Install an audio recording software onto your computer. The standard is Protools, but some other brands are Cubase, Cakewalk, Audacity, Audition or Reaper. Reaper is a free and can be downloaded online.
Install an audio mastering program onto your computer. Audition, Sony Sound Forge, Wave Lab or Peak Pro are all good mastering programs.
Install an audio interface onto your computer. An audio interface is an external device that will allow you to record vocals and instruments onto your computer.
Hook up speakers to your audio interface so that you can play back what you record.
Record all the parts of your song onto your recording software. It is best to record in a room that doesn’t have a lot of background noise such as an air conditioner.
Mix the track so that the snare, kick, bass and vocals can be heard through both speakers. Guitars, backup vocals, pianos, keyboards and cymbals should be spread between the speakers. Experiment with the placement of instruments until you are satisfied.
Sweep each track for frequencies. To do this, you must solo a track so that is the only one you can hear. Pull up a parametric equalizer, which will be one of the effects on your program. As you listen to the track, amplify each frequency until you find one that is really harsh and turn down the level of this frequency. Do this for all of the tracks.
Experiment with adding effects such as delay and reverb to different tracks until you find a sound that you like.
Listen to the whole song and turn up the volume of any track that is too quiet and turn down the volume of any track that you think is too loud. Do this until the song sounds the way that you would like it to sound.
Export the song into an AIFF file or WAV file. These are the best quality file formats. AIFF files are used for Mac computers and WAV files are used for PCs.
Open the exported file in your mastering program.
Use an equalizer to go through and equalize the entire song. Adding a little low end at around 50 hz and a little high end at around 10,000 hz will help bring the song to life.
Compress the song. Compression is a way to turn the volume of a song up without changing the decibel level. This makes the song peak at a specific level while making it as loud as possible.
Set the files decibel level to 0. You can do this by using the normalize effect and specify it to peak at 0 decibels.
Save the file and enjoy your finished song.