Creative Music Production Skills

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 Berklee’s award-winning Music Production and Engineering curriculum. The project involves remaking an important, pivotal or “hit” recording entirely from scratch, note for note—replicating 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