The document provides instructions for producing a song from start to finish. It recommends getting necessary equipment like a computer, audio interface, studio monitors, headphones, MIDI controller, and DAW. It teaches how to program drum patterns in MIDI and layer additional instruments. It stresses the importance of learning music theory, listening to many genres of music, and using high quality samples to develop your unique sound. The overall goal is to simplify the song production process.

2. Nate Zero - How to Produce A Song
Copyright © 2022 by Nathan Daniel Pizano
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission of
the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.
www.natezeromusic.com
www.warpedpla.net
www.dyingpharaohs.com
Released January 25, 2022

3. Let’s Get It Started!
I'm writing this book to break down the
process of composing, arranging and producing a
full song from start to finish. There are many ways
of going about this. In this book I’m going to
simplify the process as much as possible and break
down how I do it. I guarantee by the end of this
book you will know how to make a unique, full
song. Let me tell you a little bit about who I am. I
grew up in a musical family. Growing up, my
parents ran an entertainment company. So from a
young age, I grew up around musicians, DJs, and
bands. My dad was also a DJ. I love music and art
and from a young age I was taking piano lessons

4. and listening to music of all different genres. Some
of my earliest memories are with my dad in his
Ford Explorer driving to Little League listening to
different house and latin freestyle songs. My mom
enrolled me in piano lessons when I was a kid and
eventually I learned how to play guitar, bass, and
other instruments. I played in many bands in
middle school and high school. I formed my first
band in 6th grade. When I got to college the band I
was in at the time broke up and I started learning
how to produce my own solo material. I've had the
privilege of collaborating with many different
musicians. And I've learned a lot of things from
collaborating with these musicians. If you don’t
have any prior musical experience, please don't let

5. that discourage you. Have you ever seen Bill Nye
The Science Guy?! Yeah, well today I’m gonna be
Bill Nye and I'm gonna break it down to a science.
This book is going to help you a lot. I'm going to
walk you through the songwriting process. Alright,
let's go ahead and get started!
First Thing’s First!
The first thing you need is a computer
(unless you're recording to tape). If you don't have
studio monitors, that's okay. You can use
headphones temporarily. Eventually, you're going
to want to get some monitors. You're also going to
need an audio interface. The audio interface is

6. going to allow you to record MIDI, instruments,
and it will allow you to connect your monitors and
headphones to your computer. I personally
recommend getting a PreSonus or Apogee
interface but you can use whatever interface you
want. You're also gonna want some studio
monitors. I recommend getting some JBL
monitors. You can use headphones temporarily,
however you definitely need to get some monitors
eventually. In terms of headphones, I recommend
getting some Audio Technica ATH M50s. If you
don't know how to play an instrument, that's
alright! You don't need to know how to play any
instruments to produce music. Take Diplo or
Kanye West for instance. Both have admitted in

7. many interviews that the reason they’re great
producers is because they know how to put sounds
together to make the overall song sound great.
How do you do this, you ask? The trick is to listen
to a lot of music and know what sounds good.
There are musicians out there who are amazing
guitar players and brilliant piano players, however
they're not good producers. Why is this? They
don't know what sounds good when it comes to
recorded music. Growing up, my dad had 1000’s
of CDs, and vinyl records. So I grew up listening
to many different genres of music. I listened to
everything from Latin music to classical music,
gospel, reggae, hip hop, you name it. I've listened
to everything. I also recommend buying a MIDI

8. controller/MIDI keyboard so you can play sampler
instruments and VST instruments inside of your
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). Now that you
have your equipment, you want to figure out what
genre of music that you want to produce. For me, I
like to blend genres together. I experiment with
different genres and I never stick to any one genre.
My first album that I ever produced was a grunge
album. My second album was a jazz hip hop
album. And my latest album is a metalcore album.
I've done everything; all different types of music.
If you love one type of music, I would recommend
starting with that musical genre and branching off
later on to different genres. I recommend listening
to as many songs in that particular genre as you

9. possibly can. Now that you have your equipment,
and your musical direction in mind, you're going
to want to get a DAW. I personally recommend FL
Studio, Ableton Live, and/or Pro Tools. If you
don't have any money, there are some free DAWs
out there like Garageband. The first DAW I ever
used was what’s now known as Sony Acid. Two
other great DAWs are Reaper and Presonus Studio
One. When you're reading the forums online, it can
be very intimidating. You see many engineers
talking about different plug-ins, sample packs that
cost hundreds of 1000’s of dollars (yes, there are
some sample packs that cost 1000’s of dollars) and
you can become very intimidated by this. If you
need any free, high quality samples, I recommend

10. going to my record label’s website
www.warpedpla.net. I have some free sample
packs on there that you can download for free. You
don't need to pay a million dollars for sample
packs. Now that you have your DAW, you have
your equipment and you have your sample packs,
you're all set and ready to go. First thing’s first:
you're going to want to learn about how the MIDI
functions inside of your DAW. Learn how to
program MIDI and how to adjust the velocity
(volume) of the MIDI notes and how to program
basic drum patterns and chord progressions. MIDI
is going to become your new best friend. What is
MIDI? MIDI is how instruments and machines
communicate with each other. For instance, you

11. could hook up a MIDI controller to your interface
and you can use this MIDI controller to trigger
different samples and write different melodies,
drum patterns, and compose different song ideas.
There are many great MIDI controllers out there. I
highly recommend the Akai MPK and APC series.
If you don't want to use a DAW, there are different
ways to go about this. You can buy an MPC. I've
used MPCs before and they’re very intuitive. If
you have the money for it, I recommend buying
one because you can also record from the MPC
into your DAW. So now you have your MIDI
controller, your DAW, and your equipment. You're
going to want to learn some basic music theory.
You don’t have to become the next Mozart or

12. Beethoven. You just need to know some basic
chord progressions and scales. This is going to
help you when you start laying down topliners and
the basic meat and potatoes of the song. I
recommend going on YouTube and studying some
videos on how music works. You have major
scales and minor scales. A lot of EDM/electronic
music is written in the minor scale. A lot of
melancholy music is written in the minor scale. A
lot more upbeat, happier sounding music is written
in the major scale. You can learn different scales
such as the Dorian scale and the Pentatonic scale. I
highly recommend that you also learn an
instrument. Pick an instrument that you really love
the sound of and learn some basics on that

13. instrument. I highly recommend that you learn
either the bass guitar or the piano. The piano and
the bass guitar are very simple instruments and
you can utilize them to write basic melodies and
chord progressions. You can translate what you
learn on these two instruments to pretty much any
other instrument out there. I love instruments such
as the trumpet, flute, violin, and the cello. The
problem with these instruments is it takes time and
skill to learn these instruments. I'll give you an
example. In middle school I learned how to play
the trombone. I should have picked trumpet
because Louis Armstrong is one of my all time
favorite musicians and if you held a gun to my
head and asked me to name a famous trombonist, I

14. would not be able to do it. Trombone is very
difficult to learn how to play and I was actually the
worst trombonist in the band. If I was playing, you
did not want to hear it. Dogs would be howling
five blocks away. I later found out that my
grandfather played trombone as well. My point is
that you don’t want to pick trombone as your first
instrument. An instrument like the piano would be
much more useful and simple to learn. The guitar
is an awesome instrument. I love guitar. It is one of
my favorite instruments of all time. The bass is
simpler, it's only four strings, and you can
eventually translate what you learn on bass to the
guitar. You're also not going to get calluses on
your fingers (you might get some blisters though).

15. You can also use your fingers on bass and you
don’t have to learn how to use a pick. So that is
why I recommend those two instruments (piano
and bass). You can also get a microphone, such as
a condenser mic or a dynamic microphone. What
are the differences between a dynamic and a
condenser mic? The condenser mic is much more
sensitive and is used to record high quality vocals
as well as piano, guitar amps, and stringed
instruments. The dynamic microphone is a lot
more rugged and it is used to record guitar amps,
vocals, and close mic-ed instruments. The
condenser mic will pick up a wider range of
frequencies and requires phantom power (48V).
You can use your mic to record your voice and

16. other outside sources that you can sample in your
music. You can even sample your own voice as an
instrument. There are many bands that have done
this such as My Bloody Valentine and my own
band Dying Pharaohs. I released an album recently
called Hacienda that is completely made of
samples. I didn’t play any instruments on that
album. It is proof that you do not need to know
how to play an instrument to make a full album.
You can also buy a sampler. I have a CDJ for
example. It is not an instrument; it is a DJ tool. But
you can use it to sample CDs. Newer CDJs can
sample MP3 and WAV files. You can also (as I
mentioned before) get an MPC and trigger samples
using that. You don’t need to know how to play an

17. instrument to make a full song. You could rely
completely on MIDI inside your DAW. Alright
now that you've learned the basics of MIDI and
basic music theory, I want you to open up your
DAW right now. And I want you to program a
basic drum pattern. You have a kick drum, which
is the lower frequency. If you’re making dance
music, your kick will hit on every beat. The time
signature will be 4/4 (four on the floor). You have
a snare drum that usually hits on every other beat.
You have your hi hats and your cymbals. You have
a ride cymbal. Sometimes you have a cowbell and
sometimes you have a tambourine sound. I like to
program what is commonly known as “ghost
notes” which are quieter samples that are triggered

18. to give the beat some drive and variation. You can
load in other samples and experiment with your
drums. You can eventually add effects like
saturation/distortion, reverb/delay, and
compression. Now that you have your drum
pattern programmed, I want you to program a
simple bass pattern. Your bass pattern is going to
be the foundation of your song. After this you can
add additional instruments on top of that. I
recommend getting a synth plugin that you can use
for bass sounds and synth sounds. I recommend
getting Synth1 and Surge. Vital is another great
free synth. There are a lot of free plugins. Just
make sure you’re not downloading any sketchy
plug-ins from m0j0j0j04879302.com or some site

19. that will end up giving you a virus. You don't need
to pay a million dollars for any synth plugins. If
you do want to pay for a synth plugin I
recommend getting u-he Zebra, Serum, Sylenth1,
or Massive by Native Instruments. You can also
buy what's called a sampling plugin, like Native
Instruments Kontakt or Sampletank, for instance.
Plugins like this will allow you to sample different
sounds and sampled instruments. In Ableton you
can use Sampler or Simpler and you can pitch
different sounds and trigger different samples. You
have other plugins like Drum Rack or Impulse that
are drum samplers. With these plug-ins you can
trigger different drum sounds and you can also
tweak the pitch of the sound as well. Alright, so

20. now you have the basic layout of your song. Pay
attention to the actual timbres of the
synths/instruments you are using in your song.
When you listen to music, take note of different
sounds that you like. I remember listening to a lot
of Barry White albums and I noticed that he really
loves that harpsichord. It’s on almost every song.
He loved the timbre of the harpsichord. Pay
attention to how different timbres sound. Every
instrument is different. It’s why a trumpet sounds
different from a guitar and it's why a harp sounds
different from an organ. Every instrument is
unique. Every sample has a different timbre. You
will find that your ear will be drawn to certain
sounds and other instruments you won’t like the

21. sound of. To each his/her own. Some people love
the flute and and how the flute sounds and other
people despise that sound. This is why it's
important to listen to different genres of music and
different types of music. When you hear an
instrument you like you can bring it into your own
productions. If you only listen to one type of music
it will limit your productions The trick is to listen
to everything you can. If you only listen to reggae
music, try checking out some metal music. If you
only listen to house music, check out some
classical music for a change. If all you listen to is
bossa nova music, try listening to some country
music from the south. You might find that you love
the sound of the acoustic guitar. If you only listen

22. to classical music which normally has violins,
harps, cellos, flutes, and oboes, you may be selling
yourself short. When you listen to music, write
down the different instruments being played and
describe in detail how the song makes you feel
emotionally. It is also crucial that you never
compare yourself to other producers out there.
Always remember that the music you make cannot
be replicated by anyone else. Everyone has their
own unique sound. Everybody has their own style.
If you spend all of your time comparing yourself
to other people, it will limit you and you will never
be as good as them at what they do. You can,
however, be the best you that you can be (as cliche
as that sounds). Always remember that nobody can

23. replicate your sound. It is completely unique to
you. You can study producers and be influenced by
producers when you're first starting out, but
eventually you’ve got to take off the training
wheels and discover your own sound. I
recommend taking different genres of music and
different styles that you love and bringing those
together and using that to form your sound. Also,
you're only as good as your samples. What do I
mean by this? There are some sample packs out
there that are trash and if you use these sample
packs in your music, I'm sorry to tell you this, but
Your music will suffer. You always want to use the
highest quality sounds available. I recommend my
own record label, Warped Planet’s sample packs.

24. Check out the Master Blaster Pack here:
https://warpedplanet.gumroad.com/l/plxcso and
the full collection at https://www.warpedpla.net
These are high quality samples. If you’re using
low quality mp3 samples, I'm telling you right
now: your music is going to suffer. You always
want to use the highest quality (preferably 24 bit
48 kilohertz). If you're using mp3 kick drums and
low quality mp3 snares you could write the
greatest song of all time and it will sound terrible
(unless you’re making lo-fi/noise music).

25. The Elements Of Sound
I want to talk about the different roles
when it comes to producing a song. You have a
mastering engineer, mixing engineer, producer(s),
engineers, composers, arrangers, songwriters,
singers, rappers, and beatmakers. I'm going to
break down each of these roles right now. The first
role is the mastering engineer. What is mastering?
Mastering ensures that your songs sound good on
different mediums. It is why you can play a song
on your car stereo and the song will sound great on
your headphones and iPhone speaker. This is
because it was mastered professionally. It is very
important that you do not master your own music.

26. I recommend going with a professional mastering
engineer or using an AI mastering service. If you
decide to use an AI mastering service, please keep
in mind it will not sound as good as a professional
mastering engineer. Why? Because it will be
lacking the human element. If i’m in a boxing ring
and I put a robot against a professionally mastering
engineer, I don’t care how many algorithms you
run; it will never sound as good as a human being.
However, if you're on a short budget, there is no
shame in using a service like LANDR,
Cloudbounce, or eMastered. Why is it important to
have an outside mastering engineer master your
songs? It is because they are detached from the
songwriting process and the production process.

27. They were not there when you recorded guitars a
million times and they were not present when you
recorded vocals and wrote all your lyrics. They are
seeing the song from a different perspective and
this will benefit your music. You also have what is
called a mixing engineer. Some famous mixing
engineers include Jack Joseph Puig, Dave
Pensado, Bob Clearmountain, Chris Lord-Alge,
and his brother Tom Lord-Alge. A mixing
engineer will take the song stems and adjust the
volumes, apply compression, tweak the
equalization levels, add delay, reverb, and other
elements that will enhance the song.
Some producers, such as myself, prefer to
mix our own music. However, a lot of producers

28. will send their stems out to a mixing engineer who
will mix their songs. This brings me to the next
role which is audio engineers. An engineer is
someone who will come in and help you in terms
of adjusting EQ and compression levels in the
studio and will help you apply different effects on
the signal chain of your audio. This brings me to
another important point: We are making music;
we’re not making a painting. I want you guys to
keep this in mind. Use your ears; not your eyes.
What looks good on a DAW may not sound good.
There are many beautifully designed plug-ins out
there that will take your breath away aesthetically
but sound terrible. Again, you're not making a
painting. There is no easel, paintbrush, and you are

29. not wearing a beret. So keep that in mind. You
always want to mix with your ears and not your
eyes. I strongly suggest that you turn off your
monitor display, close down your computer screen
for a second, and only pay attention to what’s
coming out of the speakers. I talked about
mastering engineers, mixing engineers and audio
engineers, and now I'm going to talk about
beatmakers. It’s an insult to call a producer a beat
maker because they are not a beatmaker; They're a
producer. For instance, my first album that I
produced is called Whirl’d - To You This Mixtape.
I produced that album. I did not make the beats on
the album. The band composed most of the songs,
however I helped add a lot of elements to the

30. songs. I mixed the album and produced it, which
meant I oversaw the overall execution/creation of
the album. When it was finished I sent it to my
mastering engineer. This brings me to my next
category which includes singers, rappers,
songwriters, composers, and arrangers. These
people are professionals in terms of creating the
actual song. I'll give you guys an example. One of
my favorite bands is the band New Order, formerly
known as Joy Division. These guys produced two
two albums (Unknown Pleasures and Closer)
under the under the band name Joy Division before
the lead singer of the band Ian Curtis committed
suicide. The producer of those albums is Martin
Hannett. Martin Hannett did not compose the

31. songs and he did not arrange the songs. He didn’t
write the songs (which is another way of saying
composing). He produced the songs. A music
producer oversees the overall song or project. It
doesn't mean that they're necessarily a composer.
This is why I say that beatmakers are not
necessarily producers. Oftentimes a beatmaker will
compose the beat of the song, but they'll send it to
a music producer who will produce the overall
song, record the vocals, and send it off to a
mastering engineer. The reason I want you guys to
know the different roles is because I don't want
you to go to your mastering engineer and expect
him to mix your song. If you deliver a P.O.S. (you
know that stands for) mix to your mastering

32. engineer, that is what you will get back. You need
to make sure you are sending him/her the best mix
possible. I talked earlier about listening to a ton of
different music and breaking down the different
elements in the song. Write down different
adjectives that describe how the song sounds to
you. I also recommend that you guys go out and
buy a dynamic microphone or condenser mic and
that you learn how to rap, sing, and/or write lyrics.
Doing this will help you when it comes down to
recording outside vocalists, rappers, and singers.
You may not sound like Povorati and dogs may
howl 5 blocks down the street, however you will
learn how to properly mix your own vocals which
will help you mix other people’s vocals. Listen to

33. your favorite rappers and singers and study the
lyrics as well. I will never forget the day that my
dad and I met the famous Rob “Raab” Stevenson,
who is a famous vocal coach for Taylor Swift and
other popular singers/recording artists. He went
over how he takes an original vocal, and will help
enhance the vocal and will turn the vocal line into
something completely different from the original.
This is his skill and his talent. It is important to
study people like him and other famous singers,
rappers, and bands, and how they structure their
vocals, songs, and lyrics. You may not have the
best voice in the world. And I will admit, I do not
have the best voice in the world. I’m thankful that
I'm able to talk and sing. It took me a long time to

34. get good. I will never forget the day, around 15
years ago, when I was first learning how to sing
and produce. I bought an AKG 220 Perception
condenser mic and I remember being inside of my
closet recording a million vocal takes and deleting
every last one of them because I could not sing on
key to save my life. My voice sounded horrible
and I became very discouraged. If I had given up
there would be no Dying Pharaohs albums. There
would be no Zero’s Revenge albums. There'd be
nothing. It is important that you tune out all your
haters, and the people that discourage you. Let
them drink their haterade and hate on. I guarantee
you, when you are first starting out, you will have
people laughing at you. They will say things to

35. you like “why are you wasting your time writing
poetry man?”, “you're never going to amount to
anything”. They're gonna say things like, “man,
you're a dreamer, bro”, “You're never gonna be
anything”, “you can't even sing on key”, or my
personal favorite one, “This song would be good if
I could understand what you’re saying”. It's
important to tune these insecure haters out.
Insecure people will always try to project their
insecurities onto you. These people will have no
courage of their own. I guarantee they're not
producing music and if they are, it is most likely
garbage. When you study different songs, and
different vocalists, this will help your productions
in many ways. This will help you when it comes

36. time to creating song melodies and if you end up
recording a vocalist or rapper, you can apply what
you've learned and it will benefit the overall song.
It is extremely important that you collaborate with
other songwriters, rappers, and vocalists. When I
was doing the Whirl’d album I collaborated with
many talented rappers and singers. If I didn’t know
how to rap or sing, I would not know what to do. I
wouldn’t know how to mix their vocals in the
song. I collaborated with many talented rappers
and singers on that record such as Craig White,
Tony The Scribe, and my friend Mitch from the
band Vudaje. Another example would be my
friend Geena Fontanella who was on American
Idol. We made a song together called Bad Days.

37. Again, I used what I learned from mixing my own
vocals and although I was not singing on that song,
I was able to apply what I learned to her vocals. If
I had neglected that skill and listened to my haters,
I doubt that we would have made this track.
Another example would be my friend Willy T
Montana. We made a song together called Brah
which is a deep house track. Even though his
vocals were very simple on the song, I was still
able to use what I learned in terms of mixing
vocals and it helped the overall song. The result
was a classic deep house track that will go down in
history. There are many autotune plugins out there
so you don't have to worry about singing in key,
however I strongly suggest that you learn how to

38. sing in key because if you decide to perform live,
it will come in handy. Yes, they have live autotune
plugins but you can’t always rely on that. You
don't want to sound like you're singing in the
shower where dogs are howling down the street
from two (sometimes three) blocks away because
you sound so so bad. We're getting off the topic.
Let's go ahead and go back to talking about
composing and producing a song. I want you to go
ahead and open up your DAW right now. And I
want you to go ahead and load up a drum module.
If you're using Ableton Live, you can load in
Drum Rack or Impulse. Next, I want you to add in
a good kick drum sample. Again, if you don’t have
any good high quality samples, go to my record

39. label Warped Planet (www.warpedpla.net). There
are many free sample packs you can download
there that are absolutely free that I spent a lot of
time putting together for you guys. You can
download them for free. Bring in a good kick drum
that sounds good to your ears. Next, drag in a good
snare drum sample. Find a great hi hat that you
like the sound of and drag that in. Find another hi
hat that you like and drag that in as well. I'll
explain why later. You can also add in other
sounds such as a cowbell, tambourine, and could
even add in a stick/rimshot sound. You can do
whatever you want. Next, I want you to add in a
basic bassline pattern. Again if you do not have
any synthesizers, I'm going to go ahead and list

40. some awesome synths that you can download for
free. You can download one Synth1, which is
based off of the Nord Lead synth. You can
download a synth plugin called Vital that's pretty
good. I recommend getting a synth plugin called
Surge that is a really awesome free softsynth. If
you have some money in the bank, I recommend
buying Native Instruments Massive, Serum,
Omnisphere, u-he Diva, and/or u-he Zebra. And
what the hell; I'll go ahead and throw in another
one for you while we’re at it. There's one called
Sylenth1 one that sounds really great. If you're
looking for a bass plugin that is strictly used for
bass, I recommend getting Spectrasonics Trilian. I
want you to program a basic bassline pattern. It

41. doesn't have to be complex. It can be very simple.
Some of the best basslines ever written such as
Chic- Good Times, Queen- Another One Bites The
Dust, and The Clash - Magnificent Seven are very
simple. It could be a basic four on the floor
pattern. Now is the perfect time for me to talk
about equalization. What is equalization?
Equalization is basically that. You’re equalizing
the song or individual sound in the song.
Equalization is when you adjust different
frequencies (the treble, the bass and the mid range)
and cut out any harsh frequencies and boost certain
frequencies if you need to. If a song is poorly
equalized you will notice because there will be too
much/not enough bass, too much/ not enough

42. treble, and/or too much/not enough mid range. You
may hear audio artifacts which sound terrible. You
may find that the mix sounds too thin or too
muddy. When I say muddy, what I'm talking
about? I’m not talking about going hiking in the
rain and getting mud on your shoes. I’m talking
about when the low end of the song builds up. I
recommend that you put a high pass filter on all
your sounds that are not the bass or the kick drum
in the song. Place the high pass filter on the
channel and cut out any frequency under 40 Hz.
Sometimes you may need to cut out frequencies
higher than that. If you do not do this, you will
find that your song will sound very muddy and no
one is going to want to hear it. When it comes

43. down to the bass and the kick, I want you to do is
sidechain your kick drum to your bass. That way
every time the kick drum hits, it ducks the bass
down a little bit. What is sidechaining? Look up
the song Avicii - Levels. Do you hear how the
synths in the song fluctuate in volume and contrast
from the kick? This is sidechain compression. You
can also compress using a technique called New
York/Parallel Compression. This is when you
blend in the dry, original sound with the
compressed, wet sound and adjust it according to
your taste. You do not want to over compress
because if you overdo this, you will regret it later
on. Trust me your song will end up sounding very
very off and no one is going to want to hear them.

44. You want it to be very subtle unless you are
making house/EDM music where that is the effect
that you want. Like I said, we're not making
paintings; We are making music. It's important to
take a step back from your songs. If you spent five
hours mixing, take a step back. Go eat a sandwich.
Go eat some soup, some salad, or eat an energy
bar. Take your dog for a walk, take a nap, and/or
go for a nature hike. Drink some Gatorade. Talk
with your mom for a little while, and then come
back later on when your ears are more rested.
After you are refreshed you can keep working on
your song. This is going to help you in terms of
your stamina and in terms of hearing the song
from a fresh perspective. You may find later on

45. when you come back to your song that the tempo
is off. You might find that you put too much
sidechain compression on your kick drum as we
just talked about. You may find that you added too
much high end on the guitar and you need to bring
it down a little bit. It's important to give your ears
a rest. I get that sometimes if you're under a
deadline, you have no choice but to push through
and finish the song. I highly recommend that you
mix using both headphones and monitors. If you
only rely on headphones, trust me, it is not a smart
move. You will regret it. Trust me. Lately I haven't
even been mixing on headphones. Most of my
mixes lately have been mixed 100% on monitors
and I only use headphones for vocals. When you

46. mix only using headphones, this deceives your
ears because you won't hear certain frequencies.
There may be too much bass, there may be too
much treble or not enough trouble. There might
not be enough mids and the stereo image of the
song may sound off. If you can, put your song on
your iPhone (or Android) and go outside for a
walk. Listen to your song outside of the studio. I
did this on the second Zero’s Revenge album. I
listened to most of that album outside of my
studio. This allowed me to hear different mistakes
in the songs and I was able to go back to the
drawing board and correct these errors. I want to
talk to you guys a little bit more about haters. And
people that try to discourage you from doing

47. music. I once had a conversation with a lady that
told me over 20 times to quit doing music. She
told me about her ex-boyfriend who was a jerk
who ran a very successful music festival that I will
not name. She told me about how he was a jerk
and that I should quit doing music and that I'm
wasting my time. I mentioned that I studied
accounting in college and she told me “Yeah, do
that. Be an accountant. Quit music. You will not
make any money doing what you’re doing and
you're wasting your time.” She told me that
musicians are a dime a dozen, that I would never
make it, and that I should just have a real job and
play it safe. This lady did not realize all the hours
that I invested in making music. She was not there

48. when my mom was taking me to piano lessons
when I was a little kid. She was not there when I
was watching my dad DJ. She was not there during
the countless hours I spent listening to hundreds of
CDs and vinyl records and studying these songs.
She was not there when I was with my band in the
middle of nowhere in Gilroy, California, writing
and recording music, and playing for an audience
in San Francisco. It’s very important that you tune
out haters and people that discourage you. I know I
keep on saying this but I want to hammer it into
your heads that you need to tune these people out.
If someone can't see it for themselves, they can't
see it for you. And they will only project their
insecurities and their hatred onto you. Some of

49. these people live very deprived, miserable lives
that are meaningless. And they see you as a threat.
Oftentimes people will resist what they don't
understand. When you try to expand your life and
do other things, they see it as a threat because they
want to keep you in that little box because it does
not force them to change and to grow as a person
They can continue living their life hating on
people and drinking their haterade and spewing
their hatred onto you and other people. Also
remember that, you guys: you're not the only one
they're hating on. They're hating on a lot of people.
It's not just you. Don't be so self-centered and
self-conscious thinking that you're their only
target. Nah, man. They hate on everyone that is

50. successful. Misery loves company. One of my
friends said it best: “Miserable people will always
try to bring you down to their level of misery and
try to make you feel how they feel.” If I had
listened to this lady that was telling me to quit and
throw in the towel, both of my bands wouldn't
exist. Zero’s Revenge and Dying Pharaohs would
be non-existent. There would be no Bad Days and
no Brah. I chose to ignore this woman and
continued with my business as usual. You also
have to keep this in mind: your ancestors would
have loved to live the life that you're living right
now. It would be a slap in the face to them if you
gave up and played it safe and took the easy way
out. Many of our ancestors were brilliant

51. musicians and artists. My great grandmother was
an extremely talented quilt maker and artist. My
great-great grandfather was an extremely gifted
violinist. My grandfather was on the radio and
television. My own father and mother are both
talented musicians and artists as well. It would be
a slap in the face to quit and listen to my haters. I
want you guys to smile and laugh at your haters
and actually feel sorry for them because they see
you as a threat. They project their own insecurities
onto you. Do not listen to them. Tune them out.
Put your blinders on and continue with your music
and your art. Alright now back to the task at hand.
You’ve got your bassline and your drum pattern.
The reason why I told you to add in an extra hi hat

52. sound is because you can use a technique that I
call “ghost notes”. This is when you add in subtle
notes in your drum pattern to enhance and drive
the beat forward. It helps add some variation and
even though it is subtle, your drums will benefit
from using this technique. I talked to you guys
about equalization, right? I'm going to tell you
guys about compression right now. Compression is
taking a quiet sound and boosting it up to be
louder and vice-versa (taking a loud sound and
bringing that down and making it quieter).
Compression helps to level out the sound. When
you hear terms like “over compressed”, what it
means is that the loud sounds are equally as loud
and the quiet sounds. There is no dynamic range in

53. the song. There's a very common term in the music
world called the “loudness wars”. When you listen
to an album or a song from let's say the 50s you
will hear that it's not that loud. It's actually kind of
quiet. It's a lot quieter than the stuff that you're
hearing on the radio nowadays. It's a lot less
compressed. A lot of times older music was
recorded with a very high quality microphone. A
very common mic used was the Neumann U-47.
This is why you can listen to an Elvis, Frank
Sinatra, or Richie Valens song and the vocals
sound very crisp, clear and loud. It's because they
used high quality gear at the source of the
recording. I highly suggest that you try to
download some Jackson 5 song stems so you can

54. hear what i’m talking about. You will notice that
each instrument sounds extremely well recorded
and there is not a whole lot of compression going
on. This brings me to my next point: You want to
invest in high quality gear. I'm sorry to tell you
this: If you are mixing on low budget speakers that
you bought from the Goodwill, your songs will not
sound as good as they would sound if you got
some high quality JBL monitors. You can get away
with using low budget equipment temporarily,
however there will come a time where your music
is gonna to start suffering because of it. You want
to invest in a high quality audio interface. Please
take heed: do not use any low quality gear to
record your music. I recommend getting a

55. PreSonus or Apogee interface. In terms of
monitors, I recommend going with JBL. Get some
high quality headphones as well. I recommend
getting Audio Technica ATH M50s. If you are
mixing using Radio Shack, low budget
headphones, I'm telling you, it's not a good move,
you want to upgrade to using some high quality
gear. If you are recording all your vocals using
your PlayStation 2 mic that you bought when you
were five years old, throw that junk away and get a
good Shure SM58 or Rode mic. There's a reason
why Michael Jackson recorded the vocals on
Thriller using a Shure SM7 mic. He did not use a
PlayStation 2 mic that comes with Guitar Hero or
Rock Band. It is because your music is only as

56. good as the gear you're using and only as good as
your samples as I talked about earlier. You want to
invest in high quality guitars, or whatever
instrument that you're recording with. Also, you
want to buy a high quality MIDI controller. That
way you can future proof yourself and you do not
have to go out and upgrade later on. So now going
back to the song. You have your drums and you’ve
got your bass. I told you already to sidechain the
bass with the kick drum and duck the bass down
every time the kick drum hits. That way your kick
drum sounds punchy in the mix. If you don't do
this, again, your mix is going to sound muddy and
there will be too much bass built up. You can even
pinpoint certain frequencies on your bass and

57. narrow the Q and duck those down to bring your
kick drum out more in the mix. Next, I want you to
add some synths and then after that, I want you to
write what's called a top liner. This is a fancy way
of saying “the main melody of the song”. I want
you to be creative with your topliner. I want you
guys to write a melody that you think is catchy. If
you can hum the melody and it sticks in your head
it is a good test to figuring out if the topliner is
good or not. This is another reason why I told you
to listen to a lot of different music because
subconsciously when you listen to all these
different songs, you're gonna hear different
melodies that sound good to you. Even though
you're not ripping off these melodies off (because

58. you can go to prison for copyright infringement)
and you're not plagiarizing the melodies, when it
comes time to writing your own melodies, it's
going to become a lot easier because you've
listened to so much different music that you can
write the melodies pretty quick and you know
what sounds good. If you stay in a bubble, and you
don't listen to any outside music, and you just
write and listen to your own music, you’re
shooting yourself in the foot. You want to listen to
a bunch of different songs of all different genres.
As I mentioned earlier, if all you listen to is
country music (I love country music), give it a
break. Put on some bossa nova or some jazz. Put
on some reggae music. My personal favorites are

59. Steel Pulse, Black Uhuru, Lee Scratch Perry,
Scientist, and Bob Marley. If you only listen to
classical music, try listening to some house music.
Look up Todd Edwards, Daft Punk, Kenny Dope,
Masters At Work, and Armand Van Helden. If you
only listen to indie rock (I love indie rock), put
that aside for a little while and listen to some
metal.
Take Notes
When you are listening to music, I want
you to take a notepad out and jot down the
different sounds that you are hearing. I want you to
describe the sounds and the different timbres. I
want you to listen to the music from a producer’s

60. perspective and not a consumer’s perspective. I
want you write down the following things:
1. How does this song make me feel
emotionally?
Music is an emotional art form. If you have
no emotions, I'm sorry to tell you but your music is
most likely going to suck. You want to describe
how the song makes you feel. Try to figure out if
the song is in a minor scale or major scale. You
can also refer to websites like Tunebat which will
break down the key and BPM of the song.
2. Break down and listen the elements
of the song and the instruments
Start with the kick. How does the kick
drum sound? Is it punchy? Is it kind of boxy

61. sounding with a fast attack transient (like a DMX
kick). How does the bass sound? Does it have a lot
of treble? Does it have a lot of mid range or none
at all? Fieldy from Korn, for instance, has no
midrange in his bass and has the treble and bass
boosted. How does the snare sound? Does the
snare have a lot of bass in it? Does it sound thin?
Take note of how the bass sounds. Was it recorded
with fingers or a pick? A lot of reggae music and
even in my favorite band, The Clash, Paul
Simonon bassist used his thumb when recording
the bass on a lot of those tracks. You can hear the
difference between a bass that's recorded using the
thumb and using a pick. Take note of that. Does
the hi-hat have a lot of treble? Does the hi-hat have

62. a fast attack? We're gonna talk about attack
transients right now. What am I talking about when
I say attack? No, I'm not talking about Attack on
Titan (for all you anime fans out there). I'm talking
about the attack of a sound. The attack of a sound
has to do with how fast the sound comes on. If a
song has a fast attack, this is when the transient
occurs very fast and you hear the full sound
immediately. If a sound has a slow attack, the
sound comes on very slowly and it takes some
time for the sound to build up to its fullest
capacity. That's what I mean by attack. So pay
attention to the attack of the kick drum. Pay
attention to the attack of the snare drum. Also pay
attention to how fast the snare drum is released.

63. Release is the opposite of attack. A snare with a
long attack for example would be a song like Joy
Division - The Eternal and a song where the snare
has a fast attack would be Carl Carlton - She’s A
Bad Mama Jama. Pay attention to the hi hat attack
and the bass attack. I mentioned earlier that a lot of
reggae music and a lot of great funk music features
the bassist using his/her fingers. This means that
it's going to have a slower attack. If it was
recorded with a pick, it's going to have a faster
attack because you're going to hear the pick sound
immediately when the bassist hits the note. Also
pay attention to the volume levels of the mix. Is
the bass mixed loud or is it quiet? I guarantee if
you're listening to a lot of songs from the 50s the

64. bass can be quieter or lack some low end than if
you listen to some metalcore that was released last
year where the bass is more prominent. In this
book my whole goal for you guys is for you to
produce a full song. You have to know how
different songs sound and when you break down a
song from a producer’s perspective this will help
you when you make your songs. Listen to each
song. Write down how it makes you feel. Write
down the different elements of the song and figure
out how the song sounds overall. When you do this
exercise, you're listening to a song from a
producer's perspective. A lot of people listen to
music from a consumer’s perspective. I'm teaching
you guys how to be producers, not consumers.

65. Also, study the vocals. Are they compressed or
uncompressed? If they're uncompressed, you'll
find that there's going to be a lot of fluctuations in
volume. Listen to the band Tool, for instance. The
vocals are very uncompressed. How do I know
this? Because when Maynard sings you hear that
his voice fluctuates in volume. There's a lot of
quiet parts and then he goes loud and then back to
quiet and then loud and then quiet again. Another
band might have very compressed vocals, which
means that the singer stays at one volume and it
doesn't fluctuate. Write that down. Break the entire
song down. Pay attention to the synth sounds. Do
they sound digital or analog? You can tell the
difference between because a lot of analog

66. synthesizers lack treble. A lot of people describe
Digital/soft-synths as sounding “plasticky” and
“cold”. A lot of people describe analog synths as
sounding “warm”. A tip I suggest to make your
synths sound more analog is to throw in a high
pass filter and carve out the EQ and eliminate a lot
of the high end. Pay attention to the song structure
as well. A great exercise that I would recommend
to you guys would be to drag in one of your
favorite songs into your DAW. Figure out the
structure of the song. You can even match the
tempo/BPM of it and write down notes inside your
DAW when the choruses, bridge, and verses are
and you can write a song based on that song
structure.

67. 3. Take note of the tempo of the songs
you listen to.
Is it a slow tempo, mid tempo, or fast
tempo song? There are tools online that allow you
to tap the tempo out and determine what the BPM
(beats per minute) is. You can do this inside your
DAW as well. Write down the tempo and figure
out if the song that you're listening to is fast or
slow. One of my favorite albums is Black Flag -
My War. Around the time that I was making my
album Dying Pharaohs - A New Violent World, I
was listening to Black Flag - My War a lot. Side A
of My War album features faster tempo songs and
the B side has slower tempo songs. You can even
find a song that you like and you can find the BPM

68. and the key of the song using a service such as
Tunebat as I mentioned earlier. When it comes
time to writing your own music, you're going to sit
down at your DAW and you're going to say to
yourself “You know what. I really like the sound
of that song I listened to the other day and I feel
like writing a song that is around the same BPM. I
like it when the bass has a lot of treble on it and I
like the sound of a fast attack/slow release snare
drum that has a fat snare drum sound. I want a fast
attack kick and some analog sounding synths. And
I like this and that and this and that”. You can
bring in different elements from different songs
into your own music. The problem with these
desert island producers that don't listen to any

69. other music other than their own is that they are
very closed minded and their music suffers
because of it because they only listen to their own
music. They don't want to branch out into other
genres and they don't want to listen to any other
songs or genres.
Let’s Wrap This Joker Up

70. Alright so, you’ve got your drums and
bass. You have your synths and a topliner recorded
as well, which is the main melody of the song.
What I want you to do now is I want you to start
throwing on some plug-ins. Throw on some EQ
plugin. If you need a free EQ I recommend getting
Tokyo Dawn Records SlickEQ. If you need a free
compressor I recommend Tokyo Dawn Labs
Kotelnikov compressor, and no I can’t pronounce
that. I want you to throw on an EQ and start
carving out different frequencies. I already told
you to carve out the bass and the kick drum
because oftentimes those two instruments collide
and it makes the song sound very muddy with too
much bass. Start with your EQ and take off some

71. high end from your synthesizer (if you want). As I
mentioned earlier, a lot of digital synths lack the
warmth that you would get from analog synths.
You might want to take off some high end synths.
You might find that the bass has a frequency that's
annoying to you. What you can do is you can
narrow the Q down on the EQ and when you
narrow the Q down, you can pinpoint the
frequency and duck it down. It is very, very
important when you are EQing, not to boost too
many frequencies. You don't want to boost a lot of
frequencies. When you do this, you are boosting
too many frequencies and you're going to end up
with too much of a certain frequency. What you
want to do is duck certain frequencies. It's called

72. subtractive EQ. You want to pinpoint certain
problem frequencies. You can narrow the Q, boost
the EQ, sweep across the spectrum, and find
annoying frequencies that you hear. And then
when you find that annoying frequency, duck it
down. I learned this technique from Bob Power
who mixed the A Tribe Called Quest albums.
Sometimes you can even subtract the EQ down -12
decibels if you have to. I want you to do this with
every sound in your song. After you do this, I want
you to apply some reverb and delay plugins. You
can apply these on a send/return channel. You can
apply some compression as well. You can do
whatever you want. I'm just here to lay the
foundation for you and from there you can

73. experiment with your music. You want to focus on
the volume levels of your mix. If you mix a sound
properly, it's going to sound balanced. There's a
very, very useful technique that I'm gonna give
you guys right now. If you’ve never mixed a song
before this going to help you guys a lot and it
involves what's called Pink Noise. You have heard
about white noise, which is basically the static on
the TV. I'm talking about pink noise here. It's
different. You can find a pink noise plugin or a
pink noise sample and drag that into your DAW.
Put that on a separate channel. What I want you to
do now is I want you to go to each instrument and
solo the instrument and play the instrument with
the pink noise playing on the other channel and

74. what I want you to do is duck the volume level of
the instrument down to where it is barely audible
so that the pink noise is slightly louder than the
instrument but enough not enough to where you
can't hear the soloed instrument. Do this for every
track on your song. After you do that, mute the
pink noise and then play your song and I guarantee
your song will sound balanced. From there what
you can do is adjust the levels from there. I used to
use this technique back when I was a very
inexperienced mixing engineer/producer. Now I
don't do this anymore. If you're a beginner, it can
be very useful to use pink noise when you're
mixing. Another technique I would recommend
would be to use what's called a reference track.

75. Find a song that you really love and bring that into
your mix and play that side by side with your mix
and compare and contrast. You can take notes and
adjust your mix to taste. If the reference track has a
louder kick drum than yours you can bring your
kick drum up a little bit. You can say “this
reference track has a little bit more bass than my
track” and you can bring up your bass. You might
notice that the reference track has a hi hat that is
louder than yours. You can adjust your mix to have
a louder hi hat. An awesome plug-in I recommend
checking out is Magic AB by Sample Magic. In
this plug-in you can load up numerous reference
tracks and adjust the volume level of your master
channel so you aren’t making any biased decisions

76. based on the loudness of the reference track (we
talked about the loudness wars earlier). You can
utilize reference tracks until you become an
experienced mixing engineer. Now that you have
your finished song, I want you to do what's called
gain staging. Gain staging is making sure that the
sounds are not clipping. Clipping is when the
sound goes into what I call the red zone. Your
volume levels will start to go from green to red in
your DAW. It means that your sound is going over
zero decibels. To prevent this you need to place a
limiter on your channels. This will result in an
atrocious sound called Digital clipping. There's a
difference between analog and digital clipping.
Digital clipping is when your sound starts going

77. into the red on your DAW inside your computer.
This will result in an atrocious sound and you will
not want to release your song because it will sound
terrible. Analog clipping (soft clipping), on the
other hand, is when you record to a tape machine,
or a cassette player or tape in general. You can
drive the sound up and drive it into the red zone
and when you hear the final recorded sound it will
sound very pleasing to your ears. This is because it
was recorded on the analog medium. This is why a
lot of people use tape machines because you can
drive your sound up and you can get that awesome
soft clipping sound. You can’t really get that with
your digital audio workstation. I want you to place
a limiter and lower each channel on your DAW

78. -6DB. If you’re using Ableton you can put in a
Utility plugin on each channel and lower it to
-6DB or you can lower the faders to -6DB (if you
have to lower it to -10DB or more, so be it). If you
decide not to gain-stage, you will regret it and your
song will suffer because of it. What this does is it
prevents you from digital clipping. After you do
this, I want you to export it at -6DB. After you do
this, you have prepared your song for mastering.
You can go ahead and send it to a trusted
mastering engineer as I said before, or you can use
an artificial intelligence mastering service such as
LANDR, Cloudbounce, or eMastered.

79. Conclusion
I hope that this book served as a useful tool
that you can use. If you got any value from this
book, please send it to your friends or anyone you
know who wants to learn how to produce music.
You can email me at
warpedplanetrecords@gmail.com and let me know
what you think. Send me your songs. I would love
to hear the songs that you make. I love you all.
Stay safe. Ignore all your haters. And most of all,
have fun making music! Have a blessed rest of the
day. Thank you!