Digital Music Production
for Non-Engineers
Microteaching • Multimedia production
Overview
As COVID-19 shutdowns forced live musicians to seek alternate paths to building a livelihood from art and creativity, I began offering Saturday classes in digital music production and audio engineering via Zoom. A by-product of this initiative was a series of educational videos specifically for audiences who did not identify as musicians or engineers, but were still curious about the process of record-making behind the scenes. These bite-sized videos discuss broad principles and specific techniques alike, whereby my main challenge is to “explain like they’re 10” without misrepresenting the subject matter.
Final Product
Ultimately, audiences gain awareness that digital music doesn’t just inherently “sound good”, but that it is the product of many subtle decisions made invisible, from rough ideation to polished commercial distribution. This example video introduces audiences to the concept and application of stereo width, making heavy use of comparative examples in professional music.
Analysis & Insights
Lay persons don’t necessarily want watered down content per se—they want the production process to feel less arbitrary.
Because of the complex nature of music production, its study conventionally relies on cyclical building of prior knowledge. This begins with a conceptual understanding of how sound behaves, toward a savviness in leveraging various studio tools to manipulate that behavior in specific ways and to achieve specific auditory goals. For example, understanding how Deadmau5 achieves his signature pumping bass effect requires knowledge of sidechain compression, which requires knowledge of amp envelopes, which requires comfort in thinking about how sound behaves in timespans of milliseconds. However, foundational knowledge cannot be presumed among lay audiences; the challenge is in teaching both foundational and applied knowledge at the same time.
Based on initial conversations with individual lay persons, they do not necessarily seek a watered down understanding of music production, even if they have no intention of becoming audio engineers. More accurately, they want observing the process of music production to feel less arbitrary. For many, there is discomfort in being exposed to popular imagery of music studios featuring massive consoles, tape machines, and vast arrays of knobs and buttons, but not knowing what any of them actually do.
Design & Development
Instagram Stories as proofs of concept
Instagram’s Stories feature was a natural choice to prototype and test videos, especially to walk audiences through a song’s deconstruction into its individual layers. Videos were recorded using Streamlabs OBS’s screen capture function, and formatted for mobile devices (vertical) in Premiere Pro. Stories’ quick pacing encouraged me to be direct and concise, with each 15-second clip showcasing one interesting fact or technique in the production process.
The following videos show example deconstructions for different audiences. The first deconstruction uses language and pacing geared toward a novice audience who will rely more on clear visual cues and simple language. The second deconstruction is most informative for audiences with greater familiarity with production tools and terminology.
Sometimes, in addition to song deconstructions, I may showcase A/B comparisons of various audio effects. These demos have tended to receive similar audience engagement to song deconstructions. Some have remarked that there is an element of spectacle in watching me alter a familiar song in various ways that they would not otherwise not be able to hear on Spotify.
The “Goldilocks” zone: Neither too abstract nor too oversimplified
The challenge of properly structuring content in any given video is amplified by the fact that consumers of video edutainment seldom watch a playlist of videos in a predetermined order. Each video should be brief, but informative and meaningful as self-contained episodes whenever possible, and videos can rarely assume that the viewer has acquired foundational knowledge from another video.
In order to reach the “Goldilocks” zone—a level of discussion that is neither too abstract to be boring or overwhelming nor too oversimplified to the point of misrepresentation or condescension—an instructional video is likely more effective when considering the following:
Information hierarchy—Since novice audiences will not know how to hierarchize content as they receive them in a video, my narration will play a significant role in signaling content organization. Video editing such as strategic cuts between talking head and screen share or visual overlays can also signal content hierarchy.
Information pacing—Recommended video lengths for social media have ranged from 30 seconds (Instagram) to 2 minutes (YouTube). While this range may not be realistic, it is important to ensure that every sentence in my script (1) offers something new and isn’t redundant; (2) logically follows from the previous sentence. Time spent describing content should also reflect its relative importance in the context of the overall video.
Technical knowledge—Complex knowledge and jargon should be explained in simpler terms, unless it is reasonably common knowledge. If in doubt, it is often err on the side of (concise) redundancy.
Scaffolding—Because many aspects of music production are invisible to lay audiences and thus difficult to isolate, direct before/after contrasts will be a major teaching strategy. Specifically, they should show (1) the technique applied at 0% and at 100% intensity to show the principle in its “pure” form, and (2) the technique applied sparingly as if by a professional for a more realistic example. Visual aids also reinforce or concretize real-time auditory phenomena.