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S1E02 – Proper Producer Mindset

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It’s important to stay true to who you are as a music producer in this music industry. It’s easy to look at and compare yourself to others and fall into the same spiral.

In this episode, I share various topics from my book Proper Producer Mindset, such as:

  • Pursuing Life as a Music Producer
  • Actually Achieving these Goals to Make it in the Music Industry
  • What (9-to-5) Jobs are Good to Have that Still Allow You to Work on Music
  • Building Your Producer Name/Brand
  • Being Aware of Your Actions and Not Following the Trends
Music Production Books Proper Producer Mindset

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S1E02 – Proper Producer Mindset

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you could be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production. They'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at it'sgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Okay, so welcome to episode number two.
  10. So this title is called Proper Producer Mindset.
  11. I've actually written a book. The book is called Proper Producer Mindset as well.
  12. It's on Amazon. I'll leave a link in the resources section if you come to this
  13. episode page on my website. And the whole idea behind the book is talking to you
  14. about pursuing life as a producer, financially supporting yourself, building your
  15. brand while not faking it, like where to focus your time, achieving realistic goals,
  16. and do you truly feel you have what it takes to pursue it in this music industry?
  17. Okay. So there's a lot to cover in this episode, but at the end of the day, what I'm
  18. trying to get across to you is you have to prepare yourself for what is coming in
  19. this music industry for you. Like, are you really ready to pursue what it takes to
  20. be a music producer? Because it's a lot of work, okay?
  21. Now, you know, there's a difference between just making music for fun for your
  22. hobby, and then if you are making this music because you want to pursue it like
  23. financially, you want to support yourself with money.
  24. Okay, so the first point I want to get across to you is pursuing life as a producer,
  25. okay? So before you guys really get out there trying to, you know, build your name,
  26. build your brand, all that stuff, take time to think.
  27. Is this what you want? So just be prepared that this music industry is a lot of
  28. work, there's a lot of reading involved.
  29. Okay, you're gonna have to learn about you know licensing, actually creating your
  30. music. Is your music actually even high quality enough to sell?
  31. Okay. And now, in terms of like your actual kind of personal life as a music
  32. producer, it's like, you know, do you want like that fancy studio?
  33. Or is working from a laptop, are you happy with that?
  34. Those are two totally different lifestyles in terms of you know how to financially
  35. support those lifestyles.. But you can be making it in the music industry with not
  36. tons of money but again, it just comes down to your goal and what makes you happy.
  37. Okay. So, which brings us into our next point.
  38. So, what are your goals as a music producer?
  39. Is this just a hobby, or are you wanting to treat it like a business?
  40. And that's gonna differentiate your mindset towards this music industry.
  41. That when you're creating your music, is it just for fun?
  42. Are you enjoying, you know, learning new techniques and you know, trying to create
  43. music that you like, or are you really trying to create music that you want to sell,
  44. or you know, are you gonna try and build your brand through creating courses,
  45. tutorials? So, again, the hobby or the business.
  46. That's pretty much how it's gonna work for you, okay?
  47. But you have to prepare yourself now, okay, before you get into this, because it's
  48. gonna save you a lot of time later on, as well as a lot of stress.
  49. So, planning is a big part of you know, being an entrepreneur, being a music
  50. producer, and pursuing this craft.
  51. So, another thing that you have to be aware of as a music producer is so the typical
  52. nine to five person, they never deal with contracts, okay.
  53. So typically, you know, you get your job, you go to work, you come home, you get
  54. your paycheck, you know, you pay your taxes and and all that stuff is it's all done
  55. for you, right? It's just like you know, it's the employer's job to take the taxes
  56. off for you, you know, all that stuff.
  57. But you as a music producer, you know, again, an entrepreneur, self-employed, you're
  58. responsible for handling all this stuff, okay?
  59. So the point I'm wanting to make is be prepared for lots of contracts.
  60. Okay. So as a content creator, again, a music producer, it's all about your
  61. copyright and ownership. Okay.
  62. So you never want to, you know, just give up this ownership for free.
  63. Make sure that the contract is either favored in your side or that it's well worth
  64. your time to pursue this contract.
  65. Okay. When you're new to this, make sure that you understand what the contract is
  66. telling you.. Read it through, even if you have to hire a lawyer to read it over for
  67. you So typically, you know, with your copyright, so what you're doing is you are
  68. granting a license to others to use your product or brand.
  69. And typically it's either on like a non-exclusive or exclusive licensing model.
  70. Non-exclusive means that it could be sold in many stores while you still own like
  71. the ownership, exclusive. You know, you would still own the ownership, but you know,
  72. you might only have to be able to sell it in that one store or like to that one
  73. artist, okay. For example, if it was exclusive, you know, you just want to make sure
  74. that it's well worth your time and it's really favored, you know, to your side.
  75. because when it is exclusive, it's like that restricts you from you know, maybe
  76. marketing it in different ways because you're exclusive to that contract, okay.
  77. But for example, like let's take my courses.
  78. So my courses are on a non-exclusive agreement with certain distributors.
  79. So if I want to sell my course, I can sell it on my own website, you know, I can set
  80. my price to whatever I want, I can sell it on other websites, you know.
  81. So it just allows for way more flexibility, and that's what you're gonna discover as
  82. you keep pursuing, you know, an online life as a music producer, content creator,
  83. and stuff like that. again, the biggest thing I want to get across to you is make
  84. sure you read the contract and you understand what it is.
  85. So the next point I want to talk about is how are you actually going to achieve your
  86. goals as a music producer? Okay, and really the biggest thing is financially.
  87. You know, how are you gonna fund yourself?
  88. So for myself, I've taken a really conservative lifestyle.
  89. I'm not big on living lavishly.
  90. Like I don't care about having like a Mercedes or a BMW.,
  91. L likeike for in all honesty, I still drive the same car from high school.
  92. It's taught me a lot about cars.
  93. Like I didn't really know much about cars, I didn't take like mechanics in school or
  94. anything.. And so I bought a book off of Amazon
  95. The book was called I think Car Smarts, and it was written by a woman, and I learned
  96. tons through that book. By me taking a more conservative lifestyle, it's just
  97. allowed me to take things more into my own hands to save money, but at the same
  98. time, gain knowledge, okay. For example, like I learned how to like kind of like
  99. maintain my car, like change the oil, spark plugs, like air filter, things that I've
  100. never really done before. But after reading that book, and then I started to read
  101. like my car's manual, but I've never been one to buy stuff to impress other people,
  102. okay? And especially when it comes to like vehicles and stuff like that.
  103. You know, vehicles, they cost so much money, and as soon as you drive it off the
  104. lot, you know, your money's a big chunk of your money is just instantly gone, right?
  105. Now, in terms of like what kind of jobs are good as you are a music producer, when
  106. you're working like a retail and stuff like that, you gotta kind of be careful
  107. because you know the hours are all over the place, and the time that you're putting
  108. in, many times you're not reaping that good of a reward.
  109. My dad actually got me into trades.
  110. I am actually an electrician here in Canada, and I'm ticketed now.
  111. So, how it works in Canada is you have to take four years of schooling, and I think
  112. it was like 10 weeks of school each time.
  113. So, you know, like you'd work like nine months, then go to school for three months,
  114. kind of thing. and that's just how it worked in Canada.
  115. But the thing with trades, in compared to let's say a regular job, like let's say
  116. you wanted to get in into marketing or business or something.
  117. So you go to school, but you have to pay for your schooling, take out student loans.
  118. And you know, if you read about that stuff, it's like that stuff's really dangerous
  119. because many times you have to pay back these student loans for years, even once you
  120. get your job, right? And it's just that's not a fun situation to be in when you're
  121. financially strapped like that.
  122. So the cool thing with trades, currently in Canada, the government's really pushing
  123. for the younger generation to get into trades because you know the younger
  124. generation doesn't really want to get into trades, but they're, you know, having
  125. financial incentives to help push people into trades to get that ticket.
  126. Now that doesn't mean that you have to be an electrician or a plumber or whatever
  127. for the rest of your life. But the thing is once you get that ticket, again, that
  128. four years of school with all like your hours and stuff like that, I think it's like
  129. 4,000 hours plus your schooling and you know, passing the tests, then you become
  130. ticketed. And what that allows you to do is it allows you to work anywhere in
  131. Canada, except for Quebec. It's kind of funny here in Canada.
  132. It's like Quebec is always different from all the rest of Canada.
  133. So by passing and becoming a ticketed electrician, you can work anywhere in Canada
  134. as a journeyman. It's a it's called a red seal ticketed trade.
  135. So here's what I want to tell you about a trade.
  136. Okay. So here in Canada, I actually got paid to go to school.
  137. It's called unemployment. So when I worked for the company, every single paycheck it
  138. goes into like a fund and it's like unemployment.
  139. Okay. So then when I go to school, I I got paid to go to school through this
  140. unemployment. Now it's only a percentage of my full paycheck.
  141. However, it's like I'm still getting paid to go to school, whereas the average
  142. person who pays to go to school for like marketing or business, they're taking out
  143. that student loan or whatever if they don't have the funds.
  144. So for one, I'm actually working, okay.
  145. So the nine months out of the year I was working, making money.
  146. And then for the other three months of the year, I'm still getting paid at a reduced
  147. rate, but to go to school. And then in addition, there was grants if you passed.
  148. So at the end of the day, schooling was pretty much free for me because of the
  149. government, you know, with all these grants, the incentives.
  150. they paid for like living and gas when I was going to school.
  151. so you know, I'm not telling you to do trades.
  152. I'm just saying that trades was a really good approach as I was, you know, doing
  153. music production because typically the hours are from like you know, 7 to 3:30.
  154. So, yes, it's it's early starts, but then you have you know, 3:30 to get off is
  155. pretty good. and then you can go home, do whatever that night, and then you go back
  156. to work. And that gave me a lot of free time at night to work on music and stuff
  157. like that. In addition, with being a trade, it's like since it's so versatile to
  158. jump from company to company as well as to take time off of work.
  159. Like, you know, throughout my career of being an electrician, I actually didn't work
  160. like you know, four years and become an electrician in four years.
  161. Like, I think it took me like seven or eight years.
  162. Like, I actually took a year or two off to pursue like music, and then I went back
  163. to electrical. So I just wanted to share that with you because I think that you know
  164. is really beneficial, you know, knowledge to know that at least that opportunity is
  165. there for you. Okay. Again, you know, it's really really flexible in terms of like
  166. finding jobs. Once you're ticketed, you're guaranteed a pretty solid income, you
  167. know, here in Canada. we're like so working for yourself, obviously, you're always
  168. gonna make way more money. For example, an electrician in Canada, you know,
  169. self-employed, you could be charging out probably like 70 to like $100 an hour,
  170. which is crazy, right? But when you work for a company, like that rate drops crazy.
  171. Like where I live, the price to be an electrician is actually pretty low when you
  172. work for a company, maybe $25 an hour to maybe like $35 an hour, depending on what
  173. company you work at, depending on your skills, your experience.
  174. Okay, and so the next thing I want to talk to you about is passive income.
  175. Okay, so you know, especially nowadays with the you know, with the online industry,
  176. you know, people always call like the side hustle or whatever.
  177. And I don't want to talk to you like that.
  178. I just want to talk to you in terms of like as a music producer, you have to find
  179. ways to fund yourself financially.
  180. Be ifcause you don't, you're gonna have to keep working that full-time job.
  181. you And know, that's what we're all trying to get out of.
  182. don't We
  183. want that full-time job because we want to spend time doing what we want, and that
  184. is to make music, right? And also you you don't want to be financially so strapped,
  185. even if you're a producer, like you don't want to be like, you know, right down to
  186. like the last dollar always, like you you want to have some comfort, you know.
  187. So I just want to talk to you a little bit about real estate, okay.
  188. So real estate is a really, really cool approach while being a music producer.
  189. If you can save up enough money to buy a home, typically what I would recommend to
  190. you, depending where you live, there's always different rules.
  191. And here's my disclaimer like I'm not a financial advisor, so don't listen to
  192. anything I'm saying. But real estate is really, really powerful.
  193. If you were to buy a home, make sure that you can rent your basement, okay?
  194. If you want to live upstairs, you could rent the basement, and really you could even
  195. get a roommate upstairs with you.
  196. And that mortgage is being paid for by these tenants, you know, the roommate that
  197. you're living with upstairs and the person living in the basement.
  198. And that is that's crazy. Like, could you imagine living in a home?
  199. Your mortgage is paid, and the thing is like it is this isn't hard to do.
  200. you just have to have a goal in mind, you know, save, work, work, work, save, save,
  201. save, buy that home, you know, move in, get a roommate, rent the basement.
  202. Obviously, now your living costs have been brought down tons.
  203. And that's the whole goal, you know, behind being that music producer.
  204. If you want to achieve this lifestyle of making music and not have to worry about
  205. making money and stuff like that, this is how you can start funding yourself.
  206. So that's just a really powerful thing.
  207. And then also, if you're in the States, there's also amazing benefits as a real
  208. estate investor if you read into it.
  209. And I just like to talk about your monthly goal of income.
  210. Okay. So, really, like, what is the number that you feel would be a comfortable
  211. number for you to make every month?
  212. you' Iref l youisten'ing.re listening to this podcast and you know it's like 10
  213. years from when to it, you know, this number is gonna change a little bit
  214. But I would say from five to six thousand dollars is a really good number.
  215. So I know this podcast is, you know, going to be about music and music production,
  216. but making money is probably the biggest part of music production, really.
  217. You know, if you want to pursue this, it's like you need to financially support
  218. yourself. And these are the things that you have to think about how are you going to
  219. achieve them? And realistically, what is the goal that you want to reach for your
  220. monthly income? And at the moment, I'd say five to six thousand dollars is very,
  221. very comfortable. If you have a family, maybe a little bit more.
  222. I'm just a single person at the moment.
  223. So five to six thousand dollars would be crazy good for me.
  224. And especially, you know, if I had a home and I was renting like the upstairs and
  225. the downstairs, and like you know, if I had a roommate up there or something, it's
  226. like, you know, you're making some pretty good money.
  227. You're able to buy the gear that you need, you're also able to save up for, you
  228. know, maybe if you want to buy another home to help give you a little bit extra
  229. comfort or whatever you want to do there.
  230. Because again, you don't want to fully rely on the music for all your money.
  231. You, you know, you do want a little bit of diversification that way, just to protect
  232. yourself. Because one thing I'll talk about too.
  233. So when you're a music producer, it's just like your life isn't so strenuous in a
  234. sense of like, for example, if I'm an electrician, it's like, you know, seven to
  235. three thirty, I always gotta be there.
  236. The work is pretty demanding, right?
  237. You know, it's like in the summer times where I live, it gets really hot.
  238. So it's like you're just sweating when you're working.
  239. but the thing is if I got hurt at work, it's like, yes, we have what's called
  240. workers' compensation, but again, you don't get paid out your full amount of
  241. paycheck. And the thing is, if I had a mortgage payment or if I had bills always to
  242. pay, it's just like, where do I get the money if I'm injured?
  243. Like, what if I fell off a ladder?
  244. Or really, because like I was telling you, I like to skateboard and skateboarding is
  245. super dangerous, right especially if you're trying grinds or trying like you know
  246. risk riskier tricks. If I hurt myself like skateboarding it's just like where do I
  247. get the money to fund this mortgage and bills and you know stuff like that.
  248. So again what I'm trying to say is you want to set yourself up financially.
  249. So as you're actually working your real full-time job think about how like like
  250. where are you gonna put this money so it's gonna benefit you later again if you
  251. bought that home were able to rent it out but continue to work and then again if you
  252. are you know making beats if you're selling your beats if you're making courses or
  253. whatever you know continue to do that but just set yourself up financially live a
  254. conservative lifestyle and in all honesty you guys will set yourself up to have a
  255. very very happy life with music so I know that's a lot to do with money and stuff
  256. like that. I can go way more in depth I'm just trying to keep it light but just
  257. things to think about you want to support yourself financially and you have to plan
  258. for it okay so the next thing I want to talk about is building your producer name
  259. and brand okay so the biggest thing I can stress across to you is don't compare
  260. yourself to others in the industry like sure you can look at them and see what
  261. they're doing and kind of get ideas to see what's working and what isn't working but
  262. in terms of success you know that's a really really dangerous thing to look at
  263. success really does come down to what you want and what your goals are and that's to
  264. do with you know in the beginning is this a hobby or is this a business for you and
  265. also how are you going to support yourself financially okay as soon as you set your
  266. goals up it doesn't matter what the other person is doing because if you can reach
  267. your goal again of that five to six thousand dollars a month, in my opinion, that's
  268. successful. Okay. The next thing I want to talk about is trends come and go.
  269. I know I talked about this in the last episode, but I talk about this in the book
  270. again, proper producer mindset.
  271. It's on Amazon. the The link will be in resources.
  272. The biggest thing I want to get across to you is that again, trends come and go.
  273. Right now, trap is in. I honestly feel that trap is a trend, it's not gonna stay
  274. just like dubstep. You know, it was big, now it's gone, they're on to the next
  275. thing. The biggest thing is you want to find what you like to create as a music
  276. producer. The next thing I want to talk about, learning different genres.
  277. Okay, so when you know how to create different genres.
  278. Now, I'm not telling you to like create different genres, but it's important to kind
  279. of know how they're put together because you can learn a lot of different techniques
  280. and it makes you a better producer.
  281. For example, like hip hop is typically it's very, very you know, it goes like verse,
  282. chorus, verse, chorus, and it's you know, some a lot of times there's not much
  283. change up from the verse to the chorus.
  284. It's just like you know, it's the same structure, same structure.
  285. But that's really what hip hop is known for.
  286. Like that's the sound. But let's say you go to dance music, like dance music is
  287. known for like their huge transitions, for like their big drops, for using lots of
  288. white noise, reverse symbols, snare rolls, toms, all that kind of stuff to build up
  289. tension. Dance music is amazing at building and affecting your emotions.
  290. So if you can learn like trance music and dance music and you know, stuff like that,
  291. and you can incorporate those ideas into your own music, that's gonna make you a
  292. really awesome producer. Okay.
  293. Again, you don't have to create those genres.
  294. You can create the music that you like, but as what I'm trying to say is just to
  295. learn those techniques so that at least you know them, you know, that you know how
  296. to transition from you know one section of the song to the other and stuff like
  297. that. Okay. The last thing I want to talk about with this building your producer
  298. name and brand section is be yourself.
  299. If people like you for you, you know, you're in for an enjoyable career in the music
  300. industry. You're not trying to create the music that people like, you're creating
  301. what you like. like. And if people your music for you know for your music, that's
  302. awesome Like you know, every single time you sit down to create music, it's just
  303. like as soon as you know you're creating what you like, you can release it.
  304. And you don't have to worry about this constant you know acceptance from the world.
  305. One last thing I want to talk to you about.
  306. This is something that you have to kind of weigh the scales on, but you don't want
  307. to promote yourself too soon. Really make sure that you know what you're doing,
  308. learn the stuff, become good, and then start promoting yourself.
  309. When you release yourself, like make sure that you know you have a nice artwork, you
  310. have you know presentable images because as sad as it is to say, you know, first
  311. impressions count. When someone looks at your brand, you know, many times they're
  312. gonna carry that feeling towards you through the rest of your career.
  313. And if you do it right, you know, people will respect and like you for you, okay.
  314. So that's pretty much our episode on proper producer mindset.
  315. Okay, so a lot of these points were taken from the book, Proper Producer Mindset.
  316. I went a little bit more in depth on certain things, such as like me being an
  317. electrician and and stuff like that.
  318. Okay. And again, if you guys want to support this podcast, I've left a button there
  319. on the actual episode page. just click the support button, it's five dollars a
  320. month. You guys can cancel any time.
  321. You know, I'd really appreciate it.
  322. It would give you some motivation and really help, you know, financially support
  323. this podcast. Okay, so I'm gratuitous.
  324. Thank you so much for checking out the podcast.
  325. And I'll I will talk to you guys in the next one.
  326. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  327. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com/slash podcast, select an episode
  328. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  329. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  330. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons, visit the link it's
  331. gratuitous.com/slash learning.
  332. That page will redirect you to more info and resources..
  333. I hope the best with your productions
  334. I'm gratuitous and I'll see you in the next
  335. episode.
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