Complete Music Production With Andrew Huang [UPDATED]

Andrew Huang is a well-known music producer in the YouTube universe and has released more than 50 albums of original music. He often receives attention for creating songs in unusual ways like making a track only using carrots as an instrument or writing lyrics where every word has to start with the next letter of the alphabet.

As a struggling music creator myself, it was pretty awesome to see Andrew deal with those same struggles I face on a daily basis, not because I like watching other people struggle but because I learned a lot by watching him get past these problems. Seeing Andrew applying tedious automation shapes or reworking a lead sound for the fifth time inspired me to dig a little deeper when working on my own track.

Huang was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario.[4] He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts at York University studying music before becoming self-employed as a music producer and YouTube personality. At the age of 20, Huang developed a hearing loss issue overnight that medical professionals have been unable to explain. It has resulted in a diminished bass response and reduction in volume in both his ears, and is more pronounced on the right side. Due to this, Huang often seeks help from other producers during the mixing stages of production.[5][6] He lives in Toronto with his wife Esther and their daughter Evelyn.[7][8][9] Huang has no pronoun preference,[10] and is gender non-conforming.[11]

Huang occasionally uses unusual instruments to record cover versions of songs. One of his early efforts was released a week before AMC's Breaking Bad aired its series finale, featuring a cover of its unsettling title music using clandestine chemistry equipment.[22] Other examples include a cover version of \"99 Red Balloons\" recorded with balloons,[23][24] and a cover of The Weeknd's \"Can't Feel My Face\", using dental instruments filmed in his dentist's office.[8]

Huang has collaborated with various other YouTube personalities, most notably with Boyinaband and Hannah Hart.[29][30] He provided instrumentation and songwriting for Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers' Incongruent, and toured across the United States with the band.[31] Huang produced the music for Rhett and Link's \"Geeks vs. Nerds\" music video in 2013.[32]

In 2010, Huang teamed up with musician and internet personality Gunnarolla to produce videos and music, including the popular series We Are What You Tweet and New State Plates. The pair have toured North America, Australia, and New Zealand together.[citation needed] Huang and Gunnarolla later created electropop music duo Dreamz. As a duo, they entered CBC Music's Searchlight contest under this new name, and their debut single \"Come On\" was selected as CBC Here and Now's Song of the Week on March 11, 2013.[33] Dreamz reached the Top 16 of the contest representing Toronto.[34][35]

In 2008, Huang entered a contest run by American Express and won a chance to develop a music project with Emily Haines, lead vocalist for Canadian indie band Metric. He created an interactive installation featuring a series of videos that visitors could use to create ambient music.[36] The piece was exhibited at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto during November 2011.[37]

In June 2019, Andrew began a new project with YouTuber and science educator Hank Green, Journey to the Microcosmos, a YouTube channel uploading short videos of microscope slides accompanied by voiceovers explaining different mechanisms of microscopic biological life. Huang produces all of the ambient tracks for the show's background music.[41]

Can you hear how you want things to sound in your head but feel blocked by music production software and technology Come hang with Keeley Bumford (Dresage) as she walks through her process of what it means to be a self-producing artist and why it is the #1 empowering skill set you can harness as a creator. In this 5 day course, covered topics include: producing while songwriting, reasons for producing yourself, creating your sonic palette, instrumentation, samples and synths, vocal engineering & producing, creative automation, mixing, and much more.

Dresage is singer/songwriter/producer Keeley Bumford's personal exploration of sound and texture. By marrying a love of vocal stylings from jazz greats with dark and moody electronic tracks, listeners can dance, sway, or dig deep into their own strange and glorious psyches. Currently based in Los Angeles, Dresage's music promises inventive indie pop that flows through space and time.

I am currently enrolling in this program under Monthly. It's basically an intensive music production course by Andrew Huang. At the end of this course, you're supposed to come up with 3 self-produced songs in stages.

Before the proper course begins, you have a week or two of onboarding session. During that session, Andrew briefed us on the course content, the equipment needed and music theory. I have no problems with them as the essential equipment needed, I have them. Music theory is manageable to learn. When you apply it, it's a different story. It took me a while to learn and create chord progressions. Andrew is very technical on this and it can be overwhelming. My suggestion is practice, practice and practice either using your favourite instrument or via a digital audio workspace (DAW) such as GarageBand. In that course, Andrew uses Ableton Live. However, it shouldn't be a problem as you're able to follow with any DAW of your choice. Please take note that DAW display differs from operating systems so the display of GarageBand on Mac is different from display on iPad.

Combining profound musical and technical expertise with unconventional, humorous video editing, Andrew Huang brings a fresh new touch to the otherwise dry and techy subject of in-depth gear reviews. Huang has the ability to inspire a broader audience without dumbing down the subject matter. Kind of the cool teacher you have always wanted to have in school.

An often overlooked, but integral part of music making is having a smooth production workflow. Make sure everything has its dedicated space, so when inspiration strikes you are ready to go and can be creative. Laziness can be a real productivity killer. Even simple things, like setting up your keyboard or plugging in cables can sometimes be obstacles that prevent you from making music, so having a fixed setup can be essential to the creative process.

Another great tip is having default templates installed to your go-to DAW. Most music production platforms enable users to customize functions and set certain default settings that load up automatically when you open up the software.

Hear the stories behind the music with the Signal Path podcast. Tapping a global network of musicians, producers, engineers and other sonic innovators, Shure brings you exclusive interviews with the people shaping the world of audio.

For the latest episode, Mary Spender chatted with Andrew Huang at the Montreux Jazz Festival.The Toronto-based producer is known for his entertaining and behind-the-scenes music videos, which have won him a massive following on YouTube. Rapping 300 words in under a minute, making a unicorn-shaped midi composition and covering \"99 Red Balloons\" using just red balloons are a testament to his quirky creativity.

In the podcast, Huang reveals what drew him to music production, how he made viral videos before YouTube and why a devoted fan had his lyrics tattooed on her arm.Though he's now famous for turning all sorts of unexpected household objects into musical instruments, his introduction to making music was far more traditional.

\"I started on piano like many kids do,\" Huang says. \"I did the conservatory thing up to sixth grade. That was a really great foundation. Learned a lot about theory.\"After choosing guitar, bass and drums as a teenager, he started to teach himself music production: \"I just had a little tape player and I recorded my songs on that. I was immediately interested in how that shaped the music. You know, how close to the microphone you are using. The medium you're recording on.\"

Long before YouTube existed and social media was widespread, Huang was busy sharing his music online via a LiveJournal blog and good old email. But even after the juggernaut video website started up, it took a few years for him to realize its potential.\"I was just posting whatever I felt like working on,\" he says. \"Where I eventually found my voice was in sharing my own creative processes. And really pulling back the curtain on how music is made in the studio. Sharing my new music while explaining how it came to be.\"It's a formula that clearly works: Huang now commands an audience of 1.4 million followers on YouTube.\"A lot of the time, a YouTube video about how I made a piece of music will be more popular than that piece of music itself,\" he says, adding that he has no problem if fans connect with him more as a personality than a musician. \"It's about bringing people along on this journey with me.\"

He gets 20-30 free requests a day, most of which have piled up into an 11,000-strong unread folder in his email account, and gets a paid request every day or two. Those will typically cost between $50 and $150 per minute, and Huang says his monthly income ranges between $500 and $1500 Canadian. \"Since it's all freelancing, it really fluctuates a lot,\" he says, \"But I live pretty simply, so it's not a big deal.\" Controlling his urge to buy musical equipment has helped tremendously, he adds. What he does have is remarkably modest for someone supporting themselves with a full-time music recording and production gig: he owns three microphones, for example.

But despite heavy college coursework in composition and a childhood rife with formal training, Huang says the production is often the key to making the customer happy. \"A lot of it is more to do with the sound than the notes,\" he says. \"I think people have an intuitive ear for production now, more than they might have used to