1. Trust your taste. In other words, don’t second guess yourself. Who are you doing this for anyway?
2. Stop crapping on popular music for your ego. You can learn from anything. In fact, it’s wise to learn from music that millions listen to.
3. Using loops doesn’t make you a “fake” artist.
It’s the end product that counts. Look at the gaming industry. Do you
know how many of them use Unity? Or Unreal? What matters is the game.
What matters is the music.
4. Same goes with samples.
5. Having a beverage while you produce will make the process much more fluid. Arguably it’s the caffeine. Arguably it’s having something to reach for in between empty moments.
6. Get a nice pair of headphones or monitors ASAP. Frequency response is important. Bass is important.
7. Mixing is not mysterious judo. Go ahead and mix. Make bad mixes. Eventually, you’ll make good mixes.
8. Mastering is not mysterious judo. Go ahead and master. Make bad masters. Eventually, you’ll make good masters.
9. Buy a quality sample pack as soon as possible. Here are some quality packs incuding a free one.
10. Let music you don’t like or understand warm up to you. Chances are you’ll dig it once it’s familiar.
11. Repetition is important and
minimalism is key but don’t use these as an excuse to ignore that last
20% of polish. Give your tracks that spit shine sheen.
12. No one cares until they do. Work on your craft and put it out.
13. If there’s no market for your work they may never care. Do you care?
14. If you don’t enjoy listening to your music you’re doing something wrong (or working for hire).
15. Start building a reliable way to connect with people who want your music. Email list is a good idea.
16. Free shouldn’t literally mean free. Give it out for a purpose. Facebook likes? SoundCloud followers? Email subscribers?
17. Think about where people will listen to your music. What is the setting? This should inform your production.
18. Think about what people will listen to your music. Who are they? This should inform your production.
19. Don’t resist learning music theory. Music theory is a map. You can navigate without it but it’s handy to have.
20. Don’t compare yourself too much to professional artists. Especially not early on.
21. DO aim for the quality of these pro artists. But again, do not let them stunt you.
22. You’ll reach a point where your music is actually on par with professionals and you’ll only recognize it looking back.
23. It doesn’t matter what DAW you use.
24. The final production is what matters — not how it’s made.
25. I repeat. The final production is what matters — not how it’s made.
26. Don’t ever make excuses with regards to tools.
You can make amazing music with 100% free software. Remember that $400
you spent on synths that Deadmau5 was known to use? You’ll use those for
about two songs.
27. New tools do provide opportunities for new directions. Spice up your production once in a while by acquiring a new plugin, sample pack, or instrument.
28. You know that guitar you’ve played for half your life? Stop pretending you don’t want to use it and get an interface. I recommend this one.
29. Invest in a solid microphone to go with that interface. I recommend this one.
30. There are four tiers of audio equipment.
- Cheap
- Solid enough for pro use. Consumer level pricing.
- “Pro” which is marginally better than number 2.
- Expensive.
Tier two is good enough. Ignore the rest. When you make a living off of music you can splurge . Read More
