8-Step Song Finishing Checklist

Finishing music is hard.

In fact, I would argue it’s the most difficult aspect of the creative process. It’s just a lot easier to endlessly tweak your music than it is to confidently put the finishing touches on a song and release it out into the world.

I get that. Not only in my own music, but in my student’s music as well.

In teaching my masterclass over the past year or so, I realized that a lot of upcoming producers just didn’t really have a good sense for when their song was actually finished.

And look, in reality, a song is never done until you say it is, but that can get you in trouble because technically, you could keep tweaking forever.

So as I sat down to work out this issue, I realized that there are certain steps that I take 9 times out 10 when finishing music. That’s where this checklist was born. Because that endless tweaking-adjusting-refining-modifying cycle needs to stop right now.

Nothing – and I mean nothing – is more detrimental to your growth as a music producer than getting in the habit of NOT finishing your music.