Audio Recording Tips

Everyone has a certain moments in their life that they listen to commercial FM radio stations. You might hear a lot of great songs and some are still memorable as of today. Then you might asked, how this songs comes out to be played on the radio? Who created this one? Is this done by the song artist itself or only the recording company is involved?

Then you might see music videos of artists playing in the bands along with their instruments that might take place in a recording studio. Then you might ask again, does the song might be recorded in that studio? A lot of fascinating questions, even I before didn’t have a single idea of the entire music production process.

Below are the steps and processes of music production:

Step 1: The moment the artist recording label (like Universal Records, Sony BMG, etc) decided to start an album recording project. The recording label assigns a record producer to the artist. In some cases, the artist will be the one to select a record producer but this is subject to recording label approval.

Step 2: The recording producer along with what has been agreed with the artist and recording label will finally decided on what type of sound they are planning to achieve. Some rough ideas on songs to be included on the album might be discussed in this stage (if the artist has some rough demos before).

Step 3: The recording producer drafts the recording plan and activities and quotes the budget. The recording label will be the one to entirely finance the recording of the album songs.

Step 4: The recording producer with the coordination of artist and recording label will shop for songs and contact music publishers they know or even songwriters they have partnered with. They will decide the final song lists to be included in the album along with the possible singles (hit songs).

Step 5: The recording producer starts the recording session with the artist.

The recording producer is responsible of the song arrangement, instruments to be added to song, sound and style of the music. And then the recording producer will be the one to rent a studio, hire an engineer, hire additional musicians and booked additional vocalists to complete the recording. The budget used is provided by recording label.

Step 6: Once everything is recorded, the mixing session starts. The recording producer hires a mixing engineer appropriate for the sound of the album.

Step7: Once the mix has been finalized, the recording label and artist will approve it. Once approved, the mastering session will start.

Step8: The mastering session prepares all tracks for commercial production and replication. In this stage the recording producer hires a mastering engineer. The song artist and recording label should also approve the master. The product of the mastering stage is the master CD ready for replication (that adheres to CD red book standard: http://www.a1cds.co.uk/master.htm ). The recording producer work is now complete and he/she will provide the CD to the recording label.

Step9: The recording label will finalize the album art design, marketing plan and replication.

Step10: Singles or hit songs from the album (selected tracks) will be provided to the radio stations for massive airplay as part of album marketing. Music videos are also released to music video channels.

And the artist will start visiting radio stations, TV stations or even perform concerts as part of the promotion.

Step11: Listeners like us can now start to listen the songs aired on the radio. The music production process has been completed.