Music Production from Zero
Produce, mix and release finished tracks I'm happy to put my name on.
This is a starting point — make it yours
Use this goal to build your own roadmap — tailored to you and starting fresh.
One DAW, badly
Gear and plugin research is the great procrastination of music production. Pick one DAW, use stock plugins only, and make noise.
Pick one DAW and refuse to reconsider for six months~2h
Ableton, Logic, FL Studio, Reaper, or the free tiers of several. They are all capable of professional results and the choice matters far less than the commitment. Reaper is cheap and runs on anything.
Done when: it is installed and you have not read a single comparison article since.
Learn the six things you'll use daily~8h
Recording, MIDI editing, arrangement view, mixer, automation, and export. Ignore the other 90% of the software until something you're making needs it.
Done when: you can go from empty project to exported audio without a tutorial.
Finish a sixty-second piece of music today~4h
It will be bad. Finish it anyway. Drums, bass, one melodic part, export. The habit of finishing is the single highest-value thing in this entire roadmap and it should start immediately.
Done when: an exported audio file exists that has a start and an end.
Learn just enough theory to stop guessing~10h
Major and minor scales, how chords are built, and four progressions that work. This is a fortnight's work and removes most of the random note-hunting that makes beginner tracks aimless.
Done when: you can build a chord progression in a chosen key without trial and error.
Sound and arrangement
Why beginner tracks sound thin and go nowhere: the sounds are untreated and the arrangement never changes.
Learn synthesis by rebuilding sounds you like~12h
Oscillators, filters, envelopes, LFOs. Pick five sounds from tracks you admire and recreate them approximately with one stock synth. Presets teach nothing about why a sound works.
Done when: five sounds are recreated from scratch and you can explain each one's envelope.
Learn EQ and compression by ear, on your own material~12h
EQ for carving space between instruments, compression for controlling dynamics. Learn what over-compression sounds like by deliberately overdoing it — you need the reference point.
Done when: you can identify a muddy frequency range by ear and fix it.
Analyse the arrangement of five tracks you love~6h
Mark the timestamps: what enters, what drops out, where the energy shifts. Almost all of them will have a change roughly every eight or sixteen bars. Beginner tracks are static and this is why.
Done when: five annotated arrangement maps exist with timestamps.
Finish three more tracks, each around three minutes~25h
Full arrangements with an intro, a change, and an ending. Finishing badly and often beats perfecting one project file for a year — every one of these teaches more than the last.
Done when: three exported tracks exist, each with a real arrangement.
Mixing
Making the parts fit together. Mostly balance and space, rather than the plugin chains the internet is preoccupied with.
Learn gain staging and mix at a sensible volume~6h
Leave headroom, mix quietly, and check on multiple systems including a phone speaker. Loud mixing flatters everything and is why mixes fall apart the next morning.
Done when: you have mixed a track at low volume and it still translates on three systems.
Learn to build depth with reverb, delay and panning~10h
Send effects rather than inserts, short reverbs for closeness, longer for distance. Depth is what separates a mix that sounds like a room from one that sounds like a stack of samples.
Done when: you can place three elements at clearly different apparent distances.
Mix one track against a reference, level-matched~8h
Load a professionally mixed track in a similar style, match the loudness, and A/B constantly. Level-matching is essential — louder always sounds better and will fool you every time.
Done when: your mix and the reference sit convincingly close at matched loudness.
Learn what mastering does and when to pay someone~6h
Final polish and loudness for distribution. Understand streaming loudness normalisation, and that a bad mix cannot be mastered into a good one. Know when your own attempt is good enough and when it isn't.
Done when: you have mastered one track yourself and can articulate what a professional would improve.
Releasing
Music nobody hears is a hobby, which is fine — but if you want it heard, releasing is its own skill.
Finish an EP of four tracks to a consistent standard~30h
Consistency across the four matters more than any single track being excellent. It is also the first time you will feel like a producer rather than someone learning software.
Done when: four finished, mixed tracks exist that sound like they belong together.
Get honest feedback before releasing~5h
A producer community, a friend with good ears, a feedback thread. Ask what confuses them rather than whether they like it — praise is pleasant and useless.
Done when: three people have given feedback and you have acted on at least one point.
Release it properly through a distributor~6h
DistroKid, Amuse or similar puts you on streaming services. Learn about metadata, ISRCs, release dates and artwork requirements — the admin is dull and gets the release rejected if wrong.
Done when: the EP is live on at least one streaming service.
Write down what you learned and start the next one~3h
The gap after a release is where people stop. Note what you would do differently and open a new project the same week — momentum is far easier to keep than to rebuild.
Done when: the notes exist and a new project file has something in it.