May 19, 2021 Top 8 audio production blogs for aspiring producers
Guest post by Dre DiMura. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper
The internet is ripe with resources (free and paid) for amateur producers, mixers, beat makers and songwriters alike. In fact, there’s no end to the ways you can improve your skills with content and recommendations that address your every need. But in all that vastness, where do you begin?
Sorting through hundreds if not thousands of blogs is exhausting, and can even be detrimental to your process, as you try to delineate between different methods, techniques, and opinions for achieving the same sonic ends. The good news is, we’ve done the research for you!
Cut through the noise with these eight essential music production blogs (plus a bonus) for all you aspirational producers out there. And whenever you’re ready, you can always subscribe to Soundfly for unlimited access to our courses to learn production, composition, songwriting, theory, arranging, mixing, and much more.
1. Musician on a Mission
Musician on a Mission is a home audio production blog that combines articles, tutorials and a YouTube channel. They offer a variety of free resources, cheat sheets, and beautiful diagrams that help us to better understand concepts like EQ, compression, bussing and more. Musician on a Mission offers a comprehensive vocal editing video series, as well as access to a free masterclass to build a pro mix from scratch.
2. Sound on Sound
Sound on Sound is the crown jewel of music production resources for amateur musicians (many of whom end up featuring in the magazine later as professionals). Originally published in the UK circa 1985, the print magazine has moved to a digital format this millennium and publishes some of the most insightful, in depth and candid audio production content available. Comb through their archive of 11,000+ articles to find one-on-one interviews with mega-producers and hitmakers in all genres, access rare session recall PDF files from artists, product reviews, and more.
3. Produce Like a Pro
Produce Like a Pro is a multi-faceted music production blog founded by English producer and songwriter, Warren Huart. Huart creates incredibly in-depth content within his wide network of music professionals; posting tutorials, gear shootouts, longform Q&As and more. The blog also offers a free start-up bundle, tons of public video content, including song breakdowns with multi-platinum engineers, and a mentoring program.
4. PureMix
PureMix is an audio production blog co-founded by French-Canadian producer, Fab Dupont. It focuses almost entirely on teaching mixing, and relies heavily on paid content. However, don’t be dissuaded from signing up! You can register for free, and as a member, access seriously next level content from Grammy-award winning engineers like Chris Lord-Alge, Andrew Scheps, Greg Wells, Tony Maserati and Mick Guzauski at prices so low it’s almost unbelievable. They run frequent promotions, and upload free content to their YouTube channel.
5. iZOTOPE Blog
American plug-in manufacturer iZOTOPE issues some of the most technologically advanced DSP software on the market, including their game-changing Ozone mastering suite. Specializing in machine learning and audio restoration, the company also runs a successful and very informative production blog. Through it, iZOTOPE uses their own suite of plug-ins to teach general production and mixing techniques, but the principles they teach are widely applicable. Although some iZOPTOPE plug-ins may be out of the bedroom budget, you can learn a lot about all things audio here, and apply their tutorials to your own software, sessions, and mixes.
6. The Splice blog
Splice has somewhat revolutionized the home production playing field with the introduction of their royalty free, subscription based sample library. Splice also furnishes a rent-to-own plug-in store (very helpful for the amateur producer), with tons of high quality third party plug-ins. And via their blog, in addition to teaching basic production techniques and DAW tutorials, they offer deep-dive editorial style musical interviews, and have done a lot to promote racial justice and continue to educate their users on Black American music. They’re also a proud partner of Soundfly, so please follow this link to try Splice.
7. SoundGym
SoundGym is an indispensable new tool for music producers everywhere. The site describes itself as “The Gym for Your Ears,” and features well-designed audio games that help train users to identify frequencies, compression settings, delay times and more. It’s a great way to keep your ears sharp and familiarize yourself with the subtlety of audio production. SoundGym also features a forum where you can post mixes for feedback, and a (friendly) competitive interface that gamifies the process and creates incentives for scoring high.
8. Recording Revolution
Recording Revolution, founded by Graham Cochrane, is another one-stop-shop for all things audio production; from how-to DAW tutorials and free mix guides, to five minute mix videos and songwriting assistance. Their YouTube channel is sitting just below 600k subscribers as of this writing, and their blog furnishes one new post per week. RR will even teach you how to build out your home studio for less than $350.
Bonus: Flypaper!
You’re already ON one of the best resources out there for musicians looking for advice, guidance, and inspiration to elevate their music production practice. That’s right, Soundfly’s in-house blog, Flypaper, produces daily articles aimed at helping musicians of all types move the ball forward toward their goals in immediately actionable ways. Explore all our articles here, and sign up for our weekly newsletter for even more pathways to improve in your musical practice.
DIY, Production tagged audio production, music prod, production, recording
Reader Comments (1)
This article brilliantly navigates the overwhelming world of online resources for music producers, offering a concise guide to essential blogs. It's like a roadmap for aspiring producers, steering them away from information overload. The detailed descriptions of each recommended blog showcase the author's dedication to research. From the comprehensive resources of Musician on a Mission to the timeless insights from Sound on Sound, sfmc certification the article presents a diverse range of options. It's evident that the author has curated this list with a keen understanding of the needs of amateur producers, making it an invaluable resource. Kudos for simplifying the journey to mastery!