Over the 13 years I’ve been producing, I’ve made loads of bad decisions that prevented my music from developing faster and made me spend money on unnecessary things.
Today, I’ll share some of the worst decisions I’ve made so you can learn what not to do, saving money, time, and energy instead:
4 THOUGHTS FROM ME
1. “I can learn everything I need on YouTube or by myself”.
Even though there is a lot of good information on YouTube, and you can learn a lot by yourself, there will be a time when trying to learn all by yourself will end up having a negative cost on your career. It possibly won’t cost you dollars, but it could cost you in stress and time, which can later drain your motivation and start playing mind games on you.
But, if you’re set on learning through YouTube, then what I recommend is:
- Find more long-form content. Instead of just watching “the one trick that will change your …” videos, watch start-to-finish videos from producers you admire, because that will show how they make their tracks;
- Watch tons of ‘Project Walkthrough’ videos from tracks that you love. While watching these, make sure to write every technique you hear and highlight the ones you like so you can try them later, as this will expose you to producers you look up to and, most importantly, release tracks you like;
- Focus on learning from fewer producers to avoid confusion. Instead of watching any video out there, select a few channels you like and focus on them. Too much information can often lead you to overload and leave you paralyzed and confused, so getting your information from fewer sources can narrow the amount of information and how it’s being given to you.
While this can help you be more effective from learning from videos, it can still take more time, because it’s often messy and unstructured, so if you’re open to getting some help:
- Find a mentor. Find someone who can guide you through your issues and make sure you develop over time, which can fast-track your learning, and reduce stress due to a more structured ‘program’ (if you need help with that, hit me up, and I’ll be happy to help you);
- Find online courses from a producer you admire. While 1on1 learning is often more effective, it can also be more costly than an online course. So, you can start with an online course, and then move to a mentor as you become more advanced in your music, or find a course that also offers 1on1 mentorship.
2. “If I put more focus on marketing, my music and my career will blow up”.
This was one of my beliefs early on in my career, when I decided to put more effort into promoting my music than making and learning more about music. But, I was deeply wrong. Instead, what I would’ve done if I could go back is:
- Do not invest in marketing too early in your career. I remember spending hundreds on promotion and PR packages when my biggest focus shouldn’t have been on marketing, but on developing my songs and my music. “But, good music promotes itself, right”? That’s also wrong because good music without the right tools goes only so far, but it’s important to focus on your music first.
Instead, set a BIG goal, like signing with one of your most wanted labels, as the trigger for you to start promoting since this can help you avoid promoting in the earlier stages of your career, when you shouldn’t be focusing on that; - Don’t make content that won’t help you promote your music. Even though becoming a content creator can help you later push your music, ask yourself if it’s attracting an audience that will also enjoy your releases because, otherwise, it won’t help your music later anyway. One example that could help is making DJ sets, like what Chris Luno did and later helped him when he started releasing his songs;
- Focus your time on making music and developing your skills. Marketing needs to take a backseat until your skills are fully developed, so make that a priority first.
3. “I don’t need to focus on sound design or sound selection to make good songs”.
One of the most common mistakes producers make is focusing too much on processing sounds rather than finding good sounds to begin with. Instead, we layer a lot, we buy new synths to find new sounds, and spend loads in FX plugins to help us compress and process everything, right? Instead:
- Stop trying to ‘side-step’ sound design and sound selection. Pick 5 songs you like and that are close to what you want to make, and as you listen to them, notice or write down the sounds that are being used in the songs. Now:
- For drums, go to a sample pack and try to find the corresponding sounds, as this will give you knowledge about sounds and what to use and what not to use when you’re making your own songs. Also, make sure to mark the pack you find the most corresponding sounds as your go-to pack;
- For Synths, go to our sound design playlist on youtube and recreate everything there as doing this will expose you to different techniques that will later give you the knowledge you need to tweak presets and understand how to achieve the sounds your favorite artists are using (you can also find more videos from me in The Sound Design Channel;
- Focus on a few sample and preset packs. Instead of having loads of sample packs and preset packs, get a few that you like and use them as your go-to packs. Then, for all songs, start your search in your go-to sample or preset pack, and this will help you gain speed and efficiency since you’ll limit your search to the pack that you found the most sounds similar to your favorite artists. You can also check our store for amazing sample packs and preset packs
4. “If I only I had this one plugin…”.
I bet you’ve bought a few plugins that you never use anymore, right? Don’t worry, all producers do this. I probably wasted at least 1-2k and loads of hours checking if different plugins were “worth it”. Instead:
- Build a great toolkit to prevent you from buying duplicate VSTs. Instead of buying tons of plugins that do the same thing, buy them according to their function, so instead of buying Pigments and Serum, get only 1 of them to avoid duplicate functionality. If you have Serum 2, Diva, a sidechain plugin like Volumeshaper, and a mastering bundle like iZotope Ozone, you don’t need anything else.
As Chris Lake says: “I’ve produced music for nearly 25 years and I can honestly say, even though I own lots of different EQ plugins, I barely hear the difference of the ‘sound’ between all of them”, so just use your stock EQ instead of spending loads on unnecessary stuff; - Learn to use your plugins instead of buying new ones. If you knew how to properly use Serum 2 and Diva, you’d see that you don’t need another synth, and that can save you money and time ‘test driving’ another plugin. It’s the F1 driver who drives the car, not the car itself or any other tool, so learn how to properly use your tools instead of thinking any other tools will save your life;
- Focus on your skill development. I said it before: focus on developing skills, getting a mentor, and learning your craft before you pull out the credit card. Your music and life will be better for it.
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
What else do I recommend to producers to prevent them from wasting time and energy?
1. Find a reference track.
Especially when you’re beginning, using references can help you tremendously by giving you examples of composition, arrangement, and sound design that work in the market and that you can apply to your tracks. And, even later in your career, when mixing, it can also be crucial to guide you through your mix and also ‘to refresh your ears’ from overlistening to the same track over and over.
2. Be careful when comparing yourself to other producers.
Comparing yourself to other producers can be a motivation killer when you’re just bitter about the situation, but it can also be extremely helpful, depending on how you approach it.
Make sure you’re looking at it from a ‘how can I get better’ approach, and if you know the person, ask him/her what they are doing, learn from it, and adapt your strategy. Try to find what you can do to make this happen instead of just complaining about it.
3. Stop overanalyzing every little bit of your music.
Instead of spending 3 hours in the last 5% of your song, spend those hours making another song since that will likely make a bigger impact on your audience. Not only this, but the ‘last 5%” is likely stuff that only you hear and that if you asked for feedback nobody would even notice, so why waste time with it?
