How Long Does It Take to Produce an EDM Song?

Multiple spinning clocks

How long it takes to produce an EDM (electronic dance music) song depends on the experience and knowledge of the producer. Also, the choices he/she makes influence how long it takes to produce a full EDM song.

How long does it take to produce an EDM song? An estimation of how long generally it takes to produce an EDM song is around 20 hours. Further, an estimation of how long generally it takes to produce an EDM song together with mixing and mastering is around 25 hours and 45 minutes, or just 25 hours. This second estimation is 25 hours when we master our song with an automated online audio mastering service.

After this introduction, this post goes more in-depth about the variables that influence the time it takes to produce an EDM song. Also, this post shows how it came to the time estimations about the time it takes to produce/mix/master an EDM song.

The Variables That Influence the Time It Takes to Produce a Song

The amount of time it will take for a producer to produce a full EDM song from start to finish can depend on multiple variables. The subsections here below explain these variables but are probably not all variables.

Experience of the Producer

In a way, we can see the experience of a producer also as some variables, such as:

  • The more skills and experience a producer has, the generally faster he/she produces music. A more skilled and experienced producer generally does more on routine and has more producing knowledge, then a less skilled and experienced producer. For example, someone who produces for many years and has made many songs is probably faster than someone who will make his/her first song ever.
  • The type of song the producer will make, since he/she may find one type easier than a different one. For example, the producer has already made many techno songs, but never a drum and bass song. Therefore, he/she probably makes techno songs faster than drum and bass songs.
A person choosing with a finger between red and orange colors

Songs Choices of a Producer Within a Song

When producers produce an EDM song, they can make many choices that influence how long it will take to finish the song. Some of these choices are:

  • The amount of detail the producer wants in a song since creating/choosing details for a song cost time and adding the created/chosen details in a song also cost time. A song detail could be a sound effect or a sound design for something.
  • The number of elements a producer wants in his/her song since generally the more elements a producer wants in his/her song, the more time it costs. For example, a song with ten elements can cost more time to make than a song with twenty elements.
  • The complexity the producer creates in his/her song elements. Generally, adding extra complexity to an element cost extra time. For example, a bassline with all the notes on one pitch probably costs less time to make than a bassline with the notes on multiple pitches.
  • The number of elements or parts of elements the producer makes for his/her song, and generally, the more elements or parts of elements the producer makes, the longer it will take. For example, a producer can make a drum loop or pick a drum loop from a sample pack, by which a making an own drum loop can take more time.

High-level Song Choices of a Producer

A producer can make some song choices that we can see as choices outside the song itself, and such choices are:

  • The number of parts a producer wants to reuse from an already finished song. Generally, the more song elements or parts of elements the producer will reuse, the less time it will take. For example, if the producer reuses a song project and almost only changes the melodies and the basslines, then he/she doesn’t have to make a complete song, which saves time.
  • The number of elements the producer copies (which is not always legal) of a song of someone else to use in his/her song. Generally, the more elements a producer copies, the less time it takes to make the song. For example, it is common to copy by listening to the arrangement (song structure) of the song of someone else.

The Time It Takes to Produce Electronic Dance Music

By looking at some (not all) webpages from Reddit, Quora, and Gearslutz.com, we can see that the time it takes for someone to mix a song varies a lot. These time amounts range from a few minutes to multiple years.

When looking at these time amounts, a more realistic time range is between 2 hours and 72 hours, at least in my opinion. Moreover, by looking at these time amounts, I think (not calculated or something like that) that 20 hours for producing a song is a good estimation.

There is sometimes a communication problem between people, which is hopefully possible to explain with an example. Someone can say that he/she has fully produced a song in 24 hours. Some people interpreted this time amount with the mixing and mastering, and some people interpreted it without the mixing and mastering, which we can also see at the mentioned Gearslutz.com page in this section.

A clock with its back opened

Mixing and Mastering Time Variables

These days probably every professional fully produced song is mixed and mastered. Many people see mixing and mastering as two separate processes from producing.

When we search online for mixing and mastering engineers, we can find many results. For example, we can find mixing and mastering engineers on Fiverr and AirGigs. As we can see in the found results, we can hire many people with both roles, as mixing, and as a mastering engineer.

A Wikipedia page explains mixing like this: The process in which the mixing engineer combines multiple sounds into one or more audio channels. In this process, the audio source volume level, dynamics, frequencies, and panoramic position is enhanced/manipulated.

There is a Wikipedia page with a mastering explanation, which is a bit vague, in my opinion. However, I will still present it here. After that, I will give my explanation, which is helpful, hopefully.

The Wikipedia page explains mastering like this: The post-production process in which the mastering engineer prepares and transfers recorded audio containing the final mix from a source to a data storage device. This data storage device will be the source from which people make copies.

I explain the mastering more like this: The final processing of a full song, such as equalizing and compression. The purpose of mastering is at least to make the song sound better on many systems and services, such as listening to the song on Spotify with laptop speakers.

The Time It Takes to Mix and Master a Song

Some producers mix/master their songs while they are producing a song. Therefore, when they finished their production, it is hard to count how long they mixed and mastered a song.

Again, by looking at some webpages from Reddit, Quora, and Gearslutz.com, we can see that the time it takes for someone to mix a song varies a lot. These time amounts range from a few minutes to multiple years.

When looking at these time amounts, a more realistic time range is between 1 hour and 16 hours. Moreover, by looking at these time amounts, I think (only thinking) that 5 hours for mixing a song is a good estimation.

A webpage on Gearslutz.com shows us some time amounts about how long it can take to master a track. Many of these time amounts vary around one hour, and I think (again not calculated or something like that) that 45 minutes for mastering a song is a good estimation.

Automated Online Audio Mastering

An alternative to mastering by a master engineer is automated online audio mastering. With such online audio mastering, a user can upload their not mastered song, and a few minutes later, he/she downloads the mastered song.

As far as I know, there are not free automated online audio mastering services, but hiring a master engineer can also cost money. Also, mastered songs by these services lack of human creativity since the software of these services master the songs. The quality of the mastering by such a service is opinion based, and many services improve over time.

Some automated online audio mastering services are LANDR, eMastered, and CloudBounce.

Closing Words

Hopefully, you have learned something about how long it takes to produce an EDM song. As already mentioned, some people see the mixing/mastering of a song as a part of producing it. Therefore, this post also explained how long it takes to mix/master a produced song.

If you like this post, then you may want to look at some posts in the production part of this website, since this post is also part of it.

When you know someone who likes to know more about how long it takes to produce an EDM song, then feel free to share this post. Additionally, how long does it generally takes for you to produce an EDM song?

By Markus Kreukniet

Markus Kreukniet is an electronic dance music (EDM) producer and founder of Passion for EDM. He wants to share his EDM knowledge with the rest of the world. Read more about Markus Kreukniet.

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