I made 132 songs in 2023: here's 5 lessons I learned

I wrote produced mixed or mastered 132 songs in 2023 and here's Five Lessons I've learned over the past year that I want to share with you today now some clarification these songs that I mixed may have been producing projects like full-on producing projects they may have been mixing work uh mastering work or a lot of them are artist demos that will never see the light of day again so they are not 132 songs that I wrote produced mixed and mastered alt together by myself and released under my name but they are 132 songs that I worked on over the past year um and I know this because I just went through and had to back up all of 2023 and I had all of those as project files that I had to back up so uh and that's what I was reflecting back and wanted to make this video and the Five Lessons that I just really wish I knew sooner and whether this is your first year producing music or whether you are in year 25 and you're Season Pro I think this is still going to help you uh even if it just reminds you of a lot of things and I've been making music for over a decade and some of these things may sound basic but I like they still just have just hit so home over the last year so lesson one templates do not create cookie cutter music people do don't shy away from using templates I did not use templates for an embarrassingly long amount of time I really wish I would have picked these up a lot sooner um but nobody really explained them to me I thought they made cookie cutter music I thought oh well you have the template and now everybody's going to sound the same because everybody's using the same template or you build a template and now you can't ever Branch from it like that's not how templates work and so I have two tees that are really going to drive home the first one is imagine you get in your car and you go for a nice long drive you're enjoying the The View you go maybe stop by the beach and you're just really having a great time you get back in your vehicle and you go and you park it in your garage and immediately after parking it in your garage you take all of the seats in your car you slide them back you take the wheels off maybe hang them on the wall or put them on a shelf and then you disassemble the entire car and then the next time you want to go for a drive you have to reassemble the entire car before you can even get out of the garage door that's what it's like after using templates for a while and then going back to not using like opening up a blank slate you're like oh my word what is going on here I have to reassemble my entire car all over again and the thing is you can change the paint job of the car later on you can put new tires on it you can take a different route with that car that's exactly how templates work so do not shy away from them use them um and the second analogy that might hit a little bit more home especially if you're a guitar player I'm a guitar player I've been a guitar player for about as long as I can remember and if if I have an entire pedal port and I have my amps and all that other fun stuff and like if you were to like tweak my knobs I would freak out so imagine getting done playing a gig and you take all of your knobs and bring them back to zero and then next time you have to play another gig or you bring out your guitar you have to tweak all the knobs in the right spot again that's what it's like when you don't start with a template obviously midet I can reach down crank up the drive a little bit if I want to obviously I could go down and make changes mid song but I'm already starting with something I really like and I'm comfortable with and I I know that's what it's like using templates so please use templates and don't let them be used by you though and this is the caveat and this is the reason like there's real fear in like Cookie Cutter sounding music because of templates it's it's a legitimate fear you could get templates and I have templates that I give away and I sell on my main Channel and there's tons of that stuff out there and like there's tons of it online no matter what da you use and because of that a lot of people download these templates don't really know what they're doing don't ever go in and tweak anything and they just start doing their own stuff and things sound very very similar to one another that's the danger of templates but you're a smart cookie you're here you're still watching this video that is completely unedited for almost four minutes now so you're a smart cookie you have the attention span long enough to know that I could probably go into the template and start making some changes and some tweaks so that's something that I wish I would have learned sooner and I just it was an embarrassingly long amount of time that I did not use templates and was rebuilding the car from scratch and rebuilding my pedal board from scratch scratch every single day so don't do what I did learn from my mistakes every single D uses templates just use them all right so lesson two do not underestimate the power of a killer incredible song it's like the main core element things just start to fall into place when you're working with a great song I can look over the past year and I remember the times when making music was a drag and it was because we weren't working with a great song at the start and then I remember when I was in complete Flow State in 5 hours of working on this on the song felt like 30 minutes it was incredible that all stemmed down to a great song so if the lyrics and the melody or even just the melody and arrangement in the ches that you choose are just killer it's going to be so easy to produce that out because it should be inspiring you down a path it you shouldn't have to inspire it down a path so really think about that if you're struggling trying to take a song Somewhere it's probably the song itself now there are obviously times where like both paths can go great like I'm like do I do I take this more down like a hard rock style or do I kind of like keep this like more like pop rock style like obviously but like you can hear those things and like hear how it goes both directions and it inspires you in both ways that's not what I'm talking about here I'm talking about where like you have no idea where to take it that's probably the idea's fault really at the core so I like to to there's like a chain a signal chain of flow as like as a live mixing engineer even in the studio when something's not working there's a live like chain signal flow that you have to go through and figure out what's not working okay my microphone is not recording in my do is my cable plugged in is my cable plugged into my interface is that plugged into the wall is that plugged into the computer is a computer reading it all that other stuff there's like a signal flow that you have to go through to figure out where the core issue is I think of it the same way when producing and writing music I like to think of I'm struggling here let me keep going back until I notice there's an issue so okay so I don't like this the the song the way the song's going I feel like I'm struggling to to to choose sounds so maybe it's not the sounds fault maybe this the song idea itself is not inspiring a a direct direction for me to choose specific sounds so just keep working that signal flow back until you eventually hit the issue if you're in mixing maybe it's not the song ideas or the song idea's fault it actually might just be the S the sounds that you chose and the way you recorded it at the source and so you just want to like work that back until you find the issue then fix it and then move on you don't want to like try to fix recording issues and mixing and you don't want to try to fix songwriting issues in the production phase just please don't do that a killer song will put you in Flow State and it will inspire you to continue down a path of the song So if you're struggling just go back to the song Do not underestimate the power of a great song it'll change your life all right so lesson three and this is a tough one do what you say you're going to do when you say say you're going to do it I made a few mistakes this past year and um it cost me a little bit because the thing was I told people I would do some projects for them for free and I started getting flooded with a lot of paying client work and I was starting to push some of those free projects off a little bit and that was not the right thing to do that was not what I should have done I should have did what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do it and so because of that I pushed a couple free projects off a a little bit longer than I should have and because of that someone went with somebody else and somebody else went with somebody else and it was it was it was a tough situation because I had a lot of free time at the beginning of the year and then I did not in the middle of the year but just because I need to pay my bills does not mean that I don't need to keep my word that was a mistake that I made this past year and um I do not want to make that again so learn from my mistakes do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it now here's the cool part about this whole thing right if you just want to stand out in the music industry just do what you're going to do what do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it like you can stand out so well if you show up on time people are going to notice that like the industry is notorious for having people not show up on time flake out all of this kind of stuff you have no idea what what's going to happen with the song like when people work with me there's deadline and I almost always hit that deadline except for these free projects and it was it was a bummer because I shouldn't have done what I did but I did and so I I want to not do that this year and I want you to not do that this year as well so it's so easy to stand out if you just do what you're going to say you're going to do just do it and do when you say you're going to do it so that was lesson three uh and that was definitely a hard lesson I had to learn this past year and so also on the side note of this too sometimes you have to get used to saying no and this is one of the big issues that I had because I was saying yes to everything and I totally get sometimes you can be like in a yes mode but you have to be comfortable with saying no because if you say yes and you actually bought off more than you can shoot which is exactly what I did by the way um you actually bought off more than you can chew and there's only so much you can handle you start prioritizing the work and I was like well these are paying clients and they're going to get like super mad it's like well by the way the free people like also said yes like and I said yes and I didn't follow through with that and so there's there's that conflict of interest there and so you need to be comfortable with saying no and you also need to be comfortable with saying no to even like the higher paying opportunities if you're somebody who does this for for money you have to be comfortable with saying no because you said you were going to do this and you need to hold up to your word and that also means that you have to say no to something in order so that way you can continue to say yes to this with that being said sometimes you have to look at the situation and now when free workk comes my way I can't do it I just can't do it because I know that there's going to be other work that comes my way that I that I that I would rather do so that way I could put food on the table for my family and things like that so I want to make sure that I only say yes to things that I know that I can do so don't just say yes to everything and then figure out how to deliver on it definitely figure out what you can deliver on and then say yes to those things big long rant all about just do what you're going to say when you're going to do it so Lesson Four I love this humility is not thinking less of yourself but increasing your for others that was a big lesson that I learned this year that I was super kind of like excited about because when I was growing up and everybody talking about humility is like you want to be humble you want to bring yourself down and that's not what humility is it's not bringing yourself down it's bringing everybody else up around you that's humility do not think less of yourself but think highly of those around you humility was a big shift for me because when I'm working in the studio it actually empowered me to empower creativity inside the studio I wasn't trying to lessen myself I was actually trying to elevate the people that I was working with I wanted them to feel better about themselves and they're not going to feel better about themselves if they're working with a producer who does not feel good about himself does that make sense so you definitely want to use that and flip it cuz it's still selfish to be humble in the way that I was used to which is to think less of yourself because you're still thinking of yourself humility is not thinking of yourself constantly like oh I'm not good enough I'm not that it's not humility at all you're still thinking of yourself which is kind of ironically a selfish thing to do you com completely shift your focus off yourself and on to the people that you're working with and you can lift them up with you so humility is not thinking less of yourself but increasing your regard for others and lesson five and this is actually one of the best things that I could have ever learned and I it's just a constant reminder like day in and day out for me and when you get this lesson right you you get great songs you you are able to just create incredible music and you're able to empower incredible art some of you going to push back on this and I would love to hear what you have to say in the comments okay so lesson five people first art second and the reason for this is even if you want great art even if you truly want to put art in front of people which I don't recommend I don't think that's a great idea I think we should put people first but if you try to put art front of people people that are making the art are not going to put their best foot forward so you want to empower people to make incredible music and this is I'm going to I want to tell a specific story about this that I actually learned a couple years ago but it just this was this past year was just a great reminder for me um a couple years ago I was in this band and people were just not going the direction that the song should have gone objectively the song would be better if we went down this one path I knew it in like the Bas basis knew it and we were kind of both going back and forth and so finally I decided to do something which I thought would empower the song and serve the song better but it actually ruined it I decided to stand up and say hey guys this this path that we're doing is not working it's obvious we can all see it we need to do this instead and I did it and said it in a harsh way that ended up completely destroying the vibe of the room and what ended up happening was people they made the shift away from what they were doing but they were're scared to go head first down the new path we all kind of started to agree on and that's because I ruined the vibe of the room I put art first and I put people second and because people make art we made bad art that day and I ruined the vibe of the room and I'll never forget that and now when I have people in the studio I always want to make sure that I'm empowering them to make better music and to make incredible sounding tracks because I want them to light up when they see their tracks being listed out in the Daw I want them to light up up inside and be so stinking excited that their Vision in their head is coming to life and if I destroy the vibe of the room by saying that take wasn't good let's do it again nah that wasn't good let's tighten that up a little bit instead of saying it like that there's other ways that you can say it where you're putting people first and putting the art second so one of the best ways I like to do this is I like to imagine talking to somebody like they are the coolest person in the entire world because they are like they are they have decided to pay me money so can work with me so that way they can get their music out into the world they are like the coolest person in the world that they believed in me that they that I could do this for them so already I have like a great shift in mind so as I'm working with them in the studio or working with them remotely I like to do this while they're tracking stuff give this a try if you work with people give this a try instead of being like hey let's try that let's tighten that up a little bit let's get this here what you'd want to do and what I like to do and you could try this if for yourself if you like to is when working with a guitarist and I'm like hey man you want to be the coolest guitar player in the entire world give this a shot try this and then I'll show them what to try and if it works I praise them and if it doesn't work I blame me I'm like oh that was a dumb idea I just wanted to check it out I wanted to see how it would work but I was definitely wrong about that but thanks for letting me try that out and they still feel like the most awesome person in the whole wide world if they need to tighten up a track a little bit you're like hey that was a great take I want to tr I want to track another one and I want to see if we can tighten that up even more and then you do it again and you're like that was an incredible take you are literally going like exponentially better let's grab another one and so it may it might be a little bit of extra work for you but at the end of the day that's really all that matters is putting people first the only reason art exists is because people exist to create it and the only reason art will continue to exist is because there's people there to enjoy it as well it all comes down to people I'd love to know what you have to say in the comments about putting people first and art second let me know down below I'm super excited to start that conversation but these are five lessons lessons that I learned over the past uh over the past year and making about 132 songs whether that was mixing producing writing or just artist demos that never see the light of day again so um let me know in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video definitely subscribe this is my unedited Channel I press record I talk to you guys give you lessons if you want to go to my main channel that will be in the description below where they're a lot more tight a lot more edited and a lot more direct like this is the step-by-step EQ this is the step-by-step compression and all that other fun stuff so thank you so much for being here I appreciate every single one of you I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Andrew Barr

Views: 3,845

Keywords: music production, music producer, producer tips, music tips, music, mixing tips, mastering tips, mixing music, producing music, how to produce music 2024

Id: jYYS9ygXu_A

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2024