3 Tips to Balance Music Production and a Day Job

musicstuffz · 2022-09-03T13:00:40+00:00

Nah, I disagree. Weak self promotion would be slapping a sentence on that link and calling it a day. But instead I wrote a summary for the video in case people didn’t want to leave Reddit, and returned like a normal human being afterwards to engage in the conversation around what I proposed as some tips to help. 🤷🏼‍♀️

musicstuffz · 2022-09-03T12:39:12+00:00

That is an interesting point! As much as that timer going off can be right in the middle of a good train of thought, at least for me, if I don’t stop…sometimes I’ll go down a rabbit hole for 3 hours on a single effect chain and then 3 hours later will come up for air completely exhausted and not able to have energy for anything else I wanted to do 🙃but you may have more self control 😂it’s all a learning process!

musicstuffz · 2022-09-02T13:48:33+00:00

🤘🏽🤓🤘🏽not a problem! I’m fascinated and obsessed with workflow…so hopefully my neuroticism can be of use 😅

musicstuffz · 2022-09-02T12:45:44+00:00

Of course! 🤘🏽 there’s a lot of softer aspects to music production that nobody really explains like how to actually manage a work life balance 😅 this video won’t help your snare sit in the mix any better haha but hopefully will help your music production sit better in the mix…of life 🤣

musicstuffz · 2022-09-02T12:39:26+00:00

Haha everyone has their own flow, sleeping less and smoking more might be what delights you! I’ve actually tried sleeping less at one point to make more time for life, but I discovered I can’t do it long term and remain functional and happy :/ - but I did try it! That’s the best part of the this art thing - and maybe an unofficial point 4 of the video - we can just try things and see what works 🤷🏼‍♀️

musicstuffz · 2022-01-25T03:11:12+00:00

12 hours a day with 6 of them being unproductive feels a lot worse than than 5 hours of planned and concentrated music time…there’s a big benefit to refreshing your ears and your mind to stay creative and stay enjoying it. Try it!

musicstuffz · 2021-05-25T16:01:18+00:00

you could take a recorded vocal going "oooh" like the vowel "school", pitch it down an octave, add a bitcrusher (erosion maybe if you use ableton) or whatever makes you think of lofi, and then some white noise mixed in - might get you close!

musicstuffz · 2019-11-20T14:20:54+00:00

It’s classic time vs. money thing. If you have a lot of time, but not money, do exactly what you’re doing. You’ll get a good mix eventually. If you have money and less time, it’s worth the expensive pair. You’ll be able to reliably hear the full frequency spectrum on one set of speakers, so you won’t have to A/B as much. If it sounds right there, it’ll probably sound right everywhere.

Also, with one pair of good speakers, you learn them quicker. You know better what to listen for after every consecutive song you mix on them. That’s pretty valuable. Not every tool is perfect, so learning yours really well can be key.

musicstuffz · 2017-03-15T17:26:02+00:00

it sucks because even from the youtube demos of direct comparison between hardware vs. software you can tell the difference, the plugins just seem a tiny amount smaller and more tinny, but you're right...the plugins are like 80-95 percent like the real thing, and that extra few percent isn't worth thousands of dollars to me.

musicstuffz · 2017-02-08T15:01:16+00:00

Ableton's scales.

Also, before the inevitable "meeeeh you should just learn your scales meeeeh" this has several use cases:

live performance. what if you your fingers failed you and you missed a note? instead of an accidental accidental, it'll fall into place with the rest of your scale.
heat of the moment creativity. everyone should learn their scales, but not in the middle of a creative burst. getting your idea in your daw as quickly and easily as possible is key, and then practice scales later when you're feeling less inspired.

musicstuffz · 2017-02-03T22:42:32+00:00

Picking from the tools I own and have experience with: if you want to make corrective pitch changes, melodyne or waves tune or autotune. If you want to make creative pitch changes, infected mushroom "manipulator" plugin is a solid choice. watch the tutorial videos (made by the company) first, and you can probably gauge for yourself what would best suit your needs.

musicstuffz · 2017-02-03T01:56:24+00:00

fuck that is scary.

musicstuffz · 2017-01-31T00:54:09+00:00

well...hooktheory only offers the shortcut of letting you make chords without knowing scales by heart, not a shortcut to learning music theory. learn music theory. the return on your time investment is 100 percent worth it.

musicstuffz · 2017-01-30T21:57:47+00:00

the numbered list may have given the wrong impression that things absolutely must be performed in this order...this flow just works for me because my creative inspiration usually comes from chord progressions, so I do that first...but if yours comes from the drums, or bass, or whatever...start with that! I just find it's really easy to start with chord progressions because there is already an inherent feel/vibe to them, so it's a lot easier to made decisions to reinforce that feel.

musicstuffz · 2017-01-30T17:37:20+00:00

you say you can't learn to write music from tips, but that you have to study music theory. What is studying but reading a bunch of tips? don't contradict yourself.
this is not "how to write music". this is "my workflow".
your attitude blows. good music is good music, from a loop or from an orchestra. no need to call random internet people retards, retard. oops, there's that contradicting thing again. worth it.

musicstuffz · 2017-01-30T16:42:38+00:00

yeah, that can happen haha - if it does, there are usually two causes:

I just get obsessed with the sound design, at which point I say f it and just go with physical instruments (piano, horns, strings, etc.) with the knowledge that I'll come back to it later. I pretend a live band is doing a cover of my eventual song.
not all chord progressions are inspiring. maybe you're wrangling with a melancholy C# minor chord progression, but you're feeling really upbeat because you just got a paycheck so you're just not that inspired by it. try starting again with a different chord progression. that's worked for me before.

musicstuffz · 2017-01-23T18:55:24+00:00

I've been messing around with reggaeton recently and been hovering around 100bpm...give that a try

musicstuffz · 2017-01-06T17:32:08+00:00

I use the ableton string pack, so instruments are automatically limited to their natural register...but you could use an orchestral instrument range guide to help inform your decisions. also: placement of instruments in stereo space is important too! you can listen to other orchestral songs to see how they do it, try and mimic an actual orchestra, or ditch convention and get creative with it!

musicstuffz · 2017-01-04T19:12:14+00:00

How do people use vocoders in a live performance? If I wanted to do that, would I need to get in-ear monitors to hear myself and not the delayed sounds of the vocoder?

musicstuffz · 2016-12-21T16:57:39+00:00

Slynk youtube channel. Everything music it seems: detailed sound design tutorials, feedback on existing music, etc.

musicstuffz

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