 We're now in a world where the majority of musicians are writing and recording their music all within their own home studio. This process takes away the traditional separation of writing and recording as two separate modes that has existed for nearly a century. I've always welcomed this change, though, since musicians having more control over their vision gets us more interesting colors and flavors in music. With that said, it's worth analyzing what this lack of separation can bring to your process or possibly detract from it. In this video, I wanna discuss how differentiating the process of demoing versus recording your songs in your home studio could bring to your music. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon, and this is Muse Formation. The best part of the traditional divide of writing and recording was commitment. In the 1930s to 60s, the way a song sounded in rehearsal was a commitment, since little would be able to be done to enhance it past what you had come up with in that rehearsal room since in the studio there was no overdubbing to be done and the effects were so limited. After this period, the advent of producers who helped shape, polish, and eventually co-write them led them to a commitment that an artist needed to craft a song as good as they could to get it on their own, but a producer would then patch up any flaws in it and bring some tricks to the table. The producer mixer or in some case, outside writers would be able to help shape the songs into a better work. Many producers and A&R bemoaned this erosion of standards for being a degradation of the craft of songwriting, since musicians aren't working tirelessly to a song's ultimate actualization. They're just getting it good enough with the songwriter and then hoping the producer or mixer will save it. Instead, when songs are brought into the studio, they're good enough to record and that standard seemed to slip lower and lower with the advent of pro tools and musicians believing that anything can be fixed by some sort of computer wizard. This fix into the mix philosophy is the Achilles' heel of countless songs. This borderline of commitment became a zigzag scribble by the time home recording became what it is today, which is a part of nearly every great records process to some extent now. While many musicians may only use home recording for demoing and drafting, the line has been blurred for almost every musician making music today. With that established, is there still a benefit to separating writing from recording when you record your own music? I think the answer lies in the commitment it brings. What many home recorders do is have a demo time where their soft sings and other sounds can still be tweaked and arrangements are malleable. But if you watch interviews with most of the top bedroom producers, they all say they eventually begin a commitment process. I mean, even groups who had to work out with tape like the Prodigy also differentiated this part of the process since their synths would go from being in midi onto tape where they would commit to it. They print out or freeze the synths to begin working on a perfecting a song that's essential to the recording process. They then start a mixing process and commit the way the traditional recordings have. The stereo track is a commitment for the mastering engineer. This practice is commonly lost on home recorders. Having a controlled process gives many musicians a focus that benefits from the past but as the flexibility of the future. While it's beneficial to not have a ticking clock on the mixing process at home, the distinctions between the parts of the process are often able to bring a project, a separation that benefits an artist's focus. In pop productions, the process most often has an initial writer demo song and it goes through various stages as a beat writer will hand it off to a producer who polishes the song and then the vocals. Then there's a later commitment. As it goes to mixing, that all tracking and editing are completed and you have to hand it in as perfect as possible. You see this as the differentiation between a writer and producer on any pop productions where the writer won't be credited as a producer. They only write the song and then the producer brings out the performances in all the tones in the song but keeps the writer's structure of melody and arrangement. Seeing your production stages can help you gain focus by committing along the way while gaining objectivity. Think about how this could help affect your process if you bring more commitment to your process and start to see your songwriting in different phases. Thanks so much for watching. That's it, am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artists, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessicanon.com or at jessicanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.