Music Production

I would recommend the free music specialization course track at coursera. Just choose to "audit" to get the entire thing for free. you just won't get graded (by a human) you will get to see how your answers are on all multiple choice stuff.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/music-production

You only need to pay if you want a certificate and human grading your work.

>This Specialization will give you the knowledge and tools you need to record and produce professional sounding music. You will begin by developing your identity, vision, and intention as an artist and producer. Next, you will learn the technical aspects of music production, including how sound is translated into audio signals, recording techniques, and effects such as reverb, delay, and compression. You will also learn how to use the industry standard Digital Audio Workstation, Pro Tools, to create professional recordings. Finally, you will apply the knowledge and tools you gained in a culminating 4-week Capstone where you will complete a project beginning at the pre-production stage through the recording, mixing, and mastering stages.

Complete a music prod 101 course on coursera.org It's free, and if you understand all of the teachings you are ready to move on. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/music-production

I’d recommend Berklee’s free stuff on coursera. If you have the money, their official online production courses are really really great and really massively increased my knowledge level.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/music-production

Udemy has some good options as well.

For gear start here. For an introduction to music production try this Coursera course

For more detailed answers on mics, cables, audio interfaces, speakers & stands try /r/audioengineering

As far as songwriting goes it's a mixture of lyrics and music.

For lyrics you could do worse than buy - and do the exercises in - Pat Pattison's book "Writing Better Lyrics". You'll also need to buy a rhyming dictionary - see the book for details on which one he recommends. I've used it and have zero complaints. If you don't want to spend money on a rhyming dictionary then rhymezone.com works just fine. If you want a course then Coursera have a condensed version of his book where he talks you through what to do here

For the music side of things if you don't play an instrument you're going to struggle. So learn to play piano or guitar because those are the two instruments most songwriters use to write their music on. You'll need some music theory as well - check the sidebar on /r/musictheory for recommendations. I'd also recommend "Chord Progressions for Songwriters" by Richard Scott which is a slightly more practical book than the majority of theory textbooks.

Bear in mind that most people writing songs have been playing some kind of instrument for years & learned how to write by just listening to a lot of music and picking it up as they went along. So hang onto your dream because you've got a long, long road ahead of you.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/music-production

Are online courses worth looking into as a low cost in-between? What about something like the Music production specialization Certificate form Coursera? I think it costs around £150 ($200?).

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/music-production

Berklee Music Production/Songwriting Course?

I've found lots of dead links on reddit to a free Berklee Music Production course and a Songwriting course, but when I checked coursera all I could find was an extremely expensive Music Production course and a partial songwriting course. Does anyone know if its still possible to find the old ones somewhere?

Thank you!

EDIT: Here is the course, I can't find an option to audit it but I'm not sure if that means there is no such option.

The best thing you can do is do a bit of self-directed learning. People will give you endless tips but unless you have an overview of the mixing process it will seem like the information just doesn't join up properly.

My advice would be:

1. Purchase - and read - at least one introductory mixing book. You don't need the lastest version because although mixing technology . These will give you an overview of how the mixing process works, what the various tools do and how you typically use them. All introductory books on this topic cover more-or-less the same ground albeit in slightly different ways. The book I found most helpful was "Mixing Audio" by Roey Izhaki. "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio" by Mike Senior and "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook" by Bobby Orwinski also get reasonable write-ups. I've got Mike Senior's book but I tend to find Izhaki easier to use for whatever reason: Just personal preference I expect.

2. Go to Coursera and enroll on their Music Production course. It's free and decent.

After that I'd say to just do a fair bit of mixing while broadening your knowledge of the subject.
For that I'd suggest:

1. Watch "The Recording Revolution" videos - they're reasonably informative.

2. Check Mike Senior's column in Sound on Sound. He deals with all sorts of mixing-related issues and there will likely be something in his columns for whatever problems you have.

If you find you're struggling (most people do) then there a variety of paid-for online beginner's courses aimed at getting you up and running ... I used Joe Gilder's Music Production course but I believe Graham Cochrane (recording revolution guy) also does courses. From what I could tell the general feeling over at /r/audioengineering is that these courses are a pile of crap offered by people who aren't well-known in the industry for mixing. My personal opinion is that is all very well but if I want to learn mixing from someone who is well-known it will cost me more money than I want to spend, and also just because someone's good at their job doesn't mean they're able to teach it very well.

As far as mastering goes - think of that as "specialised mixing". Its purpose is to make several tracks sound like they belong together, as well as prepare those tracks for transfer to some medium or other (vinyl, CD, whatever), and make sure the tracks sound good on various playback systems. Generally mastering engineers only start as mastering engineers after they've been doing "ordinary" mixing for a while. There's a chap called Ian Shepherd who does mastering courses. I took one of his courses a while ago) and it's pretty good but I found that really my mixing chops weren't really up to the task. I would say that you don't need to master your tracks unless you're looking to release them for sale and probably you don't even need to do it unless you intend to release several tracks as an album. If you want to have your tracks mastered it might just be easier to pay someone for it.

Maybe this Coursera Specialization can help you with a general understanding of music production. I think if you take the individual courses without a certificate, it´s free (not sure, check the course details).

This course is specifically about electronic music.

Some other online courses at Udemy may be relevant as well.

I found this to be quite helpful for the basics. I also used Joe Gilder's online production club which is a bit more in-depth.

Other than that I did a ton of reading (Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio, Recording Engineer's Handbook, Mixing Audio.

You might want to take a look at the sidebar on /r/audioengineering to see what their FAQ says too.