Know ‘the cast’ of your track

So much of what we do as music producers is based on instinct. It’s amazing how intuitively one part of a production suggests another, whether that’s a hi-hat to balance the weight of a kick drum, a second bass sequence to bounce off the first, backing vocals to support a lead vocal, and so on.

Writing music when you’re in the zone is a pleasure but the downside is that it’s very easy to create a mix which begins to drown under its own weight. Suddenly, it’s almost as if a track gets pulled down by a series of anchors, each of which sucks energy out of the ideas which seemed so bright and novel just a few hours earlier. At times like this, it can be helpful to think of each track within your production as you might consider the cast of characters in a TV show or movie. You need the leading characters to let their personalities shine, to drive the narrative onwards but you also need a supporting cast, to add meaning and context to the whole, adding richness and complexity, without ever stepping forward to steal the limelight.

If you’re working with vocals in your track, your leading lady or man will probably take care of themselves, as it’s rare for a track to include a vocal part which doesn’t look to run the show. If you’re working on an instrumental track, however, you might have more delicate decisions about which element(s) of the track you’re going to bring to the foreground. However, it’s still well worth making this decision, as listeners like to be guided; rather than hoping they’ll make their own decisions about which parts of the track are stepping up to the plate, you should help them by ensuring you know which ones you most want them to hear at any given moment.

In the final six-step walkthrough of this feature we’ve created a track which needs almost immediate help in this regard. Despite only featuring a handful of parts, they’re already fighting each other for space, so we’ve had to take some decisions about which ones need to back off a little, to let others be more dominant and powerful. You’ll never write a track which won’t benefit from this kind of attention to detail, so it’s worth practising the assorted crafts which are available to you as you sculpt a more fitting shape to your mix, so that you’re ready to make great decisions when it comes to the tracks you’re proudest of.

Remember that every stage of the production process requires this mindset, so ask yourself important questions: Do I need this new part? If so, what needs to be quieter so it will be heard? Is the frequency balance right, or are some parts of the frequency spectrum too busy? Should I delete some notes from my phrase so that there’s more clarity between parts? Asking questions designed to ‘reduce’ the impact of some parts often leaves more room for impact to be heard where it really counts.