6 Mistakes To Avoid When Producing Music

I’ve been producing music for quite a long time now and I feel I’m finally producing good sounding music now since the last two or three years. I haven’t had an education in music, I had to figure it all out by myself. I invested a lot of time in learning music production and I’m still eager of learning new things. I’m pretty sure no one is ever done learning. Anyway, in my journey to becoming a producer I’ve experienced some mistakes that I would avoid right now. I’m sharing them with you here. 

1. Gear doesn’t matter as much as you might think

People tend to think that it’s necessary to have a lot of gear. Having a lot of gear doesn’t make you a good producer, it’s all about translating the ideas in your head to an actual track. Creativity beats gear 100 percent. It sure helps to have some gear you can experiment with, but if you lack creativity, it’s all worthless. Gear doesn’t make a good song for you, you do!  

2. Less Is More

These three words have been used a lot for a reason. I found myself adding too much elements in my productions when I started out that made it sound very messy. This is probably not what you want. Get rid of things that doesn’t deserve a spot in your track. It will give much more room for the elements that actually matter. 

3. Bad Monitors/Headphones

I often get asked to give some feedback to a track, and a lot of times they said: “I made it on shitty headphones/speakers”. Don’t give an excuse for something that sounds bad. If you want to make music that sounds good, make sure you have proper monitors or headphones that give a good reference of how it would sound.  

4. Don’t Copy, Be Unique

There is no art in copying someone. I know this is the hardest part of making music, but try to create an own style. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking (if that’s the case, good job!) but make sure everything that you create has a part of you in it. The more you spend time producing, the more you’ll develop a certain way of producing that will make your tracks give them your own signature sound.  

“The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.
”
— Isaac Bashevis Singer

5. There Are No Rules

There are no rules when it comes to music production. That’s actually the great thing about creating music. No rules means total freedom. You can create whatever you want, how you want, whenever you want. Just let your creativity flow. 

6. Use presets to your advantage

Using presets might feel a bit lazy, but it can give you a lot of inspiration. I often scroll trough the presets that I have and save the ones that stand out. When I hear a great preset I instantly play around with it and figure out in which way this particular preset will sound the best. Sometimes I just start building a track only because of that one particular preset that sounded great. Another great thing about going through presets and finding great sounds is, you can always change them to your own taste. A preset is just a combination of settings, which you can change.  

If you have any other mistakes producers should avoid, let me know in the comments!

Mitch de Klein

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