In this lesson you will learn: Decide a track is done on evidence rather than exhaustion. Hand off files a mix engineer can actually work with. Have credits and splits settled before release, not after. Know exactly which lesson to go to next.
Unfinished songs outnumber released ones by a wide margin, usually because nobody defined what finished means. This lesson gives you a test you can apply, and gets your files and paperwork into the state the rest of the Academy assumes you're already in.
You've heard it on phone speakers, headphones, and in a car, and it holds up on all three. Anything that only works on your setup isn't finished.. Your recent changes have stopped being improvements and started being alternatives. That's the signal to stop, not a reason to keep going.. Someone who hasn't heard it before can tell you what it's about and hum something back.. Nothing distracts you on a full listen. If your ear catches the same moment every pass, fix that one thing and re-run the test.
Consolidated Stem exports, all starting at bar one, same sample rate and bit depth, clearly named by instrument rather than by track number.. No mastering-stage processing on the master bus. Send it clean and send your rough mix separately as a reference for the intent.. A short note on what you want protected and what you're relaxed about. Engineers make better decisions with a stated priority than with silence.. `prod-01` and `prod-03` cover the full handoff checklist and mix prep in detail — this is the short version.
Finalise the Split sheet with every contributor, percentages totalling 100, legal names and PRO affiliations recorded.. Register the composition with your PRO so Performance royalty income can find you, and note that this is separate from anything your Distributor does.. Fix the credit spellings you'll use everywhere — distributor, DSP profiles, socials — and keep them identical. Inconsistent credits cause the Metadata mismatches that `rel-01` and `rel-04` exist to prevent.
Releasing it: start the Release & distribution track at `rel-01` for identifiers, artwork, and pre-release sequencing.. Getting paid properly: Royalties & business, starting with `biz-03` on PROs and publishing credits.. Going deeper on craft: the Production & workflow track, and free external drilling at musictheory.net or Ableton's Learning Music — both genuinely good and we'd rather you use them than not.