Episode 1: The 9 Steps of a Song.

     Hi there! I'm McKay! (Thats actually my MIDDLE-NAME, but who cares lol) I have been producing beats and songs for OVER A YEAR now. I've learned QUITE A FEW THINGS in my first year of ACTUALLY PRODUCING music (I've been mixing for 3 and playing for 10), and I'D LOVE to share with you a couple.

    There are MANY STAGES to executive producing a FULL SONG. It's not an easy process. My production process is DIFFERENT than that of others. It involves 9 STEPS. Let's go through them!

    Sound Selection:

Sound selection is a part that can make or break your track. Poor choice of sounds can completely change the vibe to a song. If your 808s are too growly and your snare is too trappy, the sounds chosen will completely contradict each-other, and let me tell you, you do not want that happening.

    Sampling (optional):

If you have a favorite song that HASN'T been copyrighted, then you should cop some samples before it's too late! Sampling is the process of chopping up a beat and making new sounds from an old song. You hear it in so many songs, you have no idea!

    Recording:

This is a pretty obvious part of producing. Play the instruments, sing the lyrics, and get all of the sounds put in. Pretty necessary as well...

    Editing:

Just like an essay, a song isn't complete without being double checking and possibly adjusted. You might have an error so insignificant that your OCD is the only thing making you fix it, or an entire section you forgot to quantize. Oopsies.

    Arranging:

This step can either occur before or after editing. This is the placement of verses, hooks, choruses, bridges, intros and outros for a song. This step involves a lot of copy and pasting for me.

    Mixing:

This is definitely a tough part of the process. You'll need a keen ear for making sure all the tracks' EQing is correct and making sure the master volume is all the way up ;)

    Mastering (Optional)

I rarely master my songs. If you don't do it yourself, it costs a lot of cha-chings. This essentially involves highlighting the important sounds and parts of a song. It's very confusing, but pretty effective.

    Releasing:

Well. You wouldn't be able to listen to music if artists didn't release it...

    Promoting (optional):

Promo is an important part of growing for small artists. I still need to do it for my tracks, and I would have little to no listeners on my released songs if I didn't do promo.

   WELL! There you have it! The 9 STEPS of my PRODUCTION PROCESS!

Feel free to CHECK OUT MY STUFF:

https://soundcloud.com/mckay_prod

https://www.youtube.com/@mckayprod