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1. What is music production
What Is Music Production
As I mentioned before, music production has little to do with playing an
instrument or writing a song. Music production, simply put, is the art of
making all those different instruments sound good, without fighting for
space. So where do we start?
Since this book is meant for complete beginners I will presume that
you‟ve never recorded anything and you don‟t know how to go about it at
all. I‟ll start by explaining some of the terminology accepted by music
industry world over.
Mix:
to mix a song means to adjust levels of individual instruments
Rough mix:
Basic mix of the song so that the band can hear how it will all sound
together. Rough mixes are not „polished‟ - e.g. the guitars might be too
loud or maybe the singer had a bad day and there are some parts that
need re-doing.
Sequencer or DAW:
A software program you will need to record the instruments or Digital
Audio Workstation
AD/DA Converter:
Stands for Analog to Digital / Digital to Analog Converter. External audio
unit that converts your acoustic signal to digital so that it can be captured
by your chosen sequencer.
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2. What is music production
Arming the track:
To enable the track to record
Reverb or Verb:
This is an effect that creates a sense of acoustics. We usually put it on
vocals and lead guitars. To be used lightly!!! Can‟t stress this enough!
Delay:
Another effect that we use to enrich vocals or any other lead
instruments. It‟s essentially an echo effect – a delayed signal of the
original source.
FX:
Short for „effects‟
Cutting tracks:
Also cutting vocals or cutting guitars means to record guitars, to put
them down on a track. Cutting tracks can also mean to do the final mix
of the track.
Compressor:
This is a tool we use to even out the volume differences e.g. if a singer
keeps moving away from the microphone, there will be fluctuations in the
signal - we don‟t want that, so we use a compressor that eliminates this
problem, if used correctly.
Limiter:
It‟s like a super-compressor. It should only be set at the very top of audio
signal to prevent bigger audio “peaks” (or spikes) from ruining the mix
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