Music Guides and Resources for Musicians Who Want to Make Music

[DusK 1,264]

Brony Music Spotlight submissions seem to have taken a recent downturn, so I decided to use some of that extra time and link a few of my favorite guides, many of which have been extremely valuable on my climb as a musician.

Key Characteristics - If you're looking for your music to capture a specific feel, the key that it's in plays a huge role in that. Here's a little cheat sheet that summarizes some writings on the subject that you can use before writing your piece to ensure that you're getting that feel you want.

Drew's Equalizer and Frequency Equalization Tutorial - This one is extremely helpful for mixing, especially with pieces that have a lot of different instruments. This guide lays out where certain instruments commonly sit in the frequency spectrum, and lays out a few other tips to help you EQ your stuff.

Interactive Frequency Chart - An extremely useful multi-instrument frequency detail page page. Hovering over frequency ranges for each instrument provides very useful information on the right, excellent for EQing your mix to get specific sounds or help certain instruments sit better in the mix.

Mixing Drums - A lengthy guide on various mixing techniques for drums. Compression, EQ, processing, it's all here.

Mixing Metal: Part II - Sound On Sound's guide for mixing just about every element in a metal track. This one was particularly helpful to me, as I'm mainly a metal musician.

Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People - This is a simplistic yet lengthy guide for teaching music theory in a way that's relatively easy to understand.

Zircon's ReMixing Tips Compendium - Andrew Aversa, AKA zircon, is one of the most respected faces on OC ReMix. A while ago, he put together a lengthy guide covering various aspects of both composition and production. Some of the links don't work, but for the most part, those can be skipped anyway. Give this one a read, especially if you're going into EDM or some form of electronic music.

 

Orchestral Manoeuvres - A fantastic guide by Sound On Sound detailing how to get an authentic orchestral sound using sampled instruments.

Have any more? Feel free to post, and I'll add 'em to this list.

Edited March 25, 2013 by DusK

[EndtheRaven 161]

This is awesome, I'm bookmarking all these
I was just struggling with ableton today trying to compress my drums to get rid of all the spikes

[Lisa 5,553]

Thanks for posting these!

 

I'll be sure to use the knowledge of 'Mixing Drums' in my next song. C:

 

 

~Luna

[Gay Bird 421]

Wow this stuff is awesome! I'll be sure to read all these and keep them in mind when making future songs. Thanks for sharing these.