Audio Production Explained in Simple Words

So you want to know more about audio production? That’s great, as award winning audio production pros, we can tell you all about it.
Audio production is all about recording audio and optimizing it in all sorts of ways including editing. While it may sound straightforward, there is a lot more to it than one might think.
“Audio production” is a broad phrase encompassing various tasks to enhance audio. As you would know, awesome visuals are just half the story. Stellar audio is equally vital if not more so. Hence, audio production is at the core of video games, podcasting, films, music, and more.
Now for the details. Here is what award winning audio production entails.

Songwriting

Songwriting is central to audio production. All other processes that follow depend on this first step. Why? Because no amount of audio editing can fix a subpar song.
Hence, amazing songwriting is the foundation of a really good piece of audio. Just use simple instruments and your voice to try out the song. If the song does not evoke a strongly positive response, then it's back to the drawing board – you will need a better song that moves people.

Arranging

Arrangement starts with songwriting. In simple terms, it is about giving structure to your song. For example, you decide
  • how long the intro will be and what it will sound like
  • what instruments will be used
  • where these instruments start playing during the song
  • instrumental breaks – where they begin and how long they last
  • how the tempo will rise and fall
  • how long the ending will be and what it will sound like
Hence, arrangement is a key part of the songwriting process.
This phase often involves teamwork between the producer, composer, and artist.

Recording

After you hit upon a fabulous song, it's time to record your masterpiece. This is where the song comes to life.
The mic will come into play to record your priceless voice. Depending on the nature of the song, you may decide to use certain musical instruments. Of course, synthesized instrumental audio created by music software is now widely prevalent. Quite often, you will need a combination of the two – actual instruments and music software for award winning audio production.
Recording in this day and age is a fascinating fusion of “old school” musical instruments (think drums, pianos, guitars, and all that jazz) and “cutting edge” modern software. It's amazing how the confluence of the old and new can lead to irresistibly catchy music.
Even with the advent of incredibly sophisticated software (including AI-powered music apps!) instrument-playing skills are far from obsolete. Even with AI disruption and software upheaval, skilled musicians are still very much in demand.
So apps and AI can't replace people. Not in the music industry at least. Now that’s empowering and reassuring.
Recording need not be done in one fell swoop. For certain parts of your soundtrack, you will want to play and record the music again separately. Hence, for optimal quality, recording can be an iterative process and can be done in steps.
The arrangement can change while the recording phase is in progress. Hence, you can see that audio production is not linear – some parts can and often do overlap.

Editing

You have guessed it right – editing means improving what you recorded. Editing and recording can be iterative. For some parts, you will want to record again, edit it, and see how it comes out.
Editing can be done in different ways. For example, you may want to add in some delay, reverb, or chorus to your vocalist’s performance. Or perhaps you may want to change the beat of the drums to be perfectly in sync with the rest of the track.
There is a lot you can do by way of editing. For example, you can throw in crossfades, change pitches, splice together instrumental pieces, and make sure that all instruments and tunes are in perfect harmony.
Thanks to versatile music editing tools that have a full gamut of features, editing audio is now more convenient than ever.

Mixing

Mixing can be particularly rewarding. For this is where you turn a fairly good track into professional- grade audio. Unsurprisingly, it is at the core of award winning audio production.
It is here that you use techniques like delay, reverb, compression, EQ, and others to make all tunes and instruments complement each other perfectly.
One of the key goals of mixing is to make sure that listeners can clearly discern each instrument. The beauty of great mixing is that it empowers listeners to relish individual instruments that they love while also allowing them to enjoy the whole track.
A sign of good mixing is that the end product will be quite different and much better compared to the unmixed audio. Think of it as polishing a piece that has gone through the aforementioned steps.
Balancing is one of the core aspects of mixing. All different tracks must have the right volume level so that not only are they individually audible, but the whole mix sounds nicely balanced. There is a lot more besides.

Mastering

Last but not the least is the magic of mastering. It may be an arcane and esoteric art for many, but for accomplished audio professionals, it comes naturally.

Mastering is where you add finishing touches to your song so that it sounds truly captivating. When done with mastering, your track should sound great on all formats and playback systems. Most importantly, it should jive well with the rest of your album.
It entails aspects like compression, limiting, equalization, sequencing, format conversion, noise reduction, dynamic processing, and so on.

Bottom Line

As the award winning audio production company In Madison, WI,
Having consistently produced soundtracks for TV programs, radio spots, advertising audio and so much more since 1985, you can expect us to be on top of our audio production game.
We provide the full spectrum of services for everything audio, from voice recording, to sound design, to mixing and the list goes on. Whatever you have in mind concerning audio, rest assured we can do it with flying colors.
So don’t hesitate to reach out to us.