The most useless music production tips that I’ve heard over 15 years of experience

Over the years, I’ve followed so much terrible advice that I wish someone had done a post like this for me when I was developing so I could avoid years of wasted time on bad advice.

Even though sometimes the advice is well intentioned, the way it’s said makes it a bit misleading, which then makes it bad advice. So, here is some of the most useless advice that I’ve heard

4 THOUGHTS FROM ME

1. “Make loads of tracks, and you’ll get better at production.“

One of the most common advice producers give is to prioritize quantity over quality, and while this is still better than the opposite, just quantity itself won’t get you so far. For it to be useful, you need to also do a few things:

1. Work SMARTER, not HARDER. With every new track, something you struggle with must be solved. It’s not enough to just keep pumping out song after song without improving anything, as this won’t lead you to enough progress. So, you have to focus on fixing and experimenting with at least one issue in every new song.
2. Make a list of things you need to fix after each finished track. Before jumping into your next song, listen to your just-finished song, and list everything you feel that could be better, which you can also do by getting feedback (get it here). Then, rank what you need to fix from top to bottom, and fix the top one in your next song. Now, after finishing any new song, refresh this list with new issues that might arise;
3. Focus on producing more than learning. After learning the basics, if you have 3 hours to produce, I’d spend two hours and thirty minutes producing because that’s where most of your progress will come from. At the same time, it’s important to learn new techniques so you can then apply them to your projects.
   To avoid wasting time, I recommend passively listening to/watching tutorials while at work or commuting, and when you find something interesting or that you didn’t know, timestamp it and revisit it later while in the DAW. This way, you can learn during ‘unproductive’ hours, and spend your productive hours in your DAW.

2. “You need to learn how to mix to perfection before you can make a hit song.“

A lot of advice about mixing is just bad and, sometimes, just puts even more pressure on learning music production. Here is some common mixing advice I hear that I would avoid, and one that I’d consider:

1. EQ everything, especially resonating frequencies. Resonant frequencies can be annoying, but they also can make your sound dead when you take them off. In my songs, I don’t do resonant frequency cuts unless it bothers me, which happens in less than 10% of my channels during a mix. It’s not wrong to take them off, but it’s often overdone, which often makes it a waste of time;
2. Low-cut everything. While low cutting is useful to open up space for your bass, your mid bass, etc, overdoing it also can make your sounds weak. Instead of focusing on low-cutting the most you can, focus on low-cutting only when and where you need to open space.
   For example, cleaning a bit of the low end from your leads for your bass, or the low end from a piano if you already have a mid bass there. This should be used if two elements are conflicting in the same region and you need to open space for them, but not by default;
3. You don’t need to worry about mono, as most systems are stereo. One of the biggest misconceptions in mixing is ignoring mono, assuming most speakers are stereo. However, many phones and portable speakers, like JBLs, still play in mono. Instead, you can mix in stereo, but you need to check your song in mono as well.
   As a rule of thumb, if an important element—like a lead, vocal, or piano—disappears in mono, try adding some mono signal to it (we have a free tool for ableton for that) or change the sound to have more mono info;
4. Hire an engineer to help. If you’re struggling to make your mix the best it can be, you can always just hire someone to do it for you. Not only to get your song mixed, but also to learn from the mixed song what you need to achieve with your song in mixing terms. Analyze what the engineer did and try to replicate it in your own mixes, and you’ll learn a lot that way.

3. “Do this trick, and it will solve your low-end issues.“

Any time I hear a producer say ‘this solved all my problems in my low end’, I tend to be suspicious because it’s never a one-size-fits-all solution and especially beginner/intermediate producers tend to think that once they do that, all their problems will be solved, but that’s not how it works.

Here are some common things I’ve heard that aren’t as simple as what’s being said:

1. Just compress your kick and bass, and you’ll solve your issues.Compressing your kick and bass helps glue them together in level, making them sound more balanced with each other. But, what if your kick and bass are too loud compared to the rest of your song? Instead, it’s better to learn how to properly level your kick and sub, like how it is shown in this video;
2. Mono your low end or cut the sub in your stereo signal to avoid any issues below 120hz. Well, what if your bass progression plays from A (110hz), C (130,8hz), and D (146,8hz)? Then, only one note of the progression would be mono/cut, right? Instead, pick the lowest note of the progression and take 10-15hz out, so, for this example, I’d do a cut around 95-100hz, or at 190-200hz, then you’re making sure that you’re including all your notes there;
3. Your bass and your sub can’t be stereo. Even though I usually don’t make my subs stereo, several songs from Lane 8 and Nora En Pure have stereo bass. Normally, I recommend that your sub, the lowest part of your bass (around 40-80hz ish), is mono, and you can do that by making it separately with a sine wave in Serum, Vital, or any wavetable synth (not Diva because the sines in Diva are not pure sines).
   For all the rest, you can be as stereo as you want. For all these issues, you can watch this video, and it will help you understand why and how you can solve them, instead of just giving you a secret formula.

4. “You need a flat response listening environment to make good music.“

One of the most common yet useless tips I see producers obsessing over is that you need a flat-response environment to make good music or that you can’t produce music using only headphones. This mindset often leads producers to spend a lot of money on room treatment before they even have the skills to fully benefit from it. Instead:

1. Focus on learning before you treat your room. I see a lot of producers treating their room as if this would save their music, but it doesn’t. Instead, Before spending money on this, invest in things that will actually help you, like coaching, courses, and a basic set of plugins. In addition, before buying acoustic treatment, try some DIY techniques like putting a blanket behind your speakers which will already help you prevent some reflections;
2. Buy a good pair of headphones. Get a good pair of headphones. I love my Sennheiser HD600, but they are extremely flat, which can make them sound a bit ‘boring’ at first. However, their flat response makes them great for checking and even mixing tracks. You can 100% produce an entire song with them, but you just need to understand them well. I also recommend the HD650, and I hear good things about the DT770 by Beyerdynamic, which are more accessible than the Sennheiser’s;
3. Invest in a good pair of speakers that fit in your room. If you’re on a budget, I’ve heard good things about the Adam Audio D3V, and I personally own the IK Multimedia iLoud Micro, which is already great. If you can spend a bit more, consider the Adam T7V or T5V, or the KRK Rokit 5 or 7.
   Although you can do everything with headphones, speakers provide a different listening perspective that can impact both your production and mixing. I find this very helpful, and I value both speakers and headphones. Just make sure to avoid buying a speaker too big for your room, or that can create even more problems for you.

1 QUESTION FOR YOU

What else are some common useless ideas that we all hear being said?

1. You should not use loops or presets when making your own songs.

Every producer goes through the ‘I need to make all my synths’ phase, and while this is good for a period since it will force you to learn sound design, it’s definitely not recommendable as you move along your career.

Presets and samples speed up your workflow, and sound design takes a LOT of experience to master. Take advantage of them, but also learn how to tweak them to make them your own. And, if you’re looking for some good sounds, you can check our preset packs for Serum and Diva and sample packs in our store.

2. Layer the living hell out of everything.

At some point, you’ll hear that layering everything makes your sounds fuller and richer, but this can also make your track too crowded. The goal is not ‘layer’ for the sake of layering, but to enrich your sound by changing the voicing, the textures that you add.

So, you don’t need three similar-sounding leads for a strong main lead. Instead, use layers that add new textures, for example, a lead sound combined with a noise layer.

3. Less is more.

After the ‘layer everything’,’ you can go through the ‘less is more’ mentality, where you do less simply because ‘less is more’, which can make your track empty. Instead, you should focus on enough.

If your track feels like it’s missing something, add an element. Take the time to find quality samples, and you’ll realize you don’t need as many to achieve your desired sound.