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5 Simple Habits That Will Turn You Into a Real Music Producer

Music Production Habits

I know how hard it is sometimes to produce music. I’ve been there! As a music producer myself, I thought it would be useful if I shared some of the simple things which I found to have improved my musicmaking process. The first, and the most important one is…

 
1. It’s not the musicmaking part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to make music.

What that means is that the most important part of being a music producer is actually making music. In fact, the main focus of every successful music producer is ON the process, not IN it. What I mean by this is that focusing on actually sitting down to make music each day will make a far greater impact on your results than focusing on the little nuances of production (compression, basslines, etc.) It will also make you more satisfied of your own progress if you’ll manage to actually do it daily!

But how do I actually sit down to make music every single day? It’s not that easy, is it? That leads us to the second point, which is…

 
2. Make time sacred.


In fact, this was the thing that changed my life. What I did was I sacrificed only a small period of time (even as little as 30 minutes at first!) to make music every single day. I said:

I’m going to make music from this time to this time every single day. For example, when I was at school, I used to produce music every day from 7 to 8 PM daily. So many people get stuck on this step, because producing isn’t the highest priority in their lives. Yet it doesn’t mean neglecting any other part of your life which is vital! It just means that, for example, instead of watching a new episode of Game of Thrones, you’ll sit down and make music for 30 minutes, even if the result will be complete crap.

But how to deal with it when I simply don’t like the music I make? The next point solved that problem for me.

 

PML Beginners Course: Producing A Track From Scratch in Ableton

 

LEARN MORE: PML Self-Paced Beginners Course: Producing A Track From Scratch in Ableton

 

3. Have a music production journal.


It doesn’t mean writing in any notebooks! What I did was I just exported my file every time I finished my 30 minute session. I stored all these files in a dropbox folder, which I called „Music Production Journal“. All the files I named after the day I made them in.

What this allowed me to do, was to listen to my music in different surroundings. I could easily access that folder on my phone, when I was jogging, going to school, or basically anytime I wanted to. I often used to spend so much time in my bedroom listening to my music over and over, that the tracks appeared boring to me. By listening to my music in different surroundings I got to hear my music from a whole different perspective.

A good thing to do when listening to music from your „Journal“ is to note down 3 things which you would like to change in your track. Next time you’ll start a new track, have a starting point in improving the 3 things you noted down when listening previously.

„I’m not sure if I should finish my track already…“ - The problem of figuring out the moment when to decide that a track is finished is often a problem to all artists, which often are perfectionists. The next point allowed me to figure it out, which is:

 

4. When finishing, focus on neutral things.

Music producers often ask themselves questions, such as „Is this bassline right?“ „Should I change the kick?“ „Is the melody good enough?“ etc…

All these questions are understandable - we want our art to be as good as it can be. But asking them over and over won’t ever allow you to finish your track and move forward. What I did, was I told myself this instead:

„Once this track’s got all the necessary parts, it’s done.“

This solved all the finishing problems for me. I like to make a plan for a song first, then follow it (add all the necessary instruments) and then FINISH the track. Once I have all the instruments layed out in a certain arrangement, I just check the volumes in my track and put it out. This strategy seems scary at first, but in fact it was the strategy that allowed me to REALLY progress when making music. In fact there was an experiment carried over on this.

Students of a class were divided into two groups. The task of both groups was to write a good assignment. The distinction was that one group had to write only one, perfect assignment, and the second group could write multiple assignments, improving with every new one. The end result was that the group who learned from their mistakes totally outperformed the group which was stuck perfecting their one work.

The fifth, and the final point is:


 

5. Screw your music morals.


In today’s music production world, people often disagree over many things, such as:

„Are presets/samples cheating?“

„Should I share my secret tricks with my friends?“

„Is watching tutorials good or should I learn everything on my own?“

The thing is, that the top level music producers don’t care about these issues. Having such morals will really limit your musicmaking progress - if you won’t use this preset because „it’s not fair“, someone else will. If you won’t watch a tutorial on how to compress a bassline properly, someone else will. If you won’t share the preset for your best synth, I’m sure: someone else will. And in the long run, they will win.

That being said, I encourage you to check out this project file of one of my tracks. I’ve shared it, because I don’t have music morals, and I want to share all my secrets with you. (Note: k-pizza's project file will be coming up in the next days including an extensive tutorial).

Good luck with your music production! :)

 

k pizza author soundcloud

k-pizza

I’m k-pizza, a chill trap music maker who likes to share his experiences with other producers. I’m regularly going to show up with music and content at PML.

Listen: https://souncloud.com/k-pizza

 

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PML Beginners Course: Producing A Track From Scratch in Ableton

 

LEARN MORE: PML Self-Paced Beginners Course: Producing A Track From Scratch in Ableton

 

 





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