Hi - does anyone know any good books that are suitable for amateur producers?
I’m using octatrack as my production center, and…something which is not DAW spesific would probably be more useful.
I got this recently:
https://www.samplemagic.com/details/73/the-producers-manual
While I’m pretty familiar with many of the concepts in here, it acts as a nice, eh, manual.
It’s worth keeping in mind that there’s no synthesis related stuff here, as it’s more geared towards understanding recording, compression, studio treatment etc – it gives an overview on pretty much all aspects of recording and producing music. So have a look and see if it covers the topics you’d want it to. But a very nice book, anyways.
Depends what you are trying to learn. For general mixdown tips I enjoyed Zen & The Art of Mixing:
Its not genre-specific but is quite useful - written by a guy who was mixing engineer for the Pharcyde, Ben Harper etc. His diary about producing an awful rock band and it all going badly wrong is a very amusing read too:
Also the Sound On Sound Studio SOS book is great reference for setting up a home studio. Lots of useful tips and aimed at bedroom studio types so its not just recommending you build a £250,000 control room etc:
“Mixing with your mind”