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How do you think music production could be understood? How do you guys learn and improve your production skills? Youtube?Udemy courses? Having a degree in music production?

Also, those who have been to a University, was it worth the price? Do these universities really teach you the practical or skillful stuff and get you polished up to the industry standards?

All insights are welcome!

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I doubt any two people do it the same way, but ultimately it comes down to practise, practise & more practise.
Remember the old adage, that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at something. [That's 5 years, working a 40-hour week]

Personally, I spent 7 years as a jobbing musician before ever touching a recording desk.

I then started with what at the time was 'entry-level', a 4-track tape recorder.
These days, forget that & go straight for a DAW - but, don't be fooled into thinking that owning every plugin available is going to make you 'better'. Learn one at a time, spend a month with it at least.

After a couple of years doing that, at demo level, I got the break into major studio work; as a session player & singer not an engineer, but I spent that time watching & listening to what the pros were doing. At the same time, I was improving my own hardware & continuing to make home demos.
After about 5 years of that I was being asked by production houses to work with their brand new artistes in development work. Another 5 years of that & I think I had it cracked.

The closest I've ever been to any University structure was when I was asked to provide one with some demo recordings they could use to teach their students mic & EQ technique. Last I heard, that material was still being used, 20 years after I first recorded it.

The moral of this story is: no matter which route you take, it's not going to be a one-year learning curve.

Truth be told, I never did make a #1 record… but I did play on one ;)

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  • Learning how sound works and being taught by people from the business won't make you worse, neither will it make you good. It indeed is only practice and everything aside of that is just material to practice. But if you're taking lessons and you find yourself not so interested in how compressors work exactly and how you use things like patch bays. You need to get your hands on the actual stuff to gain the interest. If you're not interested, you won't learn. That's kind of my motto.
    – Long Tree Studios
    Jun 17, 2020 at 22:27
  • Oh yeah, what gets you hired is a portfolio, not a degree.
    – Long Tree Studios
    Jun 17, 2020 at 22:29

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