Recently, an AUDIOTUTS reader asked me about creative process. While this is a topic that can’t be made into a tutorial, I’d like to create an open comment thread here for readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodworks and tell us how you take a song from beginning to end.

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The Be a Cakewalk Coach competition was going to close last night — but luckily for you, we’ve extended the deadline until midnight on October the 10th. After that, entries are closed for good.

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Pulling off an excellent studio performance can be difficult. The environment is, for most of us, daunting and cold, even if we’ve spent a lot of time in it. But there are many ways you can give yourself the advantage and improve your comfort with that environment. Give them all a shot, and what could go wrong?

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Depth by doubling. You can hear it in almost any song. Big, booming guitars and wide chorus vocals are just some of the most popular times that double tracking and fake doubling are pulled out of the trick bag and dropped into a mix.

If your mixes sound hollow, empty, lifeless and small, you may need a bit more depth. Try one of these techniques and see if they work for you.

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If you don’t lay down plans before you get into the studio, you’re asking for trouble. If you don’t, the sounds are going to end up clashing for attention and the song is going to sound like it was thrown together unless you figure out what you’re doing in advance and plan accordingly.

Which instruments will be up close, in your face, in the mix? Which ones will be far back? Which instruments will dominate the high frequency spectrum and which ones belong in the bottom? These are just a few opening thoughts, and by no means the whole shebang.

But don’t despair, because today we’re going to go through a planning process that could save you hours (or days, or weeks) in the studio trying to fix problems that could have easily been avoided.

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Reason doesn’t offer users the greatest control over sound processing. The built-in reverb, compressor and so on will do the trick when you want to start composing a new song, but what about when the composition is done and it’s time to mix?

In this tutorial, we’ll go through the steps required to get your entire Reason rack routing into individual channels in Logic, a simple, handy process, but one that’s a dark and mysterious art to many newcomers.

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To celebrate the release of pyro Audio Creator 1.5, Cakewalk has teamed up with AUDIOTUTS to bring you the Be a Cakewalk Coach! competition. Show off your ability to create cool video tutorials in true AUDIOTUTS style and you’ll be in the running to win a fantastic set of prizes.

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If you’re serious about your instrument, you practice. You either set aside blocks of time throughout the week or you trust yourself to pick up your guitar or start belting because you love doing it.

There are notable examples of musicians who don’t practice—take Slash from Guns N’ Roses, for example—but they sure did before they reached their peak (and they’d probably grow as players if they took it up again).

There’s just no getting around practice as an integral part of your continuing skill as an instrumentalist. Finger memory and fast chord changes, knowing your limits and expanding them, these are all things that come from dedicated, regular practice.

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We tend to focus on the production of music around here, but ever since we launched AUDIOTUTS we’ve had many requests for a tutorial on podcasting. This is that tutorial.

GarageBand isn’t the most complicated or expensive piece of software around and it’s certainly never used in professional studio recording, but it’s more than you’ll ever need for any kind of podcast. And if you know you’re only going to record podcasts, and never get into music production, why break the bank?

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