My production style:
My production style has always been heavily focused on recording live instruments and bands. This has been useful as it’s taught me a lot about live recording, microphones, set-ups and how to experiment with recording techniques so that everything sounds as good as it can before it’s recorded. This however leaves my knowledge of DAW’s pretty minimal and I often collaborate with others who have more technical ability than I do. This allows me to tell them what I’m trying to do or want to happen and they can then translate that into something a DAW can do.
I’ve been trying to learn more production techniques and learn more in depth about DAW’s so that it’s not always necessary to collaborate but I think working with other producers can sometimes take the music somewhere it wouldn’t have gone if either of us had worked on the track separately. This can sometimes end up creating something even better than if I had worked alone.
I really enjoy working with wide sounding songs, trying to create soundscapes and sound designs which often give an interesting juxtaposition to what are usually guitar driven songs. I try not to go into a song with a set idea of genre or what I want the final product to sound like. Instead I prefer to let the song unfold itself, this often ends in the song becoming something completely different entirely to what it started as.
Skills Audit
| Area | Self-rating (1–5) | Comments / Examples |
| Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) Ableton, Logic, etc. | 3 | I’m beginning to gain more confidence using Ableton but there’s still a lot more I need to learn in order to use it to it’s full effect |
| Recording Techniques microphones, gain staging, audio setup | 3 | I know fair amount about different techniques and set-ups through recording my own music but I know there’s a lot more I can explore in more depth. |
| MIDI Sequencing & Programming | 2 | I know very little about this as I usually play and record live instruments |
| Sampling & Synthesis | 1 | I know almost nothing when it comes to sampling and synthesisers as I’ve never really used any of them in recordings |
| Mixing & Effects Processing | 3 | I’ve done a decent amount of basic mixing and effects processing. |
| Sound Design & Creative Processing | 2 | I haven’t done a lot of sound design or creative processing apart from a few bits here and there to add texture to songs. |
| Critical Listening & Analysis | 3 | I think as my understanding of music theory and how it affects the music is developing I am getting better at critical listening and understanding why some aspects work and others don’t |
| Collaboration & Communication | 4 | I’ve always played in bands since I was young so I’ve worked with a lot of different musicians and have a good understanding of how important collaboration and communication is. |
| Organisation & Workflow | 2 | I often struggle with organisation and tend to get lost when recording. This can lead to the recording be a bit of a mess and taking twice as long. |
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