10 House Music Production Tips by Deborah Aime La Bagarre

I’ve been producing house music for 10 years. Here are my top 10 tips. 

1. Don’t wait for the perfect studio

« The more I speak with producers, the more I discover that their best tunes were made on a dirty kitchen table with old headphones. A $500k pro studio with a custom-built white marble desk is an amazing bonus for your creativity sessions but is not necessary to start, test and learn. Equipment will come with time.”

2. Choose wisely

“Making music is making choices. Some of them are emotional, some are intellectual but I like to see a piece of art as a sum of decisions. So every choice counts and should support your intention. Every sample, chord progressions, presets, FX , etc. will shape your track in a specific way. I would recommend to be in love with all your choices and make sure that they really help you to express what you want to.”

3. Be inspired 

“Having a few reference tracks in mind can easily help you to stick to your line. You can directly add it in an audio track on your DAW to come back to it as much as you want. I always have 2 or 3 reference tracks, generally one from the 90s for the vibe, a modern one for some aspect of the mix and one of mine to stay coherent (regarding to my personal taste).”

4. Ask for feedbacks

“If your childhood friend is a multi-GRAMMY Awards Winner producer, ask for his/her feedback. If not, you can ask for detailed and constructive feedback from your favorite producers directly on Echio.”

5. Learn the language

“Composing music is a language in which sounds are the words. Learning to recognize instruments, drum machines samples, effects and more seems essential to me. Each era, genre, places have their own signature sounds and there is plenty of material online to learn about it. So if you want to find a proper late bass-type sound from the Yamaha TX81z, you first need to know its name to be able to find it.”

6. Stay light

“I know that not everyone agrees on this but I think that too many tools create too many problems. Like cooking food, if your kitchen is messy with an infinite amount of equipment you are not familiar with, there is a more likely chance to get lost in the process and overcomplicate things. So stay light and use the tools you master. We already have more tools in the cheapest version of Ableton than Daft Punk had in their first studio.”

7. Put the volume down

“Kicks, bass, hats and some other elements are usually way too loud in the mix. They take the space of some other important part of your sound design and affect the overall feeling of the track. Every instrument should have its own space and every space should have its own instrument. Last time I finished a tune, I put the kick down of 2,5db just before exporting the premaster and the whole mix breathed. Each part has found their inner peace.”

8. Mix and master won’t save a track 

“Mix and master are very important parts of the process and require a lot of skills, but if the raw material (your premaster version) is not good enough (regarding volumes, EQ, groove, etc), it will not save your track. The listening experience of a track, its depth, richness, and impact mainly depends on the sound design and the choice of samples. Mastering will enhance the overall sound but won't eliminate major mistakes.”

9. Check tutorials 

“There is an infinite amount of tutorials online. From lessons about a specific tool or synth to full production breakdown online workshops. The best ones for me are the “making a track from scratch” ones, where you can follow a creative journey from start to finish and understand all the choices made during the journey (cf. tip 2).”

10. Enjoy and wait  

“I believe that enjoying the process is the best way to keep going and progress. Even if it’s not always an easy journey, try to find what makes you fulfilled during your creativity time. Is it producing alone? With a team? outside? with a light set up? on hardware? a few hours a day? during residencies? with your multi-GRAMMY Awards Winner childhood friend?”

11. Make music

“Don’t waste too much time listening to other producers “top 10 production tips” and go make music.”