How to Find a Music Producer Online When You Need One

Most likely you came to this post because, as the title suggests, you’re trying to figure out how to find a music producer online to work on your music or project.

It’s possible that you’re a musician who needs a track produced, mixed, edited, or you need instrumentals or a beat, or you’re a filmmaker or otherwise working on a project in which you need music custom made, you can easily find a producer to buy music from, or to make music exclusively for you.

All it requires is knowing how to find one when you need one. And this post will give set you in the right direction.

Other helpful posts:

• Music Production Courses Online
• Songwriting Ideas for Beginners
• Career Choices in Music Production
• Recording Amazing Vocals

Find Music Producers Online

Who is this post for…

If you’re reading this post, you more than likely fall under one of the following categories:

• You are an artist or vocalist. You have lyrics and songs that you want music for, but you don’t know how, or you don’t want to, make the beats or instrumentals yourself.
• You are a singer-songwriter who has recorded pilot tracks of your songs. You would like music to be made to it by an instrumental producer in whatever style you like.
• You’re part of a production team of creatives making a film or some other video/visual media that needs original music as background music or backing track.
• You’re a producer yourself, and you want instrumentals for an EP or album concept your creating and supervising. You need producers for beats and instruments for your project.

Of course, these are only a few possible options. But they’re the main cases that you’ll come across when you observe people searching around for music producers.

Clarifications

First, let’s understand what a producer is, as the topic is rather broad and can cause some level of confusion for those who are searching.

What is a Producer, Really?

A producer is, in a very general way, anyone who engages in the creative direction or a music project behind the scenes. While a musician is generally someone who plays an instrument for a living, a producer is involved with the conceptualization of a musical idea and directs the execution of that concept into a product.

That may mean the creation of a beat to be sold. It could mean the sourcing of talent to be recorded on a music or album project.

A music producer normally has a variety of skills. They usually know something about music from a theoretical and engineering standpoint, but at least knows what sounds good and how to achieve that sound.

They know something about the music business, which is a very important part. Never forget this.

However, many people, when thinking of music producers, think of the typical bedroom producer who makes beats or instrumentals in his home studio. That is one kind of producer. A producer can also give you advice on your creative direction, or add to it in some way.

In other words…

… producers are not typically like session musicians, a producer is someone that has the capacity to understand your concept and aid in its creation.

Now, how do you find a music producer, based on the principles I laid out above?

Artist or Vocalist In Need of a Producer 

You might be an artist who needs musical material to create new ideas with. You probably want something with a nice beat or hook to get your creative juices flowing.

What you want is most likely a beatmaker type producer.

These can be anything from a bedroom producer to a producer with a fully equipped home recording studio. Beatmakers are often synonymous with hip-hop, but they are also house producers, pop producers, EDM producers, reggae/dub producers, even rock producer who are experts at making instrumental productions.

These are often producers who are also multi-instrumentalists, as when it comes to something like reggae or rock, for instance, which is usually very instrumental, these producers are capable playing all the foundation instruments for a track to flesh out into an instrumental for your song – drums, bass, guitar, keys, maybe even percussion.

Normally, these producers will have their own websites where you can buy their instrumentals. You can even download their beats and compositions for free before buying them, just to test whether or not you like them, then make your purchase when you’ve decided.

Something to consider…

Producers that allow free downloads normally have a voice tag in them which tells you who made the track. If you don’t want it in your music, you’d have to pay to have it removed.

Also, free tracks are normally low-quality MP3s. What you’d get if you purchase a track is a high-quality WAV audio file, and optionally the track-out or “stems” for that track, meaning, each instrument in the composition is on its own track.

That way, when it’s time to mix your vocals in, your voice is sitting nicely within the track, and not just an addon. You can hear this effect in low-quality mixes by artists who don’t know better, it has the effect that they have been recorded, over the music, rather than being properly mixed as part of the music.

Ouch.

Where to find quality beats?

You can find pre-made beats and instrumentals to buy at places like Beatstars, AIRBIT, Beat Brokerz, and Rocbattle.

Singer-songwriter or Producer in Need of a Producer

The producer you need is similar to the above. The only difference is that, while an artist-vocalist would want premade tracks for songs to ad-lib to, or for creating new material, what you actually want is a producer who can listen to your pilot recordings (even if you made them on a phone, or preferably a USB mic) and flesh out an instrumental to it.

If you’re an executive producer yourself, what you want is an instrumental/beat producer who can create either a pilot of a track for your concept or, like the singer-songwriter option mentioned above, fully produce your song concepts.

Here are a few options you could do:

• Hire a ghost producer! Ghost producers, like ghost writers, do the production work for you while you keep the production credits. A good service that does this is edm-ghost-production.com.
• You can go on Fiverr.com, Airgigs.com, or UpWork.com and search for producers willing to make high-quality productions for your music for any budget. Just define your budget, and determine what you want. Search for a producer and place your order. You will be in communications as to the creative process.
• SoundBetter.com has a good range of producers for your projects and songs
• Studiopros.com offers an online music production service where you can get your song fully produced online.

Film and Other Visual Media Creators that Need a Music Producer

If you don’t want to use royalty-free music, you can contract a freelance producer/composer to make music for your project. The best options are, again, Fiverr.com, Airgigs.com, and UpWork.com.

Other Options

Your ability to find a music producer is not limited to the above.

There is LoudUp, an online social network for musicians and producers to connect and be discovered.

There is Vocalizr, a service for connecting vocalists with producers.

And of course, there is social media.

You can join Google + groups, Facebook groups, and even tweet that you need a music producer. Chances are, one will respond to your tweet. I see it all the time…

A good Google + group to join would be Computer Music Production. Browse through the posts and connect with a producer you think you’d like to work with.

Reddit is filled with discussions by producers as well that you can be a part of. It’s a good place to develop a relationship with new producers you may otherwise have a hard time finding because they’re not on the other resources I mentioned.

Of course, do not ignore YouTube and SoundCloud. Searching queries for musical styles that you’d like will produce an endless list of videos featuring music by online producers, usually with a link to contact for hire and further opportunities.

Final Thoughts

As you see, there are several options in you’re trying to figure out how to find a music producer online. You can browse beat stores based on genre and styles, browse an online freelancing platforms for producers seeking hire, visit a site dedicated to connecting with music producers, or use social media.