Music and Sound Recording: 7 Crucial Stages of Music Recording Production

There are vital stages of the music and sound recording production process that must be followed to ensure the best possible quality. You want your song to be streamed, playlisted, and downloaded.

There are 7 critical steps to ensure the best possible music and sound recording production production results. Writing a catchy melody that marries well with your rhythm and harmony is the first step. After that, you’ll need to arrange, record, and edit your music so that it’s ready for mixing and mastering. Finally, you must ensure your music is correctly formatted for distribution.

We aim to walk you through the critical steps involved in creating and producing great music. The objective is to ensure that your music meets the standard of good quality music. And that you receive the praise and reward you deserve as a talented artist.

Granted, what is considered "good quality music" is subjective to the listener. But following these steps will increase the chances of someone enjoying your music.

The 7 Crucial Stages of the Music and Sound Recording Production Process

1.  Conceptualizing & Writing Your Song!

Each musician has a slightly different process when it comes to songwriting. But as the foundational stage in the music and sound recording production production process, it's essential to have a structured approach.

The creation of a song or composition begins with an idea or concept. And this is guided by the genre or style of music you want to produce. This is not just about telling a story through lyrics if you're including them. The entire composition should paint a picture for the listener.

Perhaps you prefer to noodle on your guitar or piano as you brainstorm ideas for a song. Or maybe you'd open your DAW instead, create a beat, and layer accordingly as you create. Either way, this is when you determine your song’s tempo, key, chord structure, and the instruments you want to use.

The lyrics and music should marry well and complement each other. I like to view it as a tapestry of rhythm, melody, and harmony. The vocals should be treated like an instrument working in synergy with the others.

Many factors influence the end product, including recording, editing, and mixing the song. In fact, your song may only begin taking shape in the later stages of the music and sound recording production production process.

However, the key elements you should focus on at this stage in the process are:

• Creating a catchy melody
• Including familiar elements and suitable repetition
• Injecting something different and unique into the song to make it interesting and hold the listener’s attention
• Ensuring a flawless, "foot-tapping" rhythm

2.   Music and Sound Recording: Arranging Your Song!

We’ve all heard an excessively repetitive song that borders on irritating due to its sheer monotony. This occurs when the arrangement portion of the process has been neglected. And it happens more often than you might think.

Arranging a song essentially means organizing and putting together the instruments and sections of a song. Your song is broken up into different tracks for each of the instruments. And it’s divided in terms of intro, chorus, verse, bridge, etc. How you arrange these elements has an enormous effect on the outcome of your song.

One of the tricks to arranging a great song is to create a build-up to a peak point in the song. This can be done by adding instruments with each new verse and introducing new elements to reveal your first chorus.

You must use your intuition to gauge how many sections to include and whether the listener’s attention is held throughout. This is a skill that you’ll develop with practice and experience. And, as you develop this ability, you’ll also learn when to stop and let it be.

Remember that your song should lead the listener on a path of discovery. So, think about how you can use the instruments to create impactful climaxes and take the listener on a journey.

Keep the following crucial elements in mind as you arrange your song:

• Maintain a build-up to keep the listener engaged
• Avoid cluttered or clashing sounds
• Avoid too much open space
• Transition well from one section of the song to the other
• Avoid excessive repetition
• Consider the volume of the tracks in each section
• Listen continuously and determine whether it sounds good
• Don't make your song too long or too short

3.   Recording the Tracks of Your Song!

It's vital that you don't rely too much on your software to edit the tracks to "perfection". Doing this could reduce the sound quality and may come across as unnatural.

Tracking a song is about getting the instruments and vocals for your music recorded. And each instrument, vocal recording, or sound effect is represented as a new track. You’ll record these one at a time and layer them to create your chart-topping hit.

The beauty of this is that you can listen to the tracks you’ve already recorded as you record each new track. This helps you maintain the timing and emotion of the song to ensure all the elements blend well together.

This step demands that you focus on the performance quality during the music and sound recording production production process. This includes the tone and rhythm of the song. And this is why combining the songwriting and tracking process is not advised. Merging these stages most often results in subpar music and recording.

It's also vital that you don't rely too much on your software to edit the tracks to "perfection". Doing this could reduce the sound quality and may come across as unnatural. It's best to focus on delivering the best performance possible and giving it your all as you record.

4.   Music and Sound Recording: Editing Your Tracks!

You can do so much to edit and manipulate a song with the editing software available today. With the proper skill set, it's possible to capture and elevate awe-inspiring performances and recordings.

This stage is all about making the song sound great. However, it’s vital to understand that your editing software is only a backup tool. So, if your music already sounds impressive, chances are it doesn't require editing. It's also helpful to apply the "less is more" rule at this stage.

Essentially, this part of the process involves fixing the song's timing and making suitable adjustments to the tracks. The goal is to polish each track and the overall sound to ensure the song is ready for mixing.

We treat this as a stage on its own for the following reasons:

• Editing while recording can lead to a stop-start approach and leave your recording sounding choppy. It's better to focus on recording alone, to keep you focused and "in the zone".
• Some artists start editing during the tracking process and then sit down to edit the tracks after. This method can easily lead you down the path of over-editing and could kill your song.
• Knowing that you'll only be editing later should encourage you to deliver your best possible recording performance.

5.  Mixing Your Song!

Mixing music requires a great deal of skill. In fact, many make a career out of specializing in music mixing. The best mixing engineers have developed their abilities through many years of trial and error. But this shouldn’t deter you from giving it a go yourself. You have to start somewhere.

In a nutshell, mixing involves bringing all the instrumental and vocal tracks together to form a 2-track stereo mix. And it includes equalizing, balancing, compressing, and more. The mixing engineer will also add effects where necessary to enhance the song.

At the end of this process, you should have crystal clear tracks with all the intricate elements audible. Your song should now have more depth and emotion to it. And it should sonically align with the concept behind the music.

Editing is a complex process, usually carried out by skilled engineers. And perhaps you're not familiar or comfortable with editing. It may be a good idea to hire a professional to assist you in this case.

6.   Music and Sound Recording: Mastering for the Final Product!

Many artists consider mastering as part of the mixing process. However, the art of mastering requires a slightly different skill set and focus, which is why we've separated the two. But you may find that some mixing engineers will offer mastering as part of their services.

Musicians don’t always use the same studio space, engineers, and producers for each song during the music and sound recording production production process. These sometimes vary from song to song, resulting in some inconsistency when you’re putting an album together.

Therefore, mastering exists to modify the sound, so there's consistency across all songs on the album. Mastering typically involves making minor adjustments to the saturation and equalizer levels. Here, you might also need to enhance the stereo mix and adapt volume, compression, and limiting.

Success in mastering requires an outstanding ear and professional equipment. And when each song on the album is mastered using the same equipment, it should produce a coherent sound.

That said, the mastering process can also be applied to singles. However, in this case, the goal is to ensure the sound is adjusted for optimum playback after distribution.

7.   Formatting for Distribution!

Before releasing your single or album, you'll need to ensure that your music is formatted correctly. Some music streaming and download platforms require music in a specific format. And these formats are not consistent across all platforms.

It’s best to discuss the required formats with your music distributor before releasing your music. This way, you'll ensure that each platform receives the audio files in the correct format. And you won’t face any challenges in ensuring that listeners can access your music.

Speak to Sugo Music Group about distributing your music effectively and in the correct formats. Their expert team has 35 years' worth of experience and industry knowledge. They'll help you get your music to over 200 powerful platforms hassle-free.

Music and Sound Recording: Conclusion

Taking on your music and sound recording production process in stages, as discussed, will help to better structure your approach. You’ll find it easier to write and record your music when you understand the importance of each step. And you’ll have a proven strategy to follow with each new song you record.

Knowing when your song is finished and ready for release is never easy. In fact, seasoned musicians have indicated that you often just need to make the decision and stop. Otherwise, you’ll be mixing and mastering forever. That said, the methodology detailed in the above steps applies to any music genre or style. The important thing is to get the ball rolling because your music and sound recording production production skills will only improve with practice.