Today, we’ll talk about the mistakes in music production that I, as an audio engineer with many years of experience, have selected as most common and harmful. And when artists bring their songs to me for mixing and mastering, I continue to see these mistakes in their projects.
The mistakes I am going to share in this blog post, despite the fact they are common, are very dangerous for your career. If overlooked they will greatly sabotage your work.
On the other hand, if you avoid all the mistakes I am going to share here, you’ll bring your music production to the next level.
What not to do when making music?
Before we discuss specific mistakes, let’s take a bird’s-eye view of the question. The general aspect of what not to do when creating your song and putting together an arrangement is to think that something of low quality will miraculously turn into great quality by mixing, being placed among high-quality sounds, or just because your song idea is genius.
To successfully grow your career as an artist, you have to aim at the highest quality at every stage of your music production and for every sound, instrument, and piece of equipment you use. Thousands of new songs are created every day and to stand out in the industry today, you need to maintain top quality in your music production.
Also, it helps when you educate yourself in the field as much as you can. Understanding basic music theory definitely helps new music producers to create the best tracks. It helps grow your production techniques, build catchy harmony, and place key elements correctly.
This article is created to help you improve your production process and take it to the next level. So keep reading to see if some of the mistakes I describe here have sneaked into your music and are sabotaging your work. Let’s find out.
Mistake #1 Poor bass management
A common mistake in music production is not giving enough space to each element in the low frequencies. Producers make this mistake so often that it even sneaks into big commercial projects.
What is poor bass management?
Poor bass management is using several instruments that have the same fundamental frequencies in the bass range. Let’s explain. For example, there is a bass part in your project in the accompaniment. At the same time, in the same frequency band there appears piano, cello, or another instrument.
In this case, the instruments will fight with each other, so your first thought will be to cut out certain frequencies in some of them or in all of them in such a way that they all sit in the mix well. However, in many cases, when the instruments really fight for the same frequency range, this equalization will substantially damage the sound.
A much better approach is not to make this mistake in the first place.
Be careful with low frequencies because this part is very delicate, and it’s easy to create a conflict there. When overloaded, they will sound terrible, eat your headroom up making the track quieter, and create a lot of work for engineers who will then be desperately trying to save the song.
Layering sounds in bass frequencies
Another cause of several instruments being present in the same low-frequency range is layering. Layering is very popular with kick drums, which is absolutely acceptable and often brings good results. Kick layering can create a new distortion and truly unique sound.
On the contrary, you will not benefit from layering bass, completely avoid it because using layering with bass is a mistake. The result will be chaotic, with some notes being louder and other notes quieter. When using bass layering, beginner producers usually end up with an absolutely useless track.
What’s the right way to manage bass frequencies in a song?
If you want to manage low frequency right and create a powerful but not overloaded low end, place one bass and one kick in the low-frequency range, and even they should be either mostly present in different bands or, if they share the same frequencies, the side-chain could be used to attenuate bass when kick sounds.
Also, make sure other instruments from the accompaniment are not present in these low frequencies together with bass and kick.
Mistake #2 Layering
Don’t get me wrong, layering is a good tool when it’s used correctly. First of all, when a professional applies layering, it is done with purpose, and carefully, adding as few layers as possible, but knowing exactly what each layer brings to the sound.
A mistake a novice music producer makes is layering too many sounds.
When people start making music and learn about layering, they can’t help adding more and more layers in an attempt to create a huge sound. It can be a piano or any other instrument. However, as a result, they usually get just a pile of sounds instead of a big new sound they have expected.
Nevertheless, it’s still much better to find a sound that doesn’t need layering.
The thing to understand here is that layering several low-quality sounds will not create a high-quality instrument. The best way is to use fewer layers and better sounds.
Mistake #3 Applying processing to sounds during production.
Let’s look at the reason why you need to use processing to instruments. If the sounds you chose for your music production are not exactly what you wanted, and now you are trying to make them better with lots of processing, I hate to break it to you but processing will not help. The main rule is that the quality of the sound will not improve with equalization and compression.
The best way to produce music is to find the instruments that already sound as you want them to. Especially, musical elements like the kick and snare drum, which are key to maintaining a solid rhythm. Also pay attention other instruments that you use to give the music a strong core idea and catchy melodies that are supposed to resonate with listeners, these elements must be the best from the beginning.
Not all processing is bad for sounds at the production stage, however. If it’s slight and general, done to make a sound just a bit brighter or a bit wet, then it’s acceptable, but never overdo it.
When the sounds don’t carry much processing on them, then when mixing the song, the engineer will have more freedom to use the processing necessary for mixing. There will be the possibility to affect each element with processing to make the whole mix sound better.
Mistake #4 Using cheap sounds.
How do you know that the sound is cheap, which means the sound is of low quality? Let’s look back at the mistake #3. If an instrument needs processing to become much less acceptable, then don’t use it.
If without processing the instruments you picked sound very different from the reference track it also means the instruments you have chosen are cheap.
As I said earlier, processing will never save cheap sounds. My recommendation is to never use such sounds.
How do you find high-quality sounds? Check what sounds professional producers use, and where they get samples. When you research this topic, you’ll find out that there are some high-quality sound libraries that are popular among professional producers. Use these libraries for your projects as well, and you’ll be able to create instrument parts that will always sound high-quality from the beginning.
Mistake #5 Too much information in the vocal frequencies.
If the instruments, for example, piano or guitar, play in the same frequencies where the vocal sings, it will create problems. In this case, the instruments will mask the vocal making it difficult to distinguish. You’ll start cutting out certain frequencies from the accompaniment but if it’s using the same notes as the vocal, cutting the frequency band out will damage the instrument’s fundamental frequencies. As a result, the instrument will be damaged, but the vocal will still be masked, they both need more space.
Using too many accompaniment sounds close to the vocal is a simple mistake but surprisingly many people make it.
The correct approach is to keep the vocal and the accompaniment apart, ensuring they occupy different frequency bands at each moment in time.
Together, however, your vocals and instruments should be present throughout the entire frequency spectrum. You want the spectrogram of your music to show content in all parts of the spectrum and be shaped according to your genre.
So, the main thing you have to remember about vocals and accompaniment in your song is don’t place them in the same frequencies at the same time letting the accompaniment mask the vocal. Always avoid this simple mistake.
Mistake #6 Using too many tracks.
The average number of tracks in a project in the industry is about forty. Well, if an orchestra is involved the number may go up to a hundred. But the mistake that I see sometimes is that a simple song project has more than a hundred tracks, and it’s too many.
Why are there too many tracks in a project? There can be different reasons: multiple layers, frequent changes in the arrangement, or just that the session is badly organized. Stop stacking tracks. Whatever it is, having too many tracks creates extra work for you, for the engineer, and for everyone who will work on your project.
The solution is to try and keep the session organized and minimalistic. Every track should be in its place. Basically, what a song needs is a kick, snare, other percussions, bass, the main instrument in the accompaniment, FXs, lead vocal, back vocals, and some adlibs maybe. Use fewer elements, only the tracks I just named are completely enough to create a top-quality modern song that could compete in the industry and climb all the way to the top of the charts.
Most producers follow this rule. If you look at any top-chart track, you won’t usually find a hundred of different synths or frequent changes of instruments in the arrangement.
In my practice as a mix engineer, and I have seen thousands of songs, have worked with big labels, big commercial projects, I often see that the best songs are those that don’t use too many tracks.
Mistake #7 Extremely minimalistic arrangement.
Now, you may argue that in the previous paragraph I advised keeping the session minimalistic, and now I’m saying that a minimalistic arrangement is a mistake. What do I mean by that?
What is the minimalistic arrangement mistake?
The mistake I am talking about now is when the arrangement remains the same throughout the song and is created without changes and moves.
Producing music without adding features that would make it interesting and alive is a weak idea. When the arrangement is too dull and static, where kick, snare, and piano, for example, or another lead sound, create the accompaniment that remains the same throughout the song, it’s a mistake.
Music can’t be boring to listen to, except maybe if you want your audience to fall asleep. The music must be alive and moving, there must be some leads, transitions, some FX leading from the verse to the chorus.
The idea that music must always be moving and changing seems so easy to understand, because it’s truly very basic, however, many producers create songs with hardly any movement in the music and little diversity in the accompaniment.
How can you correct this mistake?
There are just some suggestions to get inspiration from, there could be many more options; there is no limit to your creativity.
- Include interesting parts in the accompaniment, creative diversity between different elements of the song.
- Use some kind of liners, uplifters, downlifters, and other effects.
- Some instruments may be added in the chorus that were not there before, for example, which was not present in the verse.
- There should be some transitions and effects between song parts.
- Work creatively with the stereo field.
From our practice
It often happens that an artist comes to me for mixing, and the track has this boring accompaniment without movement and interesting elements. If I see that the song is weak, I give it to a professional producer for correcting. And all he does is just makes slight additions, little adjustments here and there, not much, but he adds these details we were talking about, adds movement. It can be some effects on instruments, some layers, little creative parts or transitions.
However, just a few slight corrections immediately make the song sound two or three times better. The dynamics changes, the impression the song makes changes, and the constant movement appears in the song.
So, the bottom line is that you need your arrangements to be alive, moving, and diverse.
Mistake #8 Drum loops.
Loops often have a lot of processing and usually are of low quality that’s why they cause many problems for producers and engineers. Using low-quality loops is one of the common music production mistakes.
Why it’s not preferable to use drum loops in your music production
The biggest problem drum loops bring to a song is that it’s almost impossible afterward to change them, apply processing to them, and make them sound great like in your reference track.
Because they are extremely difficult to change, the only case when you can use loops is when they sound exactly as you want them to. Otherwise, it’s better to use one-shots to have flexibility in your arrangements.
Using one-shots you can change the kick drum part, or snare, or change something in them, change their qualities. But with loops, any changes would be impossible and processing will not work well with them.
Loops often contain a lot of processing and usually are not of high quality. People often make them quickly, not professionally, just to sell them and make some money. Nobody cares about the instrument quality in the loops. There are huge libraries of loops but very rarely you can find a loop there that sounds good.
That’s why we recommend working with your own drums.
I remind you that if you contact us, our professional engineers will help you with correcting your music production process. We are not an online music production school but we are aiming at helping you grow your career in the music world.
Drum loops life hack: How music producers use drum loops
There is, however, one option and I advise you to use it because it really works.
Use your kick, your snare, and your hat, no loop, just high-quality instruments.
On top of that, put a percussion loop to add some movement, some additional percussions. Of course, low frequencies will be cut out from this loop to give space for your kick drum.
This way, your music production will benefit from drum loops.
Mistake #9 Using low-quality monitoring
It happens when producers are talented and create good songs, but they don’t ensure they have high-level monitoring. They may be using ordinary headphones, don’t have speakers, or lack an understanding of how to work with monitors correctly. You may say that producers are not engineers, so they don’t have to be monitoring or mixing experts. But this is not entirely true.
Weak monitoring during production is a mistake that can ruin your song. In my experience, the best songs are made by producers who use professional monitoring and even understand some of the mixing rules. These music producers are able to choose high-quality sounds and compose better arrangements. Using professional monitoring, they are able to hear all the details and all the frequency conflicts.
If the arrangement was created using professional monitoring, it’s much easier to mix because everything already works together well in the mix. There is a much better chance that the result will be a perfect song.
Mistake #10 Disorder in the project
Nobody likes it when a multitrack is a mess, when everything is in disorder and it’s hard to understand which track is which.
It’s bad enough when the tracks in your project are named just “track A” or “track 42” without telling what exactly this track is and you are trying to remember afterward what each of them contains. However, when another person, like, for example, a mix engineer, has to sort out such multitrack it’s ten times worse. Nobody likes to do it, and if you give such tracks to engineers for mixing it shows your disrespect to their work.
So, from your first day as a music producer, start building a habit of coloring tracks and naming them properly. This will help engineers to work on your projects effectively. Even for you it’s better, when at some point you return to your work and forget about what tracks you used, if everything is colored and named, and in order, it will be easy to recall.
I understand that in the creative chaos when you are working, some quick naming and placing can happen to keep your attention to your inspiration and creative flow. However, afterward, when you have a break, you still have to put tracks in order in your multitrack, color them, and name everything.
Mistake #11 Not using reference tracks
In creating your new hit you aim at originality and uniqueness of your work, and this is the right approach. Originality wins in the music industry like nothing else. Your audience and your fans are waiting for you to create something new and unique, they want to hear an innovative song. This may lead you to the conclusion that you don’t need a reference track, but it’s not exactly true.
Use references not to copy them, even though listening to other songs and understanding how other producers work can provide insights into improving one’s own music. The main reason to use references is to draw information from them and keeping the right level of your production.
In my practice, the projects with references picked from the very beginning and kept until the mastering stage are the ones that bring the best results.
Besides the producer, other people will work on the project: recording engineers, mix and master engineers, and others. And if all the team is understanding the song in the context of the same references, the team understands the general concept of the future hit in the same way. Reference tracks keep the same vibe and a common mindset among the people working on the project. Then all of them work to improve and elevate the music in the same direction and the song will only benefit from it.
That’s why I advise you to pick reference tracks at an early stage of your production, while creating the main elements of a song. This will help your track become a great new hit in the future.
How we help you eliminate production mistakes
As I said in the beginning of the article, by avoiding these eleven mistakes in your music production, you’ll immediately bring your projects to the next level. However, it’s not that simple. Usually, producers and artists need more than just general tips.
It often happens when producers know they have amazing, genius ideas, but their projects lack something that top-chart hits have, and they can’t exactly put their finger on what it is. Producers and artists need professional advice and guidelines specifically regarding their own work and particular projects.
Individually tailored professional guidance on how to grow your music career is crucial.
We at Major Mixing studio aim to be the artist’s and producer’s best friend. Having participated in big successful projects, and having mixed and prepared thousands of songs for release, we understand what a song should have to compete in the music industry and how to bring your project to the industry level. We simply see it because of our experience and skills.
That’s why we offer a free consulting option to you where you can ask your questions absolutely for free and receive useful information from us.
Moreover, if you mix your project with us, we’ll guide you through all the steps of your music production helping you eliminate your mistakes. Naturally, if we mix a song, we want the final master record to achieve as much success as possible. We want you to succeed and come back to us with more projects.
Contact us, and we’ll help you grow your career in the music world.
