only the raw tracks. Now, spend time mixing THOSE.

A huge key to getting a great-sounding mix is simply balancing everything properly. If the kick drum isn’t loud enough, you might be tempted to over-compress or slap a big EQ boost on it to make it cut through…when in reality you probably just needed to turn it up. That’s why getting a great-sounding static mix BEFORE adding any plugins is a great way to start.

Plus, it let’s you get a healthy level to your mix bus, so you’re not constantly playing the game of adding new tracks, then having to turn everything down to keep from clipping your mix bus.

And don’t just take my word for it. Jack Joseph Puig says it very eloquently in this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWOXo5ebpOM

2. Stay in Mono for a While

This is a tough one. It’s hard to listen to your tracks in mono when you KNOW how awesome they could sound in stereo, but just try it. I’ve found time and time again that any decisions I make while listening to everything in mono always give me better results in stereo. Why? Because mono has a way of exposing flaws.

If there are phase issues between the kick drum and the overheads, you’ll hear it in mono, and you can address it by flipping the phase of the kick drum.

If the bass and kick drum aren’t playing nicely together, you can hear the low-mid buildup much better in mono. It’s more difficult to make sound great, but once you do then it sounds even BETTER in stereo.

Give it a shot. If you can get your mix to sound amazing in mono, you’re going to be blown away with how good it sounds in stereo.

3. Mix IN CONTEXT

This is a tough habit to break, but make it a point to try it on the next song you mix. When reaching for that EQ or that compressor, go easy on the solo button. Oftentimes the decisions you make while listening in solo won’t be the right decisions for the mix. It might make that vocal track sound amazing by itself, but it won’t help it sit well in the mix.

Compare mixing to cooking. You wouldn’t try to bake a cake, but keep the eggs separate from the rest of the batter, right? You mix them all together to get the outcome you want. It’s the same with mixing a song. You can’t keep everything separate and mix in solo. That’s not mixing. That’s tweaking single tracks. Nobody wants to hear your kick drum by itself. They want to hear an awesome mix with a great-sounding kick drum. There’s a huge difference.

That’s why I don’t use EQ presets. What that particular track needs should be determined by what’s happening in the rest of the mix, and that’s different for every song, every situation. No preset can predict that for you.

4. Mix ON PURPOSE

As hard as it is to be minimalistic, give it a shot. Don’t just throw an EQ and compressor on a track if it doesn’t need it. Listen to the track, determine what it needs. If the answer is EQ, then use EQ. If the answer is nothing, then leave it alone!

If you did your job properly during the recording phase, there might be tracks you don’t have to change at all to get them to sit well in the mix.

I’m all for EQ and compression, but don’t use them by default.

5. Give Your Ears a Break

Ears are sneaky little creatures. They can make you ignore really obvious problems in your mix. If you’ve been mixing for three hours, and you’re really excited about the mix, great! But take a break, come back and listen to it a few hours or days later. You might find that there were some major issues that your ears simply got accustomed to hearing.

A nice ear re-boot is always nice. One of my subscribers emailed me about a technique he heard of some mix engineers doing, when they’re under a deadline and don’t have time to take a few hours off. They’ll listen to pink noise for a few minutes. It sort of resets their ears and lets them hear clearly again. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds interesting.

6. Have a Deadline

Deadlines make you work faster. They also make you focus on the important decisions. Is it REALLY that important to A/B two different reverb tails that only differ by 20 ms?

If you don’t have SOME sort of deadline, you could end up mixing for days and days. I’ve found that sometimes if I mix a song TOO much I end up going backwards. What WAS sounding like a great mix starts to sound worse as I overmix things.

The Next Step?

So those are a few tips that should help you start cranking out better mixes. Want me to show you my exact process for mixing an entire song? Want to see my entire recording process from start to finish? No scripts, no fancy video editing, just me in my studio, making music, making mistakes, making things happen.

I’d love to have you. Class starts tomorrow.

www.hscproductionclub.com

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1. Mixing Drums Part 2 – EQ
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3. Mixing Drums Part 1

Pre-Production? Check. Recording? Check. Now what? Mixing? Bzzzzzz. Wrong.

There’s an important step that comes between recording that last instrument and starting the mixing process. It’s called editing.

Editing can mean lots of things. Pocketing, cleaning up, comping, tuning, Beat Detective, quantizing, nudging, “flying,” copying & pasting, cutting out entire sections of the song — all of these could be put under the blanket of editing.

Let’s take a look at what editing is why you should make editing a part of your workflow.

What is Editing?

Editing is simply getting the tracks ready to be mixed. It involves comping together all the takes of each track into one, “perfect” take. It involves cleaning up the starts and ends of tracks to prevent any unwanted sounds getting into the mix. It involves getting rid of unwanted noise, like the singer smacking his lips or clearing his throat between phrases.

Editing can also mean pocketing. In other words, it can be the process of “fixing” or “tightening up” the timing of a performance. If the bass player comes in a little early on the downbeat, you can use editing to quickly correct it without dramatically altering the performance.

Editing can also mean tuning. The singer could deliver a fantastic, emotional performance, but a few notes went flat. You can use tuning software to quickly correct the pitch without dramatically altering the performance.

“…without dramatically altering the performance.” <—- That’s the key.

I don’t advocating taking a performance and chopping the life out of it. I view editing as one of the most creative parts of the process. You’re taking a great performance and polishing it.

Why Edit?

You may disagree with me, but a lot of times I’d rather listen to a nice, polished recording than a sloppy one. That’s why I edit.

I’ve never edited a song and had the performer come back and tell me how I ruined the sound. Oftentimes they don’t really notice. They just like what they hear.

You wouldn’t criticize a mix engineer for using EQ on an electric guitar track would you? The guitarist works hard to perfect his tone, but the mix engineer EQ’s it to make it work in the mix. I view editing as the same thing, changing the performance slightly to make it work with the rest of the tracks.

Why Not Edit as You Mix?

When editing a song, I recommend having a couple of dedicated “editing sessions.” It’s tempting to just jump straight into mixing, and just “edit as you go.” But I don’t recommend this.

Why? Because editing is a very surgical, left-brain process. While mixing is a much more creative, right-brain process. If you’re constantly having to switch between “mixing mode” and “editing mode,” you won’t do either very well.

As they say in Nashville, “if you’re fixing, you’re not mixing.” If a track needs to be cleaned up, tuned, or pocketed, simply set aside time to do just that. Once all the editing is done, THEN move on to mixing. I’ve found that this helps me edit much more quickly. I get in a bit of a groove, and I can blow through the editing process fairly quickly.

Is Editing Cheating?

If done properly, I say the answer is no. You’re welcome to disagree (and I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments below). I simply view editing as another great tool in my engineer tool belt. For some songs I may only need to do very little editing. For others, I might need to spend several hours editing. Either way, I only do what makes the song better.

Don’t edit just to edit. If it needs it, go for it. I think you’ll be glad you did.

3 Ways to Learn More

Want to dig in deeper with editing? You can do so one of three ways:

1. Check out the “related articles” just below this article. I’ve written a lot about editing, and you’ll find some interesting stuff there for free.
2. Check out my tutorial series Understanding Editing, complete with training videos and practice tracks.
3. Join the Production Club (time sensitive!) and see exactly how I edit an entire song, in the context of walking through the entire production process from start to finish.

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Now that you’ve done some good pre-production on the song, the next step is to start recording, right?

Some people spend way too much time recording, agonizing over every single track until the song loses all its energy. Others breeze through the recording process as fast as they can, just so they can get straight to mixing. (Which of these describes you? I tend to fall into the second category.)

Whether you’re too fast or too slow, the recording process is so crucial to the rest of the process. These Production Steps all build on one another. If you don’t do a good job on one step and move on to the next, don’t expect awesome results.

The Key to Better Mixes

If I was to ask you, “What’s the key to great-sounding mixes?” what would your answer be? Would you spit out some of the more common answers, like acoustic treatment, great monitors, good converters, nice plug-ins, good ears, lots of experience, good EQ and compression skills?

While all of those are great…if that’s where your mind goes when I ask you about how to get great mixes, then you might need to reboot a bit. Here’s what I mean.

A fantastic mix will always begin with fantastic tracks.

When you finish step 2 and move on to editing and mixing, you should be able to simply hit play in Pro Tools, with no plug-ins whatsoever, and hear a nice-sounding mix. If you can’t, then you probably dropped the ball somewhere in the recording process.

Mixing should be all about enhancing an already-great-sounding recording…not fixing a bad one. That’s why it’s so crucial for you to think about your mix while you’re recording. Mix with the microphones. Do whatever it takes to capture the sound your mix is going to need.

Get it Right at the Source

You knew that was coming. It’s like the gospel message of home recording. Get it right at the source. Say it with me now! Get it right at the source!

If you suffer from the “fix it in the mix” mentality, your mixes are going to suffer, too. You simply can’t expect a couple of plugins to fix a mediocre track. You can’t expect AutoTune to make a crappy singer sound like Freddie Mercury. It just doesn’t work that way.

Rather than being lazy during the recording process, work extra hard to make the recordings sound great, then the REST of the steps (editing, mixing, mastering) will be much easier. Do yourself a favor.

If you’re not sure HOW to get it right at the source, just start trying stuff. Move that microphone around. Mess with the tone controls on that bass guitar, simply try new things. And if you haven’t read it yet, check out my simple recording formula for getting better recordings every time.

Slow Down…or Simplify

If you tend to rush through recording, just slow down a bit. Give yourself a few extra days or weeks to get it right.

If you tend to drag out the recording process for forever, wake up and realize that 28 takes of bass guitar probably isn’t going to produce a killer-sounding track. AND you’re just making more work for yourself in the editing phase. I tend to record 1-5 takes of any instrument. Anything more than that is simply overkill.

If I haven’t made my point clear, let me try it one more time. The Recording phase is SO…IMPORTANT. Don’t gloss over it. Don’t let yourself off the hook when that guitar track just doesn’t sound “right.” Swallow your pride and go back and change something. Some of my best recordings almost ALWAYS come on the second attempt, after I move the mic or change a setting. There’s nothing wrong with changing things. In fact, that’s the sign of a mature engineer.

Do you agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know!

And if you want to see how I go through the entire production process, and watch how I set up microphones, make mistakes, make corrections, and get great-sounding recordings right here in my home studio, then join the Production Club. The doors are open for a brief time, then we’re diving headlong into finishing a song from start to finish. It’s all delivered via download. You can join from anywhere in the world. Check it out now!

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1. Step 1 – Pre-Production
2. Step 4 – Mixing
3. Step 3 – Editing

As I mentioned yesterday, there are really only 5 steps to the recording process. If that seems overly simplistic, then perhaps you’re overcomplicating things. The best way to keep yourself from being overwhelmed is to figure out how many steps you need to take to get to the finish line. Rather than saying, “I’ve got to finish this song,” you should be able to say, I’ve got to finish recording X instruments, then edit them, then mix then, then master them.”

You get the point.

Today let’s look at Step 1 – Pre-Production.

What is Pre-Production?

Pre-Production is simply a fancy term for planning. Do you have to plan out every detail of the song before your record a single note? Heck no. One of the most enjoyable parts of the recording process is how a song can take shape and even change direction as you add things to the song.

However, if you skip over this step entirely and just “wing it,” you’re possibly shooting yourself in the foot.

Why? Because as soon as you record that first track, you’re committed. After you start Step 2, the recording process, you can’t easily go back and change the arrangement, or the tempo. If you realize 3 weeks later that the song needs some major changes, you’re probably going to have to start over from scratch. Let’s avoid that, shall we?

My 6 Pre-Production Steps

Here’s how I go about doing pre-production on a song. Most of this just happens naturally as you’re writing the song, but I almost always go through these steps when beginning a new project.

If you write songs IN your recording software, then the line between pre-production and recording becomes somewhat blurred. Still, it would do you good to make sure you think through the pre-production process before getting too far into recording.

1. Quick Rough Demo of the Song

This should be quick and easy. If you’re planning on spending the next several weeks or months recording the song, you want to make sure the song is ready, right? Simply slap up a microphone and have the musician play through the song for you.

No click. The idea here is to simply capture the song in it’s purest form — a musician with an instrument.

This obviously works better with a song that can be played with just a guitar or piano and a singer. If you’re recording a full band, then have them play the song for you, and record that. You can still just record it with one mic, or maybe one of those cool little handheld recorders.

Again, the idea here isn’t even to make the recording sound good, you just want to capture the performance and move on to the next step.

2. LISTEN – Live with the song for a few days

If you can, take a few days to simply LISTEN to the rough demo. Throw it on your iPod and listen to it as you drive around town. Here’s where a lot of the creativity happens.

As you listen to the song, ask yourself a few questions. Does it need to be faster or slower? What instrumentation do you hear in your head? Does the arrangement need to change? Do the transitions work? How about the chord structure? Let your imagination run with it for a few days.

3. Choose the Right Tempo

One of the biggest time-wasters in the studio is recording at the wrong tempo. That’s why you should take time to identify the best tempo for the song. Once you start recording, you can’t go back and change the tempo.

4. Make Arrangement Changes

Should there only be a half chorus after the first verse? Should the bridge be longer? Should there be an instrumental break? How long should the intro be?

You can make a great song AWESOME with a killer arrangement. So spend some time deciding if there are things about the song that could be changed to make it have even MORE impact.

5. Determine the Overall FEEL of the Song

Is this song going to have a laid back, minimalistic feel? Do you want it to be a rockin’, in your face tune? Does the beat need to be very straight or should it swing a little?

You need to have some sense of the direction you want to go. Otherwise it’ll be hard to make the key decisions during the recording process. Leave room for the musicians to do their thing and make it sound awesome, but spend some time imagining in your head what you want the finished mix to sound like, and work from there.

6. Record Scratch Tracks

Once you’ve gone through the steps above, you’re ready for the very first step of the recording process — recording scratch tracks. Scratch tracks are simply guide tracks, recorded to a click (metronome), that you will use to guide the recording process.

Now that you have the arrangement laid out like you want it, and you’ve selected the right tempo and determined the feel you want, you’re ready for scratch tracks. For me, scratch tracks are almost always a guitar and a vocal, and I usually end up replacing them later in the recording process with “actual” takes.

For the scratch tracks, have the musicians play through the song like we want it to be on the record, all locked in to a click track. If there are other instruments that need to be there, just to inject that “feel” into the song, then I’ll record those too as scratch tracks.

From there I can go ANYWHERE. I can send the scratch tracks off to a drummer to record his part. I can bring in the full band and record on top of those scratch tracks. The fun is about to begin.

And I know I’ll like the end result, because I spent a little time planning the song before I dove in and started recording.

Comment Time!

What about you? Do you go through some sort of pre-production process? Do you agree that it’s valuable? Do you disagree? I want to hear from you, so leave a comment below.

Production Club 2.0

If you want and in-depth look at how I go through the pre-production process in my studio, then make sure you check out the Production Club. The doors open up soon…

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Last week I asked what YOUR steps are for recording a song. Thanks to everyone who chimed in. There were a lot of great responses (and yes, I read every one of them).

Over the next week or so, I want to share with you the steps that I take to record a song from start to finish. This may seem very elementary to you, but I’m convinced that taking a big picture approach to recording is one of the best ways to make sure you actually finish your projects.

I get lots of email from a lot of great home studio folks like yourself. One common theme comes up. People love tinkering with studio toys, but the vast majority don’t actually finish their songs. 

This makes me sad, because finishing a project is one of the BEST learning experiences out there. If you’re not finishing, you’re probably not learning a whole lot.

That’s why I want to take several days to really get back to the basics and focus on the 5 steps to recording a song.

Here they are:

1. Pre-Production
2. Recording
3. Editing
4. Mixing
5. Mastering

Nothing earth-shattering, right? Maybe you though the list would be longer? Shorter? The point here is that everything you do when recording a song can be placed in one of these 5 categories.

Working on the arrangement? Pre-production. Playing around with MIDI parts? Recording (or maybe Editing). You may only barely do some of these steps in the process, but generally EVERY song you work on will need to touch each of these steps before you can call it done.

Why list them out like this? Because I know how easy it is to become overwhelmed. David O., one of my long-time readers here on HSC, put it this way in his comment on last week’s blog post:

My biggest hurdle to the recording process is that I get lazy halfway through. I currently have about 10 songs in various stages of completion.

He goes on to mention how he needs to be motivated to go through his step-by-step process.

THAT’S what I’m trying to tap into here. Do your recording projects seem like insurmountable piles of work? Are you overwhelmed by all the stuff you need to do to complete just one song? I get it. I’ve been there, too.

And when I’m in that state of holy-crap-there-so-much-to-do-I-don’t-even-know-where-to-start-so-I’ll-just-go-watch-TV — it helps me to remember that even on the most complex sessions, I’m never more than 5 steps away from finishing.

Sure, there might be 50 sub-steps under each major step, but there IS an end in site, and if you don’t give yourself some sort of yardstick to measure your progress, you’ll remain in a constant state of overwhelm.

Where are you in the process?

Ask yourself that question. Are you at Step 2? Great. Now ask yourself what you have to do to get to Step 3. Record vocals and lead guitar? Great! Now you have a game plan. Do nothing else until those two things are done.

I know it’s easy to jump from recording to editing to mixing BACK to recording, but if you’re struggling with getting anything done, then I strongly urge you to take it one step at a time. Don’t let yourself get lost in mixing if the tracks aren’t even completely recorded yet. You can’t make great mix decisions until you have all the pieces in place.

It’s the same with editing. Don’t edit the daylights out of a guitar track until everything else has been recorded. You may find (and I’ve done this a LOT) that once all the other parts are recorded, the seemingly obvious mistakes on the guitar track are nearly impossible to hear. You could’ve saved yourself a couple hours of work by just saving the editing until ALL the recording was done.

You can see where I’m going with this. If you have a 21-step process to recording, that’s great, but maybe that’s too much. Slim it down to these 5 steps, then work your way through them.

Not sure how to work your way through them? In the next 5 blog posts, I’ll dive into each one and spell it out for you, and hopefully give you some tips you can apply to that song you’re working on right now.

Production Club 2.0 is coming!

If you’ve hung around HSC for a few years, then you may remember my very first class I ever ran. It was over two years ago (can you believe that?). It was called the Production Club, and in it I walked through the entire production process on a song from start to finish.

Well, it’s time for me to launch another class. But this time, it’s 16 weeks, brand new material, and more in-depth than ever.

I’ll be sharing more here on the blog, but if you want to be the first to hear about it (and be the first to have access to it), join the early-bird list here:

www.hscproductionclub.com

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. What Are Your Steps to Recording a Song? (Need Your Feedback)
2. Step 2 – Recording
3. Step 1 – Pre-Production

Do you have a process that you go through when you work on a song? Do you have fairly well-defined steps that you take to go from a great song idea to a finished, polished recording?

Do you actually finish the songs you start?

Do you think all of those questions are related?

Here’s the thing. I’ve told you before how important it is to have goals and set deadlines. But maybe you think that’s too philosophical, too constraining for your “free spirit.” Okay, that’s cool. Let’s look at it another way.

You may not be the type of person who comments on blogs. That’s cool. Use the comment area below to just quickly type out your process for recording a song. Just make a numbered list of everything you need to do to be able to say, “It’s finished.”

If you want to share your list, I’d love to see it. Go ahead and submit your comment once you type it out.

Big Stuff Happening Soon…

Things have been a little quiet here at HSC this week. I’ve been working on a few things behind the scenes.

Next week I’m going to be bringing you a bunch of awesome new stuff. I’ll share with you MY steps for recording a song, and I’ll be making a big ol’ announcement, too.

Okay, start typing below. Looking forward to hearing from you.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. MY Steps for Recording a Song (plus a BIG announcement)
2. How do you know when your song is ready to mix?
3. One of the Most Overlooked Steps of Recording

Are you a VIP member yet? If you like HSC, you’d love being a VIP member.

Each month we have a live “VIP Session,” where I cover all sorts of fun topics. This month we’re covering the topic of collaborating online with other musicians I’ve wrangled in the super-talented Travis Whitmore (make sure you check out his blog) to play drums on a track for me.

Travis doesn’t even live in the same state as me…but he’s playing drums on this song, and we’ll share with you how we go about making it work REALLY well. Plus, you’ll get to hear some pretty killer drum tracks, and even get a few drum mixing tips while we’re at it.

It’s all happening on Tuesday afternoon, and the recording will be available for all members.

Sound like fun? $5 gets you in. You’ll have access to all the previous VIP Session recordings AND the private members-only forum.

Go check it out here:

www.homestudiocorner.com/vip

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Why You Should Collaborate Online
2. New Training for VIP Members: Understanding Reverb & Delay
3. Online Collaboration Tools