Hello guys,
as the title says this is a question for intermediate to advanced producers.
I'm sick of tutorials like "How to use Cubase", "How to produce Techno", "How to sidechain your bass", or guys that started to compose 4 years ago trying to educate you with so many flaws, closer to a youtuber than a professional artist or technician.

I really miss tutorials and courses of high quality for intermediate to professional music producers.
So, straight to the point, for example,
Sonic Academy in the beginning used to be a wonderful source with their Tech Tips, also like the tutorial from Spektre, full of old school techniques, manipulating audio, layering kicks, phase, time strech, etc, but I feel they didn't evolve and the sound isn't up to the standards that the records are showing today.
Another one that I liked very much was Deepchild - Dirty Circuits for Ask Video, Timbaland for Masterclass (more in the psychology & pragmatic side), also a british guy that was around a couple of years ago teaching in Berklee called Loudon Stearns, very clear and confident in his videos. I might keep mentioning many more, but I guess that you got the idea.

There is Pyramind, Point Blank, Dubspot, ADSR, AcademyFM, Groove3, Computer Music, Udemy and so on.
You can find interesting things among them but still missing creative techniques usable in professional records, not only signable tracks of medium quality

In my opinion the best ones today for House & Techno are PML and Audiotent not only for their aesthetics but for their sound and end product, also with classes from popular, trusted, touring producers, but they might become very amateurish most part of the time. They explain how to produce a particular style or how to replicate a track from start to finish that they previously made, but in my humble opinion those tracks are far of equaling the sound of top notch producers like Maceo Plex, Adriatique, Karmon, Artbat, Tale Of Us, etc etc

Let me know if you have some knowleged opinion about it and if you agree with me.
Until now the only solution I found is to take the best of each place, but even when doing that, I feel that there is a higher step of education hard to find still.

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE.
Thanks in advance.

 

A mix of 1-6 and leaving things to others that's not your strongest forte?
People sometimes forget the imporance of a great/skilled/multifaceted team.

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2019

check out upsound.com

 

Dude, you are delusional.
Compose a good idea, produce it and if you are incapable of mixing it to your own high standards, send it to some professional mixing engineer working in your favourite substyle of music.
There are no secret techniques outside of sitting on your ass and tweaking until you get the sound you want. It may take like 20 hours of just mixing (depending on the complexity of the project) to get it to "overproduced state".
I doubt anyone would make a 20 hours of mixing tutorial.
If you want to get a "wall of sound" without any dynamics - aka "high quality modern production" - learn what your EQ, Multiband compressor, Clipper, Limiter does. Push them to the max without distortion and call it a day.
Considering that in many electronic subgenres like Electro house, Dubstep, Dnb, Techno etc people are just slapping OTT, Sausage fattener or Soundgoodizer until it sounds fine, you are overthinking your production methods.
If you are incapable of composing interesting music, maybe go to piano lessons and study harmony.
BTW, there is plenty of "in the studio" footage on youtube, breaking down records not only in EDM, but also hip-hop, rock, pop etc.

 

None of those

The best school, is the school of hard knocks. Find people with scars, and learn from them, while they're still alive.

 

Back in the day, the best way was to worm your way into being the Production/Studio "Maintenance" engineer/runner/coffee boy etc, etc...Being in an atmosphere that is hands on will teach you most of what you need to know. Because, nothing beats hands-on experience by talented people. Yes, it can also be part of the school of "hard knocks"...But there are still good people out there that might give you that
opportunity.

Good Luck!

And by "Maintenance" I do mean Janitor!

 

In my opinion, and i say it as a 100% self-taught, the best way to do it is to remake songs you like. Be aware i'm not suggesting you to buy templates, because you'll only really acquire the skills by trying and trying and trying to reamke music yourself.
Believe it or not, you'll learn all kinds of techniques while remaking a song: sound design, mixing, composing, and all the other more technical stuff specific for your genre.

If you're willing to spend time and effort to try to get as close as you can to a song you like you'll have fun, learn and much more at the same time. I did it like this and in 2 years i got from no musical knowledge to advanced producing.

 

The only thing you need to realize is, you need to practice all that information you have consumed. That will take you to the next level from where you are at currently. 4 Years aint much in the grand scheme of things. Its a marathon afterall not a sprint.
Don't get too fustrated about your current situation with where your music is at, and where you want it to be at. Just keep at it.

Creating music is much like life. You learn by living it.

Read this book:
https://stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/
i read it more than ones.

Thirdly,
Craft vs Art

 

The best way to learn is years of experience,in my opinion.Some things can't be teached,you need to practice again and again,once you know the basics of course.

I found in the past "Steinberg Internal Mixing" very interesting.It's old but the technique is the same todays.
You should find this tutorial with google.

 

First of all, thank you very much for chiming in guys,
seems to be a highly shared subject.

The votes also got very mixed, so each experience might be unique.

I agree Baxter, but even agreeing with that, I believe you should be able to finish a project from start to finish by yourself, even if you take more time to do it or if you don't get that mixture of elements that you naturally would get when working with others, but able still.

it says "Offline for Maintenance" I will check it again later, thanks

First of all, thanks for participate.
From the beginning your answer is a bit harsh, no need to attack to express your opinion.
What you suggests goes completly in the opposite direction of what I'm trying to do. I plan to get the things done myself and I value who does that too.
Seems to be that you have the things very clear and outstripped. I would like to listen to your work.

I wasn't talking about secret techniques, just professional methods to get a professional sound and mixes, for sure there are many ways to get there. For example the tutorials that I mentioned offers that, techniques that you can apply and you instantly get timbres, textures, sequences and layers that gets you closer to that of what you hear in good records.

Thanks mate, I agree. I'm trying it, but sometimes to find intimate or valuable time with someone like that it's a goal in itself.

I believe in that philosophy, but again, nowaday with the big studios almost dying is difficult to get there, so must be a way to replace that old school habit.

You are right, and this is probably the closest answer of all if you want to do it in a self-taught manner (like I do too), but sometimes, specially in the highest quality cases, it's difficult to replicate or to get to some points and that's the slim border where after trying a lot, you feel you need education or some advice from some talented professional.

Thanks for your words mate.
I mean the kids trying to teach thru youtube with just 4 years or less of experience, for sure you usually need more to get to "that" level.

I've already have and readed that book, a good one, thank you!

Thanks for the advice Blue, I will check it.
In my opinion, you can practice a lot, but exactly as you said, there are some things that can't be teached or I would say to be discovered by yourself, at least that you dedicate your life to investigating composition and production and not making music and touring.
You might be sastified at that point that you got practicing and practicing, or you can go as deep as the rabbit hole goes and learn from other top noch producer or whoever until you get to the level that you dream, maybe you never get there, but maybe you do.

I think that's the difference between the artists that you admire and just an artist.

*************************************************

Well very rich thread, I believe it can grow even more with opinions and experiences.
I started many years ago with trial and error, then months later I started reading big books on audio engineering, mixing, music production, mastering, etc, that opened the first big window of light, then I went to music school, that opened the second big window, then after that I was a couple of years trying to imitate the records I liked, getting to what I could say a decent point, but after a couple of years more, I feel there is missing something that I only feel I could get it from a very knowledged producer/artist or a very good pro school, like the courses I mentioned that caused that feeling on me of being educated with very useful stuff, hard to find, that can take your work to the next level,

so... that's the reason I came here to ask for sources that made you feel the same.

 

Last edited: Apr 1, 2019

Sure,some people are extremely talented.I think it's better to not dream too much to become a star and stay humble.
It's relatively easy to reach some level,but what will make you a timeless artist is not more skills but talent,inspiration,personality,imagination,ideas.

Personnaly my bad point is the lack of inspiration when composing.

 

Last edited: Apr 1, 2019

I can definitely recommend The "Dance Music Manual".

Yes it is basic. But it covers the entire basic, and some advanced knowledge about the entire field of audio computer production.

In the past, I did come back to it, when I didn't know when the attack of a Gate effect starts, or what a compressors soft knee is opposed to a hard knee. and even when I wasn't able to produce the particular bass sound that is typical of this or that genre, I had a good resource.

My god why am I not involved in marketing?

 

The greatest advice in this case would be: take your time. No need to rush and learn everything very quickly just to forget half of it in the next 3 days. I made remakes that were nowhere near the original track at the beginning, but with time i learned many more things and if i have to remake those same songs now they would be very very close to the original, because of all of the things i learned through the years.

I'm not saying this to tell you "don't follow a course" or "you don't need education", but more to incite you to try your own things. There are way too many producers nowadays that just learn things and repeat them without even knowing why they're doing it. Like the great Hans Zimmer said: "rules are meant to be ignored"!

 

All of thee above