How to make demo tracks (the right way)

Every good song starts with a bunch of great demos. 

But how do you go about creating one?

And why should you even bother?

I’m going to answer both of these questions today and hopefully it’ll help you out with your next song.

The 3 Types of Demos

Idea demos:

These are the scrappiest form of demo track and are usually where the song starts. 

You’ve probably made plenty of these before without realising!

Instrumental demos:

After the idea demo you’ll make instrumental demos, and this is where it starts shaping into the final track.

The key here is keeping it lightweight and not to polish anything yet.

Why bother? Because an instrumental demo will allow you to:

• Critique the track fairly
• Write your vocals
• Share your ideas in a professional manner (“Sun Dance inst demo 2” rather than “Hardcore metal riff 537 cool idea”)

Vocal demos:

This is the final stage of demoing before your final recording.

As the name implies you’ll build on your instrumental demos by adding on the vocals.

At this point you still don’t want to be polishing, but you do want to be finalising ideas.

How do you make a demo?

Template:

This will apply to the instrumental and vocal demos.

The idea with using a template is to make idea generation and recording as fast and as painless as possible. Having to mix during your demo process will disrupt your writing.

Keep the session lightweight. Set the faders, add some light eq where needed and effects like reverb or delay where the track needs them to sound right

Fight the urge to get a perfect mix in this stage. It will hurt your writing in the long run.

A template might include:

• Guitar (1 or 2 rhythm tracks and a couple leads)
• Bass
• Drums
• Vox (you can duplicate if need be)

Recording:

The quality of the recording is going to vary depending on the stage, but in general:

Don’t worry about getting great takes.

Don’t worry about finalising parts.

For quick ideas, don’t even bother double tracking guitar!

For a quick vocal demo, just sing the song right through. Closer to the end of the demo process, add layers and better takes.

Mix (or lack thereof):

This is where you should spend the least of your time.

If the template good, there will be very little to do.

Just get to the stage where you can hear everything clearly and the levels are roughly where you need them. 

Your final demos might include some compression so they sound more polished but anything more than this is a waste of time. You’re not going to be releasing the demo!

The ONLY time it really matters is when you’re showing your demos to people who don’t make music. They won’t understand what the point of a demo is so it can be harder for them to overlook a bad mix.

Finally, the key is that you focus on what is essential for each stage of demos. Don’t worry about anything which doesn’t push your writing ahead – easier said than done, I know!

Also, although I’ve mentioned 3 types of demos, this doesn’t mean 3 stages of demoing. The more demos you make the better an idea you have of what your song is. It also helps you keep a record of the progress you’ve made on the track, in case you need to back-track.

Don’t get too attached to the demos though! Demoitis is a real thing!