Hello everyone. When we say, “I’ll make a song,” it actually means a huge list of things that need to be completed. From the initial idea and arrangement all the way to recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, and release. Do you have some kind of project management system for your music projects? Life gets in the way. We step away from a project for a few days or weeks, and when we finally come back to it, do we really remember where we left off, what decisions we made, what still needs to be done, and what we were planning to do next? I’m starting to realize that making music is also about managing the project itself. Don't we have to become a professional project manager for our own projects? That's another hat to wear on top of being songwriter, producer, mixing and mastering engineer. But how do you manage your music project? "I'll make a song" and we discover: - maybe I should change the chorus - maybe I should add strings - maybe I should design the bass - maybe I should change the kick - maybe I should rewrite verse two - maybe I should add guitar - maybe I should have another version of mixing - maybe I should have three versions of masters Suddenly one month turns into six months. What's behind "I'll make a song": 1. Demo production: key, tempo, melody, lyrics, structure, arrangement, groove, mood. 2. Vocal recording and editing: comping takes, removing unwanted noises and frequencies, timing correction, pitch correction, sibilance control, breaths, gain consistency. 3. Auditioning sounds/sound design: kick and bass relationship, other instrumentation. 4. Mixing and mastering: foundation first, final limiter for foundation, vocal processing and spatial effects, other instrumentation around vocal. Just to capture a few... It turns out we make thousands of decisions, so how to manage such complex music production project? What really helps here? Due date? Braking down the whole project by manageable deliverables? Scheduling? And how about for growth like tracking issues, decisions made, and documenting lessons?

when the instructor selects all the tracks and normalizes them so none of them could go over -10db. he says "watch the track waves shrink or grow." I understand why they would shrink but have a hard time understanding why they would grow.

In case you missed it, we're hosting our free Fix-The-Mix Challenge tomorrow, July 21st, at 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm BST / 6pm CEST! Join us for three days of start-to-finish mixing with a multi-platinum engineer Kevin "Black Pearl" McCloskey live on Zoom - I promise you'll learn a ton and have a blast, whatever your skill level. You can grab the Zoom link and add the event to your calendar here in Skool: https://www.skool.com/mastering/calendar?eid=080916ff5ab74a839b9e8c90fd96be93&eoid=1784649600 Also, don't forget the Backstage Session each day after the event, which is a group mentor session for Premium/VIP members only! This is a chance to get feedback on your music, ask additional questions, and more. You can also find that in the calendar (start a free trial here if you don't have access). See you there! Rob

Hello everybody! This feels like a win... :) I've had a go at implementing what I've learnt in the first module of Music 101. But I tried out the final assignment on one of my own songs. I had already released this song, but I think I might go back and update the track to this version. Playing around with the EQ, using the PAZ Analyser and reference track, really helped, and then getting to grips (a little more) with compression and dynamics definitely seemed to have made a difference to the overall loudness of the track. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Does anybody know about calibration plugins for headphones. ??