Producing Electronic Music: The Basics

Hello~

Welcome to my FIRST EVER post on Steemit, as well as my first post ANYWHERE regarding my production techniques. I wanted to try and see if maybe some folks on here would be interested in what I have to say! Before we get started, here is a little background on me: I live in CA and have been producing music for 10+ years, starting with the popular DAW Fl Studio (which is the one I will be demonstrating on.) I produced primarily Progressive House and Progressive Trance for about 5 of those years, until I found my true love: Mixing and Mastering Electronic music. I grew tired of producing the same two genres for so long, that I wanted to broaden my horizons. I began finding every bit of information I could about these two subjects. I would read books after books, watch tutorial after tutorial, it even got so crazy that I would literally sit on Vintage King for 5+ hours constructing my dream studio in the cart. It was this thirst, that still even to this day I cannot quench. However, after all the sleepless nights, and hard work, I think I am finally confident enough to say that I take pride in my skills, and I want to transfer my knowledge to some aspiring new Audio Engineers. So, without further ado, LET'S GET STARTED!

:THE BASICS:

 - Equipment -

I know. Equipment is SUPER expensive. Especially when you don't have the money to spend. However, don't be discouraged! Even the best had to start somewhere! Since you may just be starting out, keep it simple. You must also remember that this is all an investment. You take this where you want to take it. If you think you have what it takes to become the next mega DJ star, then shoot for it! But before you do that, you will need to acquire the essentials!

Essential audio equipment (in my mind at least) consists of:

1.) An audio interface (Focusrite Scarrlett 2i2 is a very VERY good starter interface.) 

You need one of these bad boys to hook your monitors up to! You can control the volume of the monitors from the front, but that's not the only thing the are used for! They are also used for recording vocals or instruments, and can be used for headphone monitoring! A big reason they are used is because of the soundcard inside of them, which lets you produce and listen at a much higher quality than standard soundcards found in laptops and computers (this means less of that annoying choppy lag!!!)

2.) Monitors (Yamaha HS7's are always great, but you could go for some KRK Rokit 8's. The HS7's have a flatter response IMO.)

This is where your sound comes out of! Monitors are the backbone of any great studio. They tell you what's going on in your mix! That means you should be spending a little bit more on these, so that you can properly tell what is going on. It will benefit you greatly if you also look into buying some monitor isolation pads (these reduce the recoil of your monitors to add more clarity and depth to your mix) and some nice acoustic room treatment. The treatment of your room is probably the most important thing, mostly because you need to know that your room is reflection-free so that you can mix and produce without any second thoughts. Room treatment is expensive, but it will be a worthwhile investment!

3.) DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, some of my favorites include FL Studio 12, Logic Pro X, Ableton Live 9)

You have to think of your DAW as your mothership for the whole studio. This is where you will be producing, tracking, mixing, and mastering. Luckily, you won't be shelling out an arm and a leg to purchase a DAW, because they have become soooo cheap over the years. You can pick up the FL Studio 12: Producer Edition for $299 at the Image Line store right now (which I highly recommend you doing.) In the end it all comes down to preference for features. Study all the different DAW's and their capabilities to see which will best suit your needs. You can even use multiple DAW's together, to benefit from the different features each one brings to the table! The bottom line is: there is no "magical" DAW. They all work the same, and they all contain everything you need to get started with learning the basics of mixing and producing music!

4.) A good pair of reference headphones (KRK KNS-8400's do the job perfectly!)

There are many reasons to always have a good pair of headphones in your studio. They enable you to hear certain things that you wouldn't hear as well on your monitoring system, and they are another great reference! It's all about referencing in my opinion. If you can get your mix sitting well on studio monitors, studio headphones, and your car speakers, there is a good chance that you have done something right! You may want to even consider getting these before buying your studio monitors, just to get used to them and to lessen the load if you aren't able to afford everything at once!

- Setup -

Believe it or not, the setup of a home studio is actually one of the most difficult parts of the whole process. The main reason why is because of getting your monitors in the correct position. This is absolutely huge. If you don't have them in the correct environment, you will be making it nearly impossible for yourself to get the sound you want (unless you are some mixing god). A few helpful tips in setting up your monitoring system include: Avoiding the walls, because this will cause a massive perceived increase in the bass frequencies, which may sound good to some of you, but it proves to make your mix inaccurate and too bassy. SYMMETRY IS EVERYTHING. Your monitors should never be place asymmetrically, because it will just make things sound weird and off center. You want everything to be perfect! You typically want your monitors to be angled about 60° (3 feet away from each other, and 3 feet away from you.) This is because of the "sweet spot," which is a spot that you will want to be in 100% of the time. This spot gives you the perfect stereo image, and because you set everything up properly (good for you) you will minimize any unwanted frequencies that you may encounter due to the room (the more you treat your room, the more controlled your monitoring will be.) You always want to make sure that you are sitting at an ear level to your monitor's tweeters, to ensure you are using them correctly. 

After you have set up your amazing monitoring system, it is time to plug in your audio interface to your computer. To connect your monitors to the interface, you use either 1/4" TRS cables (make sure they are balanced, so that you don't compromise the audio) or XLR cables (standard mic cables.) If you take a look at the back of your interface, there is most likely some "Line Output/ Signal Output" connections. This is where you will be plugging in your monitors to. The reason why is because your interface will be broadcasting the signal out of these connectors, literally outputting the audio information into anything that is plugged in. After that, plug your interface into your computer and download any of the necessary drivers (you can usually find the drivers on the manufacturers website, under "Downloads".)

Assuming everything has gone perfect, it's time to hook it all up through your DAW! This is super super simple. All DAW's will have an "Audio" or "Sound" settings tab. Find that, and go there. Once you have the tab popped up, you should be able to just simply switch the interface you are using without any hassle. However, if problems do occur, I always suggest going to the DAW's webpage to try to talk to a representative about your issue. Typically, the default interface you will be using will be either your computers built in soundcard, or a digital emulation of a soundcard (ASIO4ALL, etc.) Once you plug in your interface, and install the correct drivers, it should just automatically pop up in the "Audio" tab. Just make it your default sound source and just like that, you have a working rig!

That was a lot of stuff to cover! Hopefully I provided some help and clarity about starting your audio adventure. All this can be very daunting for multiple reasons, and we haven't even got started yet! Next time will learn about the basic mixing tools giving to you natively in your DAW, such as Equalization, Compressors, Limiters, and more. So stay tuned, I hope you enjoyed this article, and I will be in touch soon! Happy mixing!!!

(Also, if you have any other questions involving ANYTHING, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected])