Do You Want to Learn Music Production from the Ground Up?
Making music is an amazing way to express yourself, to connect with others, and even to have a career — but if you’re starting with nothing but passion it can be daunting, confusing, and might even feel like it’s too much to go alone.
Essential Music Production has been developed with love to give you all the knowledge you need to make music, from the basics all the way up to advanced level concepts!
From understanding what sound even is in the first place to confidence with instruments and effects, how to navigate complex sounding terms like DAWs and plugins, and what everything in a studio does so you know exactly what you need to get to achieve the sounds you dream of, Essential Music Production is a one-stop, all-in authority on how to make music.
A clip from ‘What is Sound?’ in the Studio Fundamentals section of the course
Who is This Course For?
Whether you’ve got no idea where to start or you’ve been dabbling for a while and are tired of getting stuck and losing hours, days, and weeks trying to figure out where your problem is with YouTube and Google, Essential Music Production will take you to new heights in record time.
Nothing is taken for granted, no prior knowledge is required or assumed. We’ll go through every step of the music production process and give you the confidence to make music with the hardware and software that works for you.
You don’t need a specific piece of hardware or software, as everything we teach in the course is at a fundamental level that will apply to any music production tool.
If you’re not sure what you need to buy, or even if you need to buy anything at all, we’ve got you covered. Taking the confusion out of hardware and software and showing its uses, pros, and cons is at the heart of Essential Music Production, saving you huge amounts of your valuable time and money.
We think that Essential Music Production is the most complete music production course you can buy. It’s priced so low because we understand that when you’re getting started, spending money without knowing what you need is scary. Some places try to capitalise on that naivety, but at How to Make Music we just believe in helping as many people as we can to find themselves through music.
A clip from the Delays part of the Effects section of the course
How Does it Work?
There’s about four hours of video content in Essential Music Production, all split into sensible, digestible chunks — every chunk in the course has an accompanying video. No fluff and no umming and aahing, every second counts! It’s not just a ‘video course’ though.
Don’t you hate trying to follow along with a course, or revisit a lesson, and having to try to skip through long videos to find the one piece of information you need? That’s why every single chunk in Essential Music Production has its own page with all the Key Takeaways in bullets, audio, and video examples below the main video. It’s as simple as going back to the chunk you need to recap on and all the key information is there right below the video to trigger your memory.
The whole course is created in an easy to use learning environment that tracks your progress so you can pick up right where you last left off and see exactly how close you are to completion!
What You'll Learn
The DNA of a Song
We’ll get started from the absolute beginning. What sounds are we hearing in music and how to we characterise them:
- Character and Structure
- Drums and Percussion
- Bass
- Lead and Arrangement
- Atmosphere and Ambience
- Vocals
Studio Fundamentals
Whether hardware or software based, there is a basic workflow that all music production takes, and we’ll go through each step:
- The Music Production Workflow at a Glance
- What is Sound?
- The Principles of Recorded Audio and the Signal Chain
- Electronic Instruments
- Effects
- MIDI and Control
- Sequencing
- Mixing
- Mastering
- Hardware, Software, Analogue and Digital
Instruments and Effects
Creating sounds is an important part of making music, and we’ll go through what the key instruments and effects are, how they work, and how to use them:
- The Principles of Sound Design
- Samplers
- Synthesisers
- Time-Based Effects: Reverb, Delay, Phasers and Flangers
- Dynamic Effects: Compressors, Expanders, Limiters, Gates, Sidechaining
- Harmonic Effects: EQ, Filters, Bitcrushing, Saturation and Distortion
Software
Most people use software at least as part of their music production setup, and maybe completely. We’ll go through what different software does and how to get the best out of it, and look at the advantages of the key competitors on the market to help you make a buying decision:
- DAWs
- Plugins
- Latency
- Utilities
Hardware
With so much choice, knowing where to spend your money on hardware can be really daunting. We’ll explain exactly what different hardware is good for, what its key advantages are, and how to pick the gear with the right features for you:
- Computers
- Mobile Devices
- Speakers and Monitors
- Headphones
- Audio Interfaces
- Controllers
- Synths
- Drum Machines and Grooveboxes
- Workstation Keyboards
- Effects
- Mixers
- Microphones
- Portable Recorders
- Vintage Gear
Connectivity
Connecting hardware and software can get confusing, and there’s more than you might expect to look out for. Here’s how we get the best value out of our hardware and software by making sure we’re connecting everything properly:
- Audio Cables
- Digital and Computer Connections
- MIDI and Control
Extras
Knowing where to get sounds and what to pay attention to with licences and costs is really important, and so is making sure your listening environment sounds as pleasing and accurate as you can:
- Samples and Presets
- Room Treatment
