--- title: Music Production description: Music Production is the process of creating, recording, and refining audio tracks. You will understand how to use digital audio workstations (DAWs), arrange musical elements, record instruments, and apply basic mixing and mastering techniques to produce finished songs. category: music-audio subcategory: music-production difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/music-production --- # Music Production Music Production is the process of creating, recording, and refining audio tracks. You will understand how to use digital audio workstations (DAWs), arrange musical elements, record instruments, and apply basic mixing and mastering techniques to produce finished songs. ## Available Resources 4 Books • 1 Courses • 5 Websites ## Courses ### 1. Audio Signal Processing for Music Applications **Author:** Xavier Serra, Julius O. Smith III Spectral analysis and synthesis of musical sound, covering the DFT, STFT, sinusoidal and harmonic models, and their use in transforming audio. Python exercises with the sms-tools package let students analyze, modify, and resynthesize real recordings. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/audio-signal-processing **Tags:** audio-signal-processing, dsp, spectral-analysis, python, music-technology ## Websites ### 1. The Pro Audio Files Tutorial library written by working mix and mastering engineers, covering compression, EQ, gain staging, synthesis and guitar recording. Readers come away able to make specific processing decisions on a mix rather than following presets. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://theproaudiofiles.com/ **Tags:** mixing, mastering, recording, audio-engineering, tutorials ### 2. soundonsound.com Sound On Sound is a long-running audio recording magazine and website. It publishes in-depth tutorials, gear reviews, and practical how-to articles on recording, mixing, mastering, microphone technique, DAWs, plugins, and studio setup. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://soundonsound.com **Tags:** websites, music-performing-arts, audio-engineering ### 3. ableton.com Ableton.com is the official site for Ableton, the makers of the Live DAW and Push hardware. It offers product information and downloads, plus tutorials, artist features, and a library of samples, sound packs, and other learning resources to help with music production. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ableton.com **Tags:** websites, arts-design, creative-arts ### 4. PureMix Subscription video library in which working mix and recording engineers walk through complete sessions, showing EQ, compression, reverb, balance and gear choices on real multitracks, so learners can see how professionals make and justify mixing decisions in practice. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.puremix.com/library/free **Tags:** mixing, audio-engineering, recording, music-production, masterclasses ### 5. Logic Pro Help Community forum for Apple's Logic Pro, published by Logic Pro author David Nahmani, where users ask and answer questions on recording, MIDI editing, mixing, plug-ins and troubleshooting. Its searchable threads help users solve specific workflow and configuration problems. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://logicprohelp.com **Tags:** logic-pro, daw, midi-editing, mixing, troubleshooting, user-forum ## Podcasts ### 1. The EDM Prodcast **Author:** Aden Russell Weekly interview podcast from EDMProd with electronic music producers, mix engineers and industry figures, discussing sound design, arrangement, workflow, finishing tracks and building a music career. Listeners pick up production techniques and professional habits from working electronic musicians. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://edmprod.com **Tags:** electronic-music, music-production, sound-design, producer-interviews, music-industry ### 2. Tape Notes **Author:** John Kennedy Podcast hosted by John Kennedy that reunites an artist and their producer to reconstruct how a record was made, playing demos and original session stems. Listeners understand real studio decisions about song ideas, arrangement, instrumentation, recording and mixing. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://tapenotes.libsyn.com **Tags:** music-production, recording-studio, songwriting, producer-interviews, arrangement ### 3. The Mix Academy Podcast **Author:** David Glenn The Mix Academy Podcast will take you behind the glass with some of today's hottest producers, engineers, and recording artists. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-mix-academy-podcast/support **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://davidglennrecording.com **Tags:** audio-mixing, music-production, mix-engineering, engineer-interviews ### 4. Song Exploder **Author:** Hrishikesh Hirway Interview podcast in which musicians take apart one of their own songs piece by piece, playing isolated vocals and instruments while explaining how it was written and recorded. Listeners hear how melodies, lyrics, arrangements and production choices develop from first idea to finished song. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.songexploder.net **Tags:** songwriting, music-production, recording, artist-interviews ## Books ### 1. The Music Producer’s Survival Guide **Author:** Brian M. Jackson Brian Jackson treats independent production as a career problem as much as a technical one, covering workflow, collaboration, contracts, budgets and income. Useful for producers deciding how to sustain a practice outside a label. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1285198921?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, arts-design, creative-arts ### 2. Music Production: Learn How to Record, Mix, and Master Music **Author:** Hans Weekhout Routledge's third-edition studio handbook covers recording, MIDI, synthesis, effects, mixing and mastering across the major DAWs. Readers finish able to track sessions, choose microphone placements, and make mix and master decisions with technical reasoning behind them. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138626104?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** music-production, recording, mixing, mastering, audio-engineering ### 3. Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio **Author:** Mike Senior Mike Senior explains how to get commercial-sounding mixes on modest monitoring and budget gear, working through balance, EQ, compression, reverb and reference tracks. After it you can troubleshoot a mix systematically instead of by ear alone. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240815807?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, arts-design, creative-arts ### 4. Dance Music Manual **Author:** Rick Snoman Focal Press manual on producing club-oriented electronic music, covering MIDI, synthesis, sampling, compression, sound design, then genre-specific arrangement for house, trance and hip hop, plus mixing, mastering and release. Readers gain a full production workflow from sound to finished track. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138319643?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** music-production, electronic-music, synthesis, sound-design, mixing-and-mastering --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/music-production