How To Produce High-Quality Music

A lot has changed in the music industry with the advent of new technology. With access to readily available and necessary tools to accomplish your music-related goals, it’s easier to build a career in music. However, in addition to having the right tools, you need to have the skills to use these tools effectively. Taking the fundamentals and developing knowledge in music is how you can build your own music style that’s clean, rhythmic, and enjoyable. To help you with this, the experts at New Wave Music LLC have explained below how to produce high-quality music.

1. Instrumentals
The first important factor to consider when making music is instrumental. As an artist, you need to select beats that cater to your style and appeal to the masses. A few things you may want to have in your current instrumentals are:

a. Driving bass line (big 808s)

b. Crisp and flowing hi-hats

c. Solid snare and clap to fill in behind vocals

d. Clean overall mix and instruments in harmony

Things that you don’t need to worry about when looking at instrumentals are:

a. Abrupt start or stop (engineers can fade them in or out easily)

b. Extra instrument layers (they can always be added if you have bigger visions for a beat)

c. If the mix isn’t as balanced as it should be (the engineer should be able to fix this for you)

The overall mix and balance of all instruments should be made within the track. If the beat is polished, you can get right to recording with no delay!

If you can listen to a beat over a few different reference points and it always sounds tight and clear, you’ve got a quality instrumental! Always ask for the key and BPM of a beat. These can be acquired later, but it’s always nice to have them on hand.

If the low frequencies are super muddy, STAY AWAY! Similarly, if the mid or high frequencies just don’t have any punch or snap to them, STAY AWAY! Choosing beats that speak to you and you feel will be widely enjoyed by others is very important to make a catchy track!

2. Vocal mixes
Do the vocals sit on top of the beat or within a solid pocket? Are the reverb and delays supporting the main vocal or overtaking it? Does the beat compliment the flow of the vocals? Is there any room for the beat to breathe? Is every phrase understandable and clear?

When it comes to vocals, you need to be picky! The only thing you don’t need to worry about during vocal mixing would be the overall power of the full track. That is taken care of during the mastering process. We call this the glue factor or how well do the vocals stick into the instrumental. You don’t want frequencies to be clashing from your vocals and the beat.

If the song sounds clear before it’s even mastered, you’ve got a good mix! If things are still out of balance, i.e., adlibs are too loud, stereo width is blown out, main vocals aren’t balanced, etc., the mix still needs some work.

As an artist, you should have a vision for your music, and you need to be able to communicate that to your engineer and discern with your own ears if the product is up to your standards.

If the vocals are totally out of balance with the beat and the engineer is not showing signs of working with you, look elsewhere. After all, you need to be comfortable in the studio, and with the workflow your engineer creates. A balanced and clear mix is essential to bringing out the full potential of the song during mastering.

3. Full track mastering
Your last step should be polishing your song to make sure the material sounds as good as possible. Let’s start on the things you need to be aware of, which are:

a. Power of the track

b. Balance of all elements in the song

c. Balance over multiple reference points (car speakers, phone speakers, headphones, studio monitors, Bluetooth speakers, etc.)

This is the time to pick apart everything about the song. If ANYTHING is out of balance, figure out what and where the fix needs to be made. Balance all elements within the song and maintain consistency across multiple reference points. If the song sounds just as good on your phone as it did in the studio, then you’ve got a quality track!

Again, this stage is about your vision as an artist and making sure that it’s been fully realized through the mixing and mastering processes. If the song is unbalanced or inconsistent across multiple reference points, then it has not been mastered properly! Mastering is essential. It’s almost like icing on a cake.

For more tips on how to enhance the quality of your music, reach out to New Wave Music LLC. We work closely with artists to produce music content that impacts. We are a home-based music recording studio in New Castle, Delaware, specializing in the full-scale production of Hip-Hop, R&B, and other genres. We offer services including vocal recording and mixing, full track mastering, and remote services.

For more details about our services, please click here. You can also get in touch with us by clicking here.