Learn Everything You Need to Know to Record a Song From Start to Finish

The production club is an all-inclusive, in-depth online training course, where you will walk with me through the entire recording process. I will record an entire song from start to finish. From song idea to finished, mastered recording, ready to be sold (or shared with your mom).

5 Steps to Recording a Song

Did you know that there are only 5 steps to recording a song? We’ll cover all of these in-depth inside the Club.

1. Pre-Production (2 weeks)

This is the planning phase, the phase most people skip out on. They just jump right into recording guitars and drums and glockenspiel. Slow down there, cowboy. If you don’t do some basic planning, you’ll potentially waste HOURS recording the song the wrong way.

As a ProdClub member, I’ll show you exactly how I go through the pre-production process. It’s really a lot of fun, possibly one of the most fun parts of the entire process. And if you do it right, you end up having more fun during the next 4 steps.

Topics Covered: Tempo, Arrangement, Chord Structure, Feel, Instrumentation, Scratch Tracks, and more.

2. Recording (5-6 weeks)

Obviously, recording is an important part of the process. Whether you’re recording a full band, MIDI-only, or an acoustic EP, I’ll show you how I go about recording all sorts of instruments. You’ll see why it’s so important to get it right at the source, and I’ll show you exactly how I do that. No guessing, no hoping, just making sure it sounds great from the get-go.

Instruments we’ll record: Drums, Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals, Percussion, MIDI, possibly piano and even a choir (we’ll see how things turn out), and maybe some stomping in my living room…who knows?

3. Editing (3-4 weeks)

Once all those pretty tracks are recorded, you need to make sure they’re sounding tight together and are READY to be mixed. This includes comping together multiple takes, editing timing mistakes, tightening up performances, and even possible doing some tuning. It’s a more technical part of the process, but it really separates the so-so mixes from the fantastic, polished mixes. Trust me on that.

Topics covered: comping, pocketing, tuning, generally cleaning up the tracks, session file management, and more…

4. Mixing (5 weeks)

If you did your job in steps 1-3, mixing will be all about you enhancing the already-great-sounding tracks, not “fixing” a bunch of things. I’ll take you through my process for mixing a song, starting with getting a great-sounding static mix in mono before ever reaching for a pan knob or a plugin. Yep, that’s right.

We’ll dive DEEP into using EQ to carve out space in the mix for each instrument. We’ll look at how to use compression to add punch to the mix. We’ll look at all sorts of effects and how to use them to enhance the mix without muddying thing up. We’ll learn how to deal with the low end in the mix, making it punchy without being boomy and muddy. I could go on…and on…and on…

This will be the most in-depth mixing tutorial I’ve ever done, I can tell you that much.

Topics covered: EQ, compression, reverb, delay, distortion, bus compression, routing, bussing, signal flow, level balance, panning, parallel processing, gates, expanders, etc. etc…the list goes on for days.

5. Mastering (2 weeks)

Once you’ve got that earth-shattering mix, you need to master it. Mastering is essentially preparing it to be heard by the world. It involves gain, multi-band compression, and limiting, among many other things.

I normally recommend having someone else master your mixes, so you get a fresh set of ears putting the final touches on your mix, but if you plan to do any mastering on your own, I’ll show you how I do it (and I get surprisingly good results).

Mastering can be a big mystery for a lot of people. I’ll de-bunk a lot of myths and clear a lot of things up for you.

Topics covered: gain-staging, clipping, EQ, multi-band compression, limiting, monitoring, etc.