Step-by-step: My process for producing a song
Step-by-step: My process for producing a song
My step-by-step process chronologically outlines the steps I follow when producing a song. By focusing on the essential elements of a track and working on them in sensical order, I streamline songwriting, while leaving enough space for creativity.
Every song revolves around a fundamental musical theme commonly most completely expressed in the hook or refrain. Consequently, I always start with this central idea, treating it as the foundation of my song. From there, I craft the verses, bridges, intros, and outros by adding, subtracting, or varying elements of the hook. I first heard this idea here from BusyWorksBeats and built around it since.
My step-by-step music production process
The main building blocks
I start with an 8-bar segment for each of my four basic “stems” that make up the theme together: Chords, bass, melodies and drums. Like Billy Paul sang “It may be quite, quite simple but now that’s how it’s done”. Theoretically one could start in any order, practically, I think the following one is the most sensical, especially for beginners:
Chord Progression: I create a loopable 4-bar or 8-bar chord progression. It defines the mood and scale of the song (to a degree). Usually, that’s where I also choose the BPM of the track.
Bass Melody: Next, I develop a bass melody that complements the chord progression. The most basic approach for beginners would be to play the root note of the chord progression rhythmically – establishing the groove.
Drums: I then bring in the drums. While the general rhythm is often dictated by the genre of the track, there is a lot of freedom in terms of sound, hi-hats, rides and crashes.
Melody: Lastly, I craft one or more melodies. Again, for beginners it’s simplest to creatively play the notes of the chords. Frequently, I add a countermelody with another instrument to enrich the composition. Using ideas like “call and response”.
It may be quite, quite simple, but now that’s how it’s done.”
Billy Paul
Creating groove
Adding swing can be crucial. I may manually shift notes and drums slightly off-grid or utilize Ableton’s groove pool. This step can significantly impact the overall feel of the track, so don’t overlook it! Take your time to feel it out! If you want to go the extra mile, experiment with changing the bpm during certain parts of the track.
Voicing the chords
I take time adjusting the voicing of the chords to enhance the vibe and cohesion. Feel free to transpose single notes within the chords up and down an octave, subtract notes and adjust the velocities they are played at. Additionally, I may vary the overall octave of individual instruments depending on the section of the song (intro, verse, bridge, break, hook, or outro).
Rough mixing
Now that all the essential parts of the song are present, I focus on getting them to work together in terms of the frequency spectrum and stereo image. Hearing the elements clearly is a crucial step for all further processing.
Volume: Setting appropriate volume levels for each track.
Filtering: High-passing and low-passing individual instruments.
Panning: Distributing instruments in the stereo field.
Mid-Side EQ: Broad strokes with a mid-side EQ – usually to tame mid-band-heavy instruments.
Sidechaining: Implementing sidechain compression on clashing elements (like kick and bass).
Sound design
I select effects such as phasers, flangers and choruses to get the vibe right. This step often takes place before or during rough mixing. I also choose appropriate reverb and delay, if I haven’t done so in the rough mixing stage yet.
Building sections
Once I have an 8-bar segment where all instruments work harmoniously, I duplicate it multiple times and make adjustments to create the verses, breaks, and bridges. For example, I might remove the melody or alter the bassline. I will also use automation, risers, hits and sound design in order to create impact or fluidity between the transitions.
Mixing
Top-Down Mixing: Applying a limiter on the master bus to make mixing decisions based on the final sound.
Group Processing: Grouping similar instruments (like drums) to apply “glueing” effects.
EQing: Fine-tuning each track with EQ.
Dynamics: Smoothing out overly dynamic instruments with compression.
Saturation/Distortion: Adding saturation or distortion for character and warmth.
Automation: Automating volume, filter and send levels (etc) for a dynamic, engaging track.
Mastering the track
Finally, I polish my track by making subtle adjustments on the master bus using EQ, saturation, imaging, compression, clipping, and limiting.
I export two versions—one peaking at -1 dB True Peak for social media uploads (this prevents distortion during conversion) and another one peaking at -0.1 dB True Peak for regular production purposes.
I also export the individual tracks with group-processing on (but without the subtle mastering processing).
Final thoughts
The idea of sharing my step-by-step process for producing a song is to provide you a potential structure. Maybe it suits you, maybe it doesn’t. If it does, you will certainly tweak it to your liking! Have fun!