Producing A Club Track with Thomas Gold | Music Production Masterclass

Lessons In This Masterclass

Finding Your Idea Part 1

Thomas Gold starts us off with the initial inspiration and vocal demo he received for his song “Got To Know”. He plays through the vocal and discusses how he began forming chords to it that would help point the song in the direction it needed to get started. He also discusses general ideas he adheres to when starting a song to get the ball rolling production wise. Producers looking to break their writer's block or develop ways to sprout ideas more consistently can find great value in this tutorial.

Finding Your Idea Part 2

Thomas Gold adds to his initial draft of the song covered in the previous tutorial with the basic elements of the drop. He discusses his decision making for the drop’s kick and bass sound as well as a single brass sound he included to hone in on the direction for the drop. Producers looking to speed up their workflow can find great benefit in seeing how Thomas incorporates minimal and simple yet effective elements to capture the idea for the song and keep the workflow going for the rest of the song.

Developing Your Idea Part 1

After discussing his inspiration and initial draft, Thomas now shows us a more developed production of the song. He has added on much more to the drop delving into different sound design choices he has made as well as the overall arrangement of the song that is starting to take shape. Producers looking to see how they can expand a loop into a more developed song structure can find great benefit in this tutorial.

Developing Your Idea Part 2

Thomas now starts to incorporate layers to the basic sounds he demonstrated in earlier tutorials with enhanced bass layers and vocoders for vocals among many of the additions he has made thus far. He shows interesting mixing techniques for the kick and bass as well as sound design choices to help spice up the production. Producers looking to gain ideas on how they can make simple elements sound bigger and more interesting in their songs will find benefit in seeing how Thomas develops a simple skeleton of a song to a more fleshed out production.

Arranging Your Idea

Thomas takes the different sections he has built out and arranges them into a full song structure. He does not add many elements aside from one or two sounds, rather he takes existing elements and copies them into different sections of the song to create a cohesive structure from start to finish. Producers looking to quickly develop a structure to help give their production more of a direction can find great value in seeing how Thomas does as such.

Drop Drums and Bass

Moving on from the bass sound, Thomas produces more elements into the drum section of the song. He discusses his methods for layering together drum elements such as claps and hats as well as how he incorporates subtle background sounds within the drum section to keep the song flowing over the course of its duration. Producers looking to work on their drum programming will learn a good amount from this tutorial.

Second Drop

Finalizing the Arrangement

Finalizing the Production

In this tutorial, Thomas takes his existing production that has been fully arranged and adds finishing details before it is sent off to mastering. Including a look into how he automates his final arrangement to add emphasis on different parts of the track as well as bus processing on main groups, this tutorial will help producers looking to gain skills on making more impactful transitions and prepare their productions for mastering.

Mastering Part 1

In part 1 of his 3 part mastering tutorial, Thomas talks about his approach to mastering and how to achieve maximum effect out of minimal changes to the production in this stage. He unveils his mastering chain as well as a run through of each plug-in and how he uses each to finish off and boost the quality of the song in the mastering section. Producers looking to gain a better understanding of mastering their songs can benefit greatly from Thomas’ beginner friendly and detailed walk-through.

Mastering Part 2

In part 2 of his 3 part mastering tutorial, Thomas takes us through eq methods of the master chain. He shows his own stock setting master eq as well as discusses common techniques producers should employ to better utilize eq’s on their master chain. He also goes into how he uses a limiter at the end of his master chain and what specific parameters he aims for in completing the master. Producers looking to fine tune their masters to be a little bit more clear, loud, and high-quality can find great benefit in the details discussed in this tutorial.

Mastering Part 3

Creating an Extended Mix

Favorite Plugins and Storytelling

Thomas discusses his favorite plug-ins as well as tips on how to better craft the story and overall arc of the songs you work on. He walks step by step through the various plugins he uses for each specific effect and discusses the benefits of each. He further explains how artists should take inspiration from a multitude of different sources when producing and how they can channel that inspiration into better storytelling within their songs. Producers can gain great insight from Thomas explaining his production arsenal of choice and his methods for developing inspiration and story within song.

Now or Never

For this tutorial, Thomas analyzes the song Now or Never as a reference for the points discussed in this on-going tutorial series. He makes comparisons to his own track that we’ve been deconstructing throughout the tutorial analyzing similarities in style and arrangement while differences in actual elements within each song. Producers looking to get a better understanding of the overall structure of club tracks can find great benefit in this tutorial.

Strings

In the last tutorial of this series, Thomas shows us how he approaches string sounds in his production. He shows us common plugins and tools he uses for emulating string sounds as well as processing techniques he commonly turns to for taking dry string sounds to a more interesting space. Producers who are interested or who currently use strings in their production will find great benefit with this tutorial.

Producing A Club Track with Thomas Gold