Stephen Webber – Creative Music Production Skills
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Producing music on a professional level involves a number of skills: leading a creative team, collaboration, employing appropriate interpersonal communication skills, budgeting, scheduling
Creative Music Production Skills
Producing music on a professional level involves a number of skills: leading a creative team, collaboration, employing appropriate interpersonal communication skills, budgeting, scheduling, time management, using technology in a variety of production and engineering tasks, listening, arranging, and striving for and achieving professional standards of fidelity and musicality. Creative Music Production Skills is a fast-paced, experiential course designed to teach you these skills and take your productions to the next level.
The course begins by exploring the key concepts of listening, conveying emotion, artist identity, vision, and intention. It then introduces the LRA (Listen, Respond, Act) technique, which you will put into action while producing a sound-alike project, an effective cornerstone of Berklees award-winning Music Production and Engineering curriculum. The project involves remaking an important, pivotal or hit recording entirely from scratch, note for notereplicating the sounds, performances, feel, and especially the emotional impact of the original. Through this process, you will learn strategies to achieve professional standards and effectively convey emotion.
During the course, you will be required to assemble personnel for two large-scale production projects: a sound-alike of a hit recording, and a single for an original recording artist. The recording artist can be a singer-songwriter, rapper, or band. Note that you will need to pitch your artist(s) to your instructor, who will be playing the role of a record company A&R representative. It is up to you to ensure that collaborators are available for required sessions-you should make it clear that a significant amount of time may be required.
Authored by Emmy-winning composer, producer, and engineer Stephen Webber, the course presents exclusive interviews with hit-making producers, engineers, songwriters, and artists from the top of the rock, pop, country, bluegrass, hip-hop, R&B, and Latin music charts, such as Gloria Estefan (Grammy-winning artist), Todd Rundgren (legendary artist and producer), Kathy Mattea (Grammy-winning singer), Ricky Skaggs (Grammy-winning artist and producer), Tommy Torres (artist and producer: Juan Luis Guerra, Alicia Keys, and Ruben Blades), Makeba Riddick (songwriter/vocal producer: Rihanna, Beyonce, and Jennifer Lopez), Emilio Estefan (producer: Gloria Estefan, Mark Anthony, and Miami Sound Machine), John Shanks (producer: Van Halen, Bon Jovi, and Melissa Etheridge), Tom Lord-Alge (Grammy-winning mixer: Green Day, Steve Winwood, and U2), Eddie Bayers (session musician: Vince Gill, The Judds, and Reba McEntire), Jeff Rothschild (engineer/mixer: Kelly Clarkson, Take That, and Sheryl Crowe), Gustavo Cellis (Grammy-winning engineer: Shakira, Beyonce, and Ricky Martin), Carlos Paucar (engineer/producer: Enrique Iglesias, Chris Brown, and Jewel), Gary Paczosa (producer/engineer: Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, and Chris Thile), and Vance Powell (Grammy-winning engineer: Jack White, The White Stripes). Each week, as you set out to accomplish specific production goals, these chart-topping pros reveal how they approach the same issues and craft their own projects into successful recordings that shine with emotional impact.
You will be required to record a session with three musicians playing simultaneously, using headphones. You should own or have access to a recording system with the capacity to record a minimum of four microphones simultaneously to four discrete tracks, eight inputs or more would be preferable.
Your system should be capable of executing a professional-sounding mix. Your monitoring environment should be accurate and meet baseline professional standards.
Suitable programs include Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Digital Performer, Cubase, or other professional level DAWs.
Your recording system must support playback of at least 24 tracks of audio with plug-ins and/or outboard gear that include equalizers, compressors, limiters, de-essers, reverbs, delays, and other effects.
During the course, you must personally accomplish some specified engineering tasks, but it will be permissible to use studio facilities other than your own, and work with an engineer other than yourself. If you plan to use studio facilities other than your own, refer to the production calendar and make scheduling arrangements as soon as possible.
The course provides a crucial foundation for those pursuing studies in music production, songwriting, artist management, or a career as a recording artist.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Recognize the concepts of critical listening, conveying emotion, and artist identity, vision, and intention
- Perform pre-production tasks including casting personnel, budgeting, scheduling, charting, DAW session strategy, and microphone selection
- Edit, rewrite, and employ arranging techniques to enhance emotional impact
- Assess an artist’s strengths and weaknesses, and employ strategies to accentuate the positive and minimize the negative
- Lead a creative team in the studio by engendering good session flow and pulling the best performances out of your players
- Demonstrate strategies to clean up tracks, de-ess, utilize parametric EQ and compression while mixing and mastering
Syllabus
Lesson 1 Overview of Projects
Lesson 2 Pre-Production for Sound-Alike
Lesson 3 Recording the Sound-Alike
Lesson 4 Editing/Mixing the Sound-Alike
Lesson 5 Seeking Repertoire: Pre-Production for the Original Recording Artist Single Project
Lesson 6 Digging In on the Material and Arrangement
Lesson 7 Basic Tracking
Lesson 8 Vocal and Instrumental Overdubs
Lesson 9 Final Overdubs
Lesson 10 Editing and Pre-Mixing
Lesson 11 Mix
Lesson 12 Final Analysis/Mastering
Requirements
Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements
Completion of Critical Listening 1 and Music Production Analysis or equivalent knowledge and experience is required. You should have intermediate experience with the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) you plan to use in the course, in addition to experience with microphone selection and use, recording, and mixing.
During the course, you will be required to assemble personnel for two large-scale production projects: a sound-alike of a hit recording, and a single for an original recording artist. The recording artist can be a singer-songwriter, rapper, or band. Note that you will need to pitch your artist to your instructor, who will be playing the role of a record company artist and repertoire representative. It is up to you to ensure that collaborators are available for required sessions-you should make it clear that a significant amount of time may be required.
Please note, there are two creative projects in the course, both require live instrumentation from musicians other than yourself.
The Soundalike project requires a minimum 3-piece rhythm section, recorded together at the same time. The soundalike needs to be as an exact copy of the original song as possible (same feel, arrangement, key, tempo, sounds, balance etc.) You should find a vocalist first and then see what he/she can sing, rather than just choosing a song you like to recreate. Research is key to this project. The more you can find out about the original track, the easier it should be to replicate. You will need to submit a demo of your artist singing your soundalike choice in week 2 of the semester.
For the Original Artist project, you will be recording a new original song (no covers or previously released records), by an artist other than yourself. This can be in any style, as long as it includes vocals, and live instruments. It can have beats/sequencing but it still needs to include a “substantial grouping of live instrumentation” so plan on adding instruments to whatever sequencing and sampling is contained in your beat. You will need to pitch 2-3 artists (with music) in week 2 of the semester.
IMPORTANT: Start looking for artists before you take this class.
You cannot be the main performer, singer, songwriter, or musician on either of these projects. You can contribute, but you cannot perform the majority of the parts. The idea is for you to get experience working in a creative environment, with creative people. Ideally you will find musicians who are excited by the prospect of recording, committed to the project, and finishing it on time.
Note that you will need to pitch your artist to your instructor, who will be playing the role of a record company artist and repertoire representative. It is up to you to ensure that collaborators are available for required sessions. You should make it clear that a significant amount of time may be required.
You must personally accomplish some specified engineering tasks in the course, but it will be permissible to use studio facilities other than your own for some sessions, if you do not own a space suitable for the types of sessions required.
Microphone selection and use: Microphone Techniques
Recording and mixing: Pro Tools 110, Producing Music with Logic, Producing Music with Cubase, Mixing and Mastering with Pro Tools, Art of Mixing, Ableton Live Fundamentals
Required Textbook(s)
- None required
Software Requirements
- You should own, or have access to, a recording system with the capacity to record at least three musicians simultaneously, including headphone capability. This system should be able to record at least four microphones simultaneously to four discrete tracks, making it possible to record a drum kit with kick, snare, and left-right overheads. Acceptable Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) include Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Digital Performer, Cubase, and Ableton Live. The DAW must support playback of at least 32 tracks of audio with plug-ins that include equalizers, compressors, limiters, expanders, reverbs, delays, and multi effects.
Hardware Requirements
- A professional level monitoring setup that can accommodate multiple listeners at the same time is required. A multi-channel headphone amplifier or system that can accommodate headphones for at least three players (and a producer/engineer, if they are in the same room) will be required.
General Course Requirements
Below are the minimum requirements to access the course environment and participate in live chats. Please make sure to also check the Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements section above, and ensure your computer meets or exceeds the minimum system requirements for all software needed for your course.
Mac Users
- OS X 10.10 Yosemite or higher
PC Users
- Windows 7 or higher
All Users
- Latest version of Google Chrome
- Zoom meeting software (available in the course when joining your first chat)
- Webcam
- Speakers or headphones
- External or internal Microphone
- Broadband Internet connection
Instructors
Author
Stephen Webber is an Emmy-winning composer and professor of Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music. In three decades as a record producer, engineer, session player, music director, recording artist, DJ, and studio designer, Stephen has recorded with Ivan Neville, Meshell Ndegeocello, the Manhattan Guitar Duo, and the Turtle Island String Quartet, and performed with Bela Fleck, Mark O’Conner, Grandmixer DXT, and Emmylou Harris. A writer for Electronic Musician, Remix, and Mix Magazine, Stephen is also the author of Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ, the first book to teach the turntable as a musical instrument. Stephen performs and presents clinics and master classes throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia, and has been profiled on the Today Show, CNN, and NPR’s All Things Considered, and in the New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine.
Instructor
Matthew Ellard is an Associate Professor in the Music Production and Engineering Department at Berklee College of Music. Over the course of his 25-year career in the music industry as an independent record producer, engineer and mixer based in London, Los Angeles, Boston, he has produced, engineered, and/or mixed well over 250 albums. This includes many world famous and popular artists at world-class studios, where the level of expectation and performance is extremely high. He brings that experience and those standards to Berklee. He has extensive experience with not only guitar driven rock, indie rock, metal, punk, hardcore, and power pop bands, but also with programmed and sequenced, beat based pop, hip hop, remixes and dance music. In addition, he utilizes both “old school” analogue recording and the latest digital recording techniques and formats, bringing a depth of technical and creative knowledge in both the analog and digital realms and a wide breadth of professional music industry experience to the instruction of music production and engineering.
What’s Next?
When taken for credit, Creative Music Production Skills can be applied towards these associated programs:
Associated Certificate Programs
- General Music Studies Professional Certificate
- General Music Studies Advanced Professional Certificate
- Advanced Music Production Professional Certificate
Associated Degree Majors
- Bachelor’s Degree in Music Production
- Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Music Studies (Create Your Own Major)
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