5 Things I Learned In LA With A Professional Producer

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles to co-produce my record, Back In Full, with Billy Lefler.

During our two weeks in Death Star Studios, I learned a lot from Billy, his thoughts, process, and techniques on making records. I've boiled down these lessons into 5 things that I thought could be helpful to your musical journey too.

1. Set The Foundation Right

When you build a house, what do you start with? The roof? No. That would be crazy. 

You start with the foundation. Most of the time, you dig up the earth and lay a cement foundation that can support the entire house. If you don't the house will likely fall down.

The same thing goes for music. If you half a*s the drum recordings, your song won't have any support.

For example, when we recorded the drums for the album, we spent time mic'ing up the drum kit, choosing the right snare, and also understanding what 'sound' we're trying to get.

We knew we wanted the sound and feeling of 'real drums' but we also knew we wanted to layer in samples to provide a bit more modernness and punch to the mix. Billy used something called Trigger 2 which is a drum replacement tool. Essentially, you can layer or replace your recorded drums with samples.

I love the effect it's added to the tracks. The drums still have a realness to them but are much bigger and punchier than a standard drum kit.

The lesson here is Billy suggested we spend time getting the right drum recordings. After the drums we're done, we never had to fuss with them again and not once did we think, "are these the right drum sounds?". We didn't have to because the time was spent laying the foundation for the rest of the instrumentation.

2. Produce, Don't Mix

This might sound elementary but it's true. When you're producing a song, you should focus on producing the song. Not mixing the song.

There is a going to be overlap in the process where you will be balancing volume, adding reverb, compression, and EQ. This falls under the realm of production too. However, what I noticed from Billy is that he never got "caught up" in the mix.

We used the time to focus on the production, the sounds, the energy, dynamics, and feel for the track. We weren't worried about a -3db dip at 160hz or high shelf of 1.5db. That's for mixing! Mixing requires a separate set of ears with a different perspective. 

Even more, we're not mixing this song when we're in studio. We'll have someone else mix it. I really like the idea focusing only on the quality of the production while leaving the mixing to an expert mixer.

3. Start With Presets

Presets are there for a reason.  Use them!

You never know, they just might work too. If not, they at least give you a jumping off point. I never used a lot of plugin presets. However, I noticed Billy using them and it was super productive. Pop open a plugin, jump to the presets, and edit from there.

The most important piece to plugin editing is the end result of the sound. If it feels good, does it really matter that you used an EQ preset? Or a reverb preset? And also, who would ever know?

By the way, we did end up using the new Baby Audio plugins. For example, crystalline reverb on vocals sounds really great! Another verb we used some times the Neoverb by Izotope.

4. Push It To The Limit

When we were working on a song of mine called Wild Sky. I asked Billy, "when do we know when the production is done?". He mentioned that you'll know when you have a listen on fresh ears. You may realize you've gone too far and you might need to strip some things back or you might realize you still need to try some things.

Sure enough, we ended up pushing it too far for some songs. However, when we listened on fresh ears it was easy to tell. A fresh perspective goes a long way!

On the other hand, if you don't experiment and push your production ideas to a limit, you might miss out on some really interesting bits to the song that could end up being someones favourite part too. Don't be afraid to try things!

5. Find Inspiration

You have to actually enjoy and be inspired with the songs you're working on.

I was lucky enough that Billy liked my songs, so we were excited to work on them together in the studio. That's important because it keeps you going when there are lull moments or you're just feeling tired.

If you're producing your own music. Are you inspired by the song? If not, maybe take a look at the song itself first before jumping into the production. Or write another song!

If you're producing another artist, seek out songs that get you excited. There will always be moments during a production where you will lose energy and if you're not excited about the song, it's difficult to get it over the finish line or worse, you'll get it over the finish line but it won't be the best it can be.

Album Launch 2024

The album Back In Full will be launching in 2024.