Building a Complete Song, Start to Finish

0. Before you open a blank project

If you haven't already, work through Getting Set Up and Creating Your First Project — five minutes sorting out your preferences, template, tempo, and key so you're not fighting the app while you're trying to be creative.

1. A quick primer on song structure

Most popular music is built from a small set of recurring sections, each usually running 4 or 8 bars:

• Intro — sets the tone, often sparser than the rest of the song.
• Verse — tells the story, usually the same music with different lyrics each time it repeats.
• Chorus — the hook, usually the fullest and most memorable part.
• Bridge — a contrasting section, appearing once, that sets up the final chorus.
• Outro — winds the song down, often by stripping elements back out.

A common shape is Intro → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Bridge → Chorus → Outro, but this is a starting template, not a rule — plenty of great songs skip a bridge, repeat a verse, or drop straight into the chorus. The one pattern worth keeping regardless of the exact order: build in contrast. A chorus only feels big if the verse before it was comparatively small.

2. Build the rhythm foundation

Start with drums — either a full performance from the Drummer track, or a fast sketch using Apple Loops if you just want a groove to write against. Everything else in the song will lock to this rhythmic foundation, so it's worth getting down first even in rough form.

3. Add the harmony

Record a chord progression on a Software Instrument track. If you're not sure what to play, the Music Theory Basics page and built-in scale and chord tools can build you a solid progression without needing formal training — and if you're working from a reference song rather than writing from scratch, see How to Work Out Any Song's Chords by Ear.

4. Add the bass

Keep it simple to start: follow the root note of whatever chord is currently playing, locked in with the kick drum. A bassline's main job is gluing the drums and harmony together — it rarely needs to be complicated to work.

5. Add melody and vocals

Record your lead line — a vocal on an Audio track, or a lead instrument on a Software Instrument track. Don't chase a perfect take yet; a rough pass is enough to confirm the melody works over what you've built so far.

6. Arrange the sections

With a rough pass of every part built, use arrangement markers to label your sections from the structure primer above, then reorder, duplicate, and trim whole sections at once. This is the fastest way to test structural changes — a shorter intro, an extra chorus — without redoing any performances.

7. Edit and tighten

Clean up the performances: trim and split regions in the basic editing pass, tighten timing and velocity with MIDI editing or the Piano Roll, and fix any audio timing or pitch issues with Flex Time and Flex Pitch.

8. Rough mix

Do a first pass of volume and panning between tracks — nothing fancy, just get everything sitting where it belongs relative to everything else before you start shaping tone.

9. Effects and automation

Add reverb, delay, and compression where the mix needs them, and use automation so the mix changes over time instead of sitting static — building intensity into a chorus, for example, the way advanced automation covers in more depth.

10. Polish the vocal

Re-record the vocal for real if you haven't already, then comp together the best takes and apply light, natural pitch correction. If it needs more width and thickness, layer in doubling and harmonies.

11. A deeper mixing pass

Once every element is in place, route similar tracks through shared buses, use sends for efficient reverb, and consider ducking — covered in Advanced Mixing: Buses, Sends, and Ducking.

12. Master and export

Finish with a mastering pass on the master bus to get the track loud, balanced, and release-ready, then export and share the finished file. Sending the project to a mixing engineer or into Logic Pro instead? See Exporting Stems and Moving to Logic Pro.

Want the genre-specific version of this?

This walkthrough is deliberately genre-agnostic. For a version of this same process tailored to a specific style — with concrete tempo ranges and production choices — see Find Your Sound.