Today music production has become a very popular hobby. With the advent of softwares like Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, etc. Anyone can pick up music production with no music background! Although it is easier for people to produce music today than ever before, that doesn’t mean everyone will be able to make high quality beats despite having access to all these awesome tools, and what’s more important is to have the right mindset that goes a long way.
Tips for Beginner Music Producers
We all know music production is a tough business. It is important to be on top of your game and always working on new music. Fortunately, we have 20 tips for beginner music producers that will help you become a better producer! Here are some of the music production tips I have for you to help you improve your music.
1.Knowing Your “Why”
It may sounds cliche to tell someone to listen to your inner voice, knowing your purpose and your “why” in making music at this point, but I believe this is really the ultimate truth, if you don’t know why you are doing something there’s no reason for us to continue devoting our time and energy into it.
We all have passion in music, we got inspired by some great musicians, we found our own value while making music, we find it meaningful in making music that someone could really resonant with, but as time goes by, the longer we are in something, we may forgot how and why we got here at the first place, therefore it’s important to keep ourself reminded every once in awhile, so do you still remember your “why”?
2. Use Good References When Starting A New Beat
Often time we just go with the “flow” while we are creating music, there is nothing wrong with that, many great music were created while we were going with the “flow”. But if you want to get improved rapidly, starting with a reference could be a great way to go, we learn from the process of mimicking and analysing what was done in that designated song we chose. In most cases we may get a better results and more efficient with our time spent as well, I highly recommend that.
3. Understand Music Theory For Better Composition Skills
I don’t know about you but I started composing music without a solid theory background, although it’s not a completely bad thing in my opinion, I did write some great music back then as well, but I didn’t know what I was doing at that time.
There’s no workflow and all I know was just going with the “flow”, there’s nothing wrong with that though but I find myself more efficient in composing after learning contemporary music harmony, how chords work and all that.
Whenever I get writer block instead of continue exploring with my ear with no directions, I could apply some chord theory, analyse what I’ve done and get unstuck right away, I find it helpful in this way. Music theory is important because it allows you to understand how everything works together harmonically instead of just randomly putting things together.
4.Don’t Be Obsess With The Chord Harmony
I know, I just told you to study about music theory but there’s no conflict with this, what I’m actually trying to say is that not to be over obsessing with all the theories and chords that you are using.
Most music major student will most likely fallen into this trap, the more we learn the more systematic we may become. We are obsess with what chords we should use, we over analyse what we do in every song, do all the theoretical music “math” before we even started pressing the first chord on our music instrument.
It’s great to know more about the theory, but over do would just makes us become a robot or scientist than a musician. Eventually every musical piece we compose may just turns out to be a hardcore jazz piece, unless you want to be a jazzer but I suppose a great jazzer play every chords with a reason, an intention to build up the emotion in a song, not just complicating every single chords just to impress others (may be sometime they do), but I think you get what mean.
5. Make Sure The Music Fits The Genre It Is Supposed To Be In
When it comes to composing and producing a song, often times we may fall into another trap that we tend to produce the song into the genre we want, showing off some fancy music arrangement or to do it as a case study instead of how this song should really be.
What we may often overlook is the message, the intension of the song, that’s what determine how the song should be, we have to really understand what this song is trying to deliver before we make the final decision on the genre of that specific song.
6. Use Presets And Templates
Instead of starting a song from scratch every times, why not leveraging on the existing or pre made templates and preset? I know a significant amount of musician may have this ego that wanting to do everything by their own and get involve in every steps and seconds in the music creating process.
I hate when people confused with templates and being originals, by using preset or templates doesn’t mean that your stuff is not 100% original, do you have to build a hammer from scratch every times you want to hammer a nail?
No, you use the hammer, alternatively you build one or severals of them yourself and use it for different purposes. Same for the music creating process, you are the person who choose which template to use, how to use and when to use, you could build different templates for different usages, trust me this could greatly save up a whole lot of your time, and energy to better focus on others stuff.
7. Find Music Production Tutorials Online
Yup, don’t expect anyone to teach you anything, do your homework. Youtube is your best teacher, everything you could ever think of most likely there is already a tutorial of someone teaching about it.
If you prefer reading, there are also plenty of blog in the music niche that makes tutorials, education contents regularly. If you have a little more budget, there are plenty of online courses, masterclass, webinar, teaching in various topic as well, be sure to Google it, and that’s the world we are living in, so make full use of the technology around us.
8.Find A Music Production Mentor Who Can Help You Improve As A Producer
I know that it’s not everyone who is lucky enough could have find a mentor to guide you in your music journey, if you got the right mentor that’s great, it could greatly shorten your learning curve.
They could be someone who is more experience in what you are doing, some one you look up to, who has been in your industry for many years, your teacher, your senior, etc. Be careful with who you are listening to, don’t just simply ask anyone opinion just because they are your family members, friends, or whoever that is “convenient” for you to ask with. Seeking opinion from the right people, if you really lucky enough to have mentors, have them critique your music for you, so that you can continue to improve as a producer.
9.Participate In Music Competition
Compete in music competitions or contests to gain valuable feedback from judges who know what they are doing! This will help improve the quality of your music over time. Chances are some of your greatest song may be forced to be created in circumstances like this, often times we might need some sort of pressure to activate our inner potential that we didn’t know we have and do things that we never thought we could do. It could also be a good reason to write some new great songs, and great way to make some new friends in the music industry.
10.Spent On Knowledge, Not Equipment
First of all, I think having the right gear that could improve your workflow is great. They may help you to get the right tone effortlessly, save up your time or make things more efficient, but what I’m trying to say here is that do not be obsess with music instruments or gears.
Having 10 expensive Fender guitars doesn’t make you a better guitarist. Getting all the different types of popular mixing console, compressors, microphones, or effect pedals doesn’t make you a better mixing engineer or producer as well. Be educated, knowing what’s your need, why you are doing or using anything, that’s what that really matters after all.
11.Listen To A Tons Of Different Music
You are what you eat, if you want to write great music, just listen to more great music then, it may sounds too simple to be true, but that’s the general rule of thumb. Adding on to that, don’t just listen to your favourite artist all the time, be sure to step out of your comfort zone once in awhile, if you are a rocker and you just listen to rock music, eventually you may just end up sounding like an average rocker because that’s all the music vocabulary you have in your mind. If you want to stand out from the rest, you really need to input some different elements to sparkles your music a little.
12.Network Is Your Net Worth
Don’t forget about networking with other music producers out there! Collaborate and share ideas whenever possible. Get involved in the music community by sharing your music online or attending meet ups with other producers.
The more you connect with others, the better your career will be, at least making one more friend is always better than making one more enemy. Might as well consider forming a mastermind group with like minded people, because you are the sum of 5 people that you surrounded yourself with, that could be one of the best decision you ever do in your music career, having a good mastermind group could greatly help you grow your music business to the next level.
13.Strive For Progress Not Perfection
Sure we as an artist, musician, we care about our music creation than anyone else in the world, that represent us, our vision, the way we communicate with the world, it’s basically part of us.
That’s why we devote a lot of our time and effort in creating the one masterpiece, countless of sleepless night working on it until it’s flawless, and perfect, at least in our own opinion. But the reality is, music is a very subjective topic, everyone has different tastes, there’s nothing such as perfect when it comes to music, the longer we work on something, the more likely we may be in the blink spot.
So the basic rule of thumb is to have a cut off time, once you pass that, just move on, don’t over dwelling in it, if you can’t finish it within the timeline then just leave it as it is, and come back to it again at another time.
14.Create Your Own Sound Library
Having your own sample libraries, could really add in some uniqueness to your music, it helps you develop your personality in music, because you create these samples, no one else in this world is using the same samples as yours.
But if making sample packs is not your thing, at least go and create a folder with all of your favourite samples, sounds that you are resonated with, it’s not only that it helps you to create your own “sound”, it could also save you up a lot of time browsing though different samples and presets every time when you trying to produce something. Use music samples and presets as a starting point for music, but do not over rely on them too.
15.Be Consistent, Do Not Believe In Over Night Success
Regardless of what industry that you are in, I believe one of the key factor for success is always to be consistent in practicing what you are doing. If you want to be good in something, you have to work on it consistently, make it as a habit, whether it’s song writing, producing beat, playing an instrument.
There is this saying that in average for someone to be an expert in something, it takes approximately 10,000 hours to get to that level of expertise, of course different people progress differently, instead of just working hard make sure you work smart as well, keep on optimising the way to do anything, this could greatly shorten your learning curve as well.
16.Music Is Your Life, But Life Is Not Just About Music
One of the most used quote by musician, it has to be “music is life” or something like that, at least that’s what I’ve been hearing over the years. Yes I get that, as a musician there are reasons why music has became the very big part of our life, we got inspired, we resonant with it, we have someone that we look up to and we want to get to where he/she is one day.
We believe in something that not everyone is seeing.. there’s nothing wrong with that, every musician including me myself have a big dream in music that we want to achieve one day, but the reality is that the world is not just about music, we have a life to live on, be responsible with your financial situation, take good care of your love ones, be aware of what’s happening outside the “music world”, go and experience different stuff as much as you can and be carefully not to use “music” or “dream” as an excuse to escape things or problems that you do not want to deal with.
Music is not just about music, you are the content itself as well, if you are not experiencing the life authentically, be honest to yourself, how do you expect yourself to create music that could resonant with one another and touching people life. Yes, theory is useful, listen to tons of great music helps, but eventually what really matters after all is the creator yourself, you are the first audience of your music, and you are the source of all these thing. Live a life my friend, be honest, be kind and you will shine like no one else one day in your own unique way.
17.Take Good Care Of Yourself, You Got A Long Way To Go
Music is not an easy path, in fact it may be harder than any others career to pursue with, If you want to be truly success in this journey. Don’t be fooled by the glory of others get, the frame and all that, what we see often is only a fractional part of what it really is, we don’t see the hustle side, the mistakes they did, or any other aspect of their life.
The definition of success varies, in essence, we all want to have money, be recognised, freedom, healthy, do what we like to do, be loved, able to take care of our loves one. Anyway your health should always be your first priority, you do not want to die young way before your hard work comes to fruition, or being a burden of your loved one one day.
I hate when people keep on flaunting on how many hours they only sleep in one day, to show that they are hustling, or keep on professing that how busy they are to the whole world. Yes, I get that you are hustling, pro-active, doing all the real works, but don’t implant the wrong message to everyone like “sleeping is for the weak”, or teasing on somebody when they don’t know something that you do.
No, sleep is not for the weak, please get 6-8 hours of sleep whenever you can, and schedule time for exercise and all that, take good care of your body, your health should be your first priority before anything, without that you can’t really do anything else. If you know the smarter or better way in doing anything please pass on the knowledge, you are making a chances to others life, the world would be a better place starting with all these simple move.
18.Never Compromise, Do The Right Things
Set a bottom line, and don’t be affected by the noise of what others is saying. Deep down, you know what is right and wrong, sometime we just ignore our inner voice by following what the majority do, or it could be the insecurity in us for some reason that makes us trying to avoid taking the responsibility in the decision we make.
Come up with some principles for yourself, and follow through, don’t cross that, we all want to be successful one day, but don’t take the short-cut, don’t do anything that will hurts others or yourself, treat people as how you would like to be treated, remember what goes around, comes around, even if it doesn’t happen, at the end of the day you know how you get there, don’t create a monster that live within you.
19.Don’t Rely On Motivations, Create Some Sort Of System Or Habits
I know we are all human, we have emotions, especially for an artist or musician like us, we are perceptual, our emotion could be easily triggered by people or things happen around us, learning to master our mind is the end goal, but not many people could actually do it.
The motivation of self-help podcast, books, videos and events are great, they helps but we know that they won’t last forever, even though you have a group of supportive friend or community around you, they could only help you this much, everyone has a life to live on, eventually you are the only person that could help yourself.
So the long term solution is to create some sort of system or habit that could keep you on track, whenever you are not in good condition mentally or physically, you won’t fall off or at least fall in a safe place and get back up quickly and bounce back higher the next time.
20.Trust In Yourself, Be Responsible With Your Own Decision
Learn as much as you can, gather all the right source of information, they give you the holistic view upon planning your career, and writing better music. If you truly know what you are doing, why you do anything, eventually no one would be able to shake your believes.
You are confidence in the decisions you make, even though some turns out to be the wrong one at the end, but you know you gonna learn from that experience and grow stronger after that. Do not blame anyone but yourself, it’s always more easy to work on yourself instead of changing others opinion, and the environment. The sooner you realise that the sooner you will start living a free life.
Lastly, if you watch until the end here, you must be a special one, who think differently, you have a great heart, and eager to success in music and life. And you know what, you will, if you really put in all the hard work, spend your time wisely, and listen to your inner voice, you will know what to do next.
Here’s a video I like, wisdom from the Gandalf of music production and I want to share it with you, hopefully you could get some great value from it as well.
What’s Next?
All in all, If music production is really your passion, you know that it takes a lot of time and effort to learn the tricks of the trade. In this article we’ve shared 20 tips that will help you become a better producer.
We hope these music production tips have given you some new insight. Which music production tip was most helpful to you?
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