A Few Short Productions Tips

3 Small Music Production Tips For A More Engaging Track

Whether you are new to production, or on the verge of making it big, these are some quick tips that can help take your tracks to a new level.

1. Impacts
“Impacts” are traditionally used at the start of a drop/chorus, or to signal a new part in the track by adding a big Impact type sound. “Impacts” are essentially heavily reverbed kick drums. By going against traditional method, and adding “Impacts” consistently throughout a section of a track, on every 4 or 8 beats for example, you can increase engagement, and draw more listener attention to certain parts of a track. These tend to work well in the breaks between drops, in drops/chorus’ themselves, and in build-ups.

2. Foley
Some of the world’s most iconic songs have made great use of having “Foley”. “Foley” can be described as the reproduction of everyday sound effects in music. The beach/ocean sounds at the beginning of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” is one such example. A cool technique to take advantage of is to introduce wind, campfire and river sounds at the beginning of a track, and re-introduce it at the end of a track, which can get an audience more engaged with your track, and add a unique feel. Playing around with where in the track you introduce these sounds can lead to some interesting effects. A common method to finding these is typically by searching and downloading the “Foley” sounds you like off of YouTube. However there are companies that develop “Foley” noises and release them in sample packs. To add to the authenticity of your track, you could even go and record the sounds yourself.

3. Synth FX
During some parts of a track, an audience can be bored. Not because the content is bad, or unimaginative, but because it can become repetitive. To counteract this, producers usually incorporate FX. FX generally refers to effects, but can incorporate things from one-shot sounds, to sweeps, to weird percussion etc, and it is generally incorporated in a track not to be the main attraction, but to add to the emotion. One specific and relatively unique thing to do is to go into your preferred synthesizer, find a preset that works with the track (or create your own if you prefer), find a note in the key of your track, add a lot of reverb it, turn the volume down so that it sits just under the track, and add it to the end of every 4 or 8 bars. Experimenting with the positioning of it can result in some great and unique effects. One example of this used well is in Martin Garrix’s “Animals”. If you go and listen to the part where the chords first get introduced at the start, you will notice that he fills in the spaces between notes using the technique described above.