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S1E10 – Before Releasing Your Music

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So you’re wanting to get started in music production, eh?

It all seems fun, until it starts getting serious. It’s at these times where you reflect on past decisions you’ve made and how you could of approached certain situations a little differently.

That’s what we cover in this episode.

What to prepare BEFORE you release your brand and music. Additionally, how to stay professional at all times, and always be aware of your decisions and the outcome those decisions can bring.

If you want to be a professional music producer, you must be aware of your actions, and the image you are portraying to the world.

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S1E10 – Before Releasing Your Music

  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, hey, what's up, everybody?
  10. Welcome to episode number 10. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about things
  11. that you should be thinking about before actually releasing your music.
  12. Now I'm not just so much talking about like you know, releasing music just in
  13. general. I'm talking about actually before you really start promoting your brand and
  14. really trying to get yourself out there, okay?
  15. Things you should be thinking about because really, you know, now it's like you're
  16. taking it more professionally, you're taking this more seriously, and it's really
  17. important that you treat it as such, okay.
  18. Before we get into the episode, I just want to share that I have actually now
  19. finished that FL Studio 20 intermediate course that I was talking about in the last
  20. episode. This is gonna teach you how to create commercial ready music, allow you to
  21. compete with like your favorite producers out there.
  22. It covers mixing, arrangement, and mastering with the new L UFS loudness
  23. normalization standards. that's gonna really teach you how to get up and running and
  24. create really professional high quality music, okay.
  25. I will leave that link in the actual resources page on this episode, okay.
  26. This is episode number 10. Okay, so let's get into the episode, okay?
  27. So when you're first starting up, it's really important that you be careful that
  28. your non professional mindset doesn't affect your actual future brand.
  29. Because when you're first starting up, you're new to this, you're not business
  30. oriented, you really don't think this way, okay?
  31. And you might be making silly decisions.
  32. Like for example, you know, like when you're first starting up, you may have some
  33. great ideas, and I say that with like the fingers, you know, like with quotes,
  34. right? But these ideas really aren't that great.
  35. These are the things that like you share or post on social media.
  36. Like, for example, you may be like, oh, I started producing music, check it out,
  37. right?ing. And the th is, first impressions count
  38. And when people see this, and if they checked out like your first beat that you've
  39. ever made, and they think it's you know, they're like, Oh, you know, this another
  40. person just trying to make it in the music industry, right?
  41. This is even to do with like if you have conversations with like close friends or
  42. family members and stuff like that.
  43. When you're first starting up, it's really really important to kind of hold it close
  44. to like your heart and just keep practicing, okay?
  45. And then eventually let your skills do the talking once you become more established
  46. and you know you have a better understanding of how music production works.
  47. But really, in my experience, currently I've been doing this for about 10-11 years
  48. now. And you know, when you're first starting up, you know, like, yeah, you want to
  49. share it with friends or you want to share it to people, you want to say, Oh, yeah,
  50. check this out. You know, you might burn it, you know, back in the day, anyways, you
  51. might burn it to like a CD and hand it out to somebody.
  52. But you want to make sure that you understand that your music is high quality, that
  53. if you do compare it to other people out there, that you are at least at that same
  54. standard of audio quality. Like, I'm not saying the same style of music, I'm saying
  55. that when someone listens to let's say their favorite artist, and then they listen
  56. to you. Does it translate? Has it been mastered similar, like in a sense of you
  57. know, loudness and the quality?
  58. That's more what I'm saying, okay?
  59. You want to make sure that you are presentable before you start really getting it
  60. out there and stuff, okay. So the next point I want to talk about is yeah, so you're
  61. you know, first impressions count.
  62. So this is why it's important to build your skills up front first and then share
  63. when you know that you're ready.
  64. This will you know, give you confidence, it's just gonna really make your first
  65. impression count. When you're first starting up, you're kind of unaware of how these
  66. decisions can affect your future because.
  67. Because again, you know, first impressions count, and you may think that you have
  68. these great ideas, which aren't so great until you start understanding the business
  69. side of things. The next thing I want to talk about is do you really feel that you
  70. have what it takes? Okay. So when you're first getting started up, you must know you
  71. have what it takes, and you're willing to fight the ups and downs of this music
  72. industry. You're gonna constantly have these huge ups and downs, you know.
  73. Like, for example, you might send out an email, some things might be working out
  74. really good, and then it might be months where nothing happens.
  75. You know, there are going to be the ups and downs, but you have to be willing to
  76. fight it. You have to be willing to push through.
  77. Really, like you are now an entrepreneur if you're trying to pursue this more as a
  78. as a career, like if you are wanting to try and sell beats, if you're wanting to try
  79. and get your music on the radio.
  80. Now, this is kind of a touchy subject because you know, one person may think they
  81. have what it takes when maybe they they don't.
  82. Because here's kind of like a funny example.
  83. Like it's kind of like singing, right?
  84. Like some people think they have a good voice, like when they don't, and you know, a
  85. good comparison is like looking at like American Idol tryouts, for example, right?
  86. Like watching all like the people come on and you know they they're being rejected.
  87. And the sad thing is it's like that's the reality of life, right?
  88. So a good way to see if you think you have what it takes is to truly look at your
  89. music and compare it to other people in the industry, okay?
  90. Now I'm not saying to copy, but I'm talking like just like the quality-wise, like
  91. you know, the way how they use their synths, the way how they have mixed it, the way
  92. how they've mastered it. Is the quality of your music up to that same par, o.kay
  93. And that would be a little bit of an indicator that you know, are you close?
  94. And if you're close, like you know, it's just practice, then maybe for you.
  95. But again, some people have what it takes and some people don't.
  96. So, truly inside you, have to really know it's like, are you willing to you know to
  97. to do what it takes to fight the ups and downs?
  98. And then also, do you also have like the natural ability to make music?
  99. Like, are you creative? are you able to make you know music?
  100. And again, it is a touchy subject, but at the end of the day, only some people
  101. really are gonna make it in the music industry, and others aren't, okay.
  102. So, you have to kind of figure out is it worth your time to pursue this?
  103. Like, you know, you can always be doing this as a hobby, and that's totally fine.
  104. I'm more talking about if you're wanting to pursue this as a business, start making
  105. money, and you know, enjoy this as a career, okay.
  106. So, I want to get into talking about like building your brand just a little bit.
  107. So, before you actually get your name out there, it's really important that you do
  108. create a logo beforehand and don't cheap out and also don't rush it, okay.
  109. You know, in my beginnings, I've gone through quite a few different logos for
  110. gratuitous in the beginnings. I rushed it, you know, like my logo was not super you
  111. know professional. Over the years it got a little bit better, and then finally now I
  112. have like a gratuitous with like a little speaker.
  113. not to say that it's gonna stay like that forever, but it's just really important
  114. that you do have a high quality logo because again, it's with business with
  115. branding. When people look at your logo, it does reflect on your brand, okay?
  116. I'll just tell you like a little bit of a story that I experienced when I was
  117. starting up because when you're first starting up, like you don't have tons of money
  118. to spend with branding, and you know, again, it also goes down to that point of
  119. you're not really business mindset in the very very beginnings.
  120. That's why you have to be careful and prepare ahead of time.
  121. You got to think into the future a lot.
  122. So the story I want to say is because so for my very, very first release, it was my
  123. album. The album was called We've Only Just Met.
  124. It's like on iTunes and Spotify.
  125. If you want to check it out. And for my actual artwork, I was gonna use paint.
  126. Like I'm talking like from like Windows XP to like early Windows 7.
  127. It was paint, Windows Paint. And it's just like now, even in Windows 10, like you
  128. are able to do a little bit more of a paint, but for anyone who knows anything about
  129. graphic design, like you never use paint for like anything.
  130. Like I even nowadays I might use paint to like maybe like resize an image quickly,
  131. and like that's pretty much it, okay.
  132. but I was gonna create my actual artwork in paint, and it looked it looked
  133. so like unprofessional, right?
  134. And I sent it to somebody and they were just like, Whoa, like here, let me just you
  135. know, kind of update that a little bit for you.
  136. And all they did was they just like chose like a better font, and they also just
  137. kind of put like a little gradient background to kind of offset like the black a
  138. little bit, and that's it. And you know, it made it look just like way better.
  139. but again, it just comes down to like that patience, and really it's like to spend
  140. like a hundred dollars on like some artwork or something and compared to just doing
  141. it yourself and it looks cheap.
  142. The thing is, like it's gonna be out there forever, and who knows like where your
  143. music career is gonna go. So, you know, it's just important to take your time with
  144. your logo and make it look good, okay?
  145. Because it is your brand, okay.
  146. You have to be thinking that way.
  147. This is your business now. one other thing I'll kind of mention, I'm not gonna get
  148. too much into is you always want to have a way for people to connect with you.
  149. Like, yes, there's social media and stuff like that, but the dangers of social media
  150. is that you actually don't have control of your followers, okay.
  151. So, this is where like an email marketing list is really really important to have.
  152. For example, if you have your website, you want a way for people to opt in to sign
  153. up with their email. Many times I also ask for the person's first name..
  154. That way, in my emails, I can reference them by first name
  155. A lot of times, these email providers allow you to use just like a little piece of
  156. code, and it will always pull in that person's first name.
  157. So no matter who you're sending the email to, it just pulls in their first name.
  158. It's a nice little personalized approach, okay.
  159. Now, with emails, this allows you to connect and contact them at any time, and it's
  160. directly into their inbox. So it doesn't matter if Facebook goes away or Twitter
  161. goes away or any of these social platforms, you have control of their email until
  162. they opt out, so until they unsubscribe.
  163. But if they like your content, if they like you for who you are, anytime you send
  164. out an email, it's just a really nice personal one-on-one connection.
  165. So it's really important to capture these people's emails so you can stay in contact
  166. with them. Okay, so next thing I want to talk about is your actions now matter.
  167. Okay, so now let's say that you have prepared yourself, you've created your logo,
  168. you feel that your music is up to like more of a commercial standard that if someone
  169. listens to your music, they feel that you know there's huge room for improvement for
  170. you. They also like your music, they like your brand, they like where you're going.
  171. Okay. Now you have to be thinking about really you can be now like a role model and
  172. you're a professional and you have to treat it as such.
  173. So, what I mean by that is your words and actions now matter.
  174. Okay, it's really, really important.
  175. Like if you're ever interviewed or the things you see on social media, the things
  176. you share, it's very, very important that you always think about you know these
  177. actions of yours, okay. This goes down to like the things you believe, the things
  178. you portray, and the things that you say, and probably the most important part of
  179. this is what you're actually saying in your songs, okay.
  180. Is it true to who you are? Would you be happy with the message that you're putting
  181. out there like 10 years from now?
  182. Because right now it might be fun.
  183. You might be making money from what you're saying and what you're doing because that
  184. just might be the trends. but again, you know, let's say you start growing up, let's
  185. say you have a family, let's say you have children.
  186. Now all of a sudden you look back to this music.
  187. Is this the image that you want to portray to the world?
  188. Is it also the image you want to portray to your family, to your children, and stuff
  189. like that. So you do have to think ahead this way, okay?
  190. It's it's really important for your brand and also for yourself, because you know,
  191. later on in life, because you know, let's say you have built your brand on a certain
  192. image, people know you for a certain way, and let's say 10-15 years later, all of a
  193. sudden you're you're kind of looking back and you're you are reflecting and you're
  194. like, Do you know what this is not the way I want to go anymore?
  195. It's like I kind of wish I could change it.
  196. This can kind of hinder you later on, it can make you know your music maybe not more
  197. not as fun. But if you think this way, you're always just kind of at least thinking
  198. about your actions a little bit more.
  199. Like, obviously, you can never predict the future or like know what you what you
  200. want even in the future, but as long as you you can kind of think about it a little
  201. bit, it's just gonna make that process a little bit easier.
  202. It's also gonna prevent you from making really bad decisions, okay.
  203. the last thing I want to talk about being a music producer is honestly extremely re
  204. rewarding. So, for example, like when you create your music, it is like a special
  205. privilege to be able to hear the music that you've created.
  206. There's just something special, like you know, if you're a producer, as soon as you
  207. play your own music, your own beat, you know, enjoying your own music, you know, it
  208. kind of it kind of sounds like full of yourself, right?
  209. But really, it's like not everyone can create music, like you create music.
  210. So it's just a really cool thing to have being a music producer..
  211. Another really powerful thing about music is that it affects many people in like the
  212. good and bad times of their life
  213. For example, so you know, with music, many times artists they create
  214. songs that are gonna be for a certain like event or something.
  215. For example, like you know, every single year, there's there typically comes out a
  216. song that's gonna be for like a wedding, and like you know, at the wedding, that's
  217. like the one like where like the husband and wife or whatever, like they're gonna do
  218. like the slow dance, right? Or there's that one song of the father and the daughter
  219. dance. It's like these are kind of like the markets, and really like those are like
  220. the big markets, like when it comes to like weddings and stuff like that, like those
  221. certain songs that are like the hits.
  222. so that's kind of something to think about, right?
  223. It's like that's more like the business, it's more of like the niche within the
  224. music business, you know, when you create these songs.
  225. So, anyways, that's just kind of this podcast, this episode.
  226. That's kind of what I wanted to talk about.
  227. Just before you release your music, these are some kind of things you want to think
  228. about, just be careful in the very very beginnings because you can be making some
  229. really unwise decisions because again, you're not business mindset yet.
  230. You have to be careful what you're posting on social media, especially in your early
  231. days of like, you know, oh you know, I just started making beats.
  232. Check out my new beat, check out this, right?
  233. When people keep seeing these posts and stuff, at first they're like, Oh, that's
  234. cool. And then let's say three months, four months down the road, if you keep
  235. posting this kind of stuff, yes, you're gonna have some true followers or whatever,
  236. and that's cool. But imagine that if you came right off the start with like high
  237. quality, your brand, your image, and everyone would be like, Wow, like this guy
  238. really, you know, he hit it right.
  239. And then one thing that again that I have found within this music industry is it's
  240. just really important to keep a lot of this stuff close to your heart and really.
  241. don't share stuff until one that you know for sure that things are gonna be done
  242. For example, like you know, don't be talking, oh, I'm gonna release an album or I'm
  243. gonna release a beat tape, but really you haven't even started, you don't even know
  244. like the actual title of it, right?
  245. If you want to mention that kind of stuff, make sure that, like, you know, if you're
  246. gonna create that beat tape, make sure that all the beats are done.
  247. Make sure that like maybe your 70, 80% done mixed it.
  248. And if you were to mention it to somebody, it's like you know that you're gonna be
  249. releasing this within like a month or something, right?
  250. and the reason why I say like, you know, holding it close to your heart is just
  251. because especially the people within like your close group.
  252. I'm talking like your close friends or like the family members, these are the people
  253. that can actually hinder you the most.
  254. they can say things that can dampen you, you know.
  255. they can really uninspire you or make you feel like intimidated and stuff.
  256. So it's really important that you share when you know that you're ready.
  257. And even if anything, like sometimes you don't even have to share with these types
  258. of people, right? As you continue to grow, like you build your business, your brand.
  259. You don't have to share everything with like you know, your close people.
  260. When I was talking about have a way for people to like to connect with you, right?
  261. This newsletter, it's like, see that the difference is these are the people that
  262. want to connect with you. They're the people that have signed up, they want to hear
  263. from you. Obviously, you have to be careful in how you talk to them.
  264. You don't want to be spammy, but that's the difference, right?
  265. So, again, check out the FL Studio Intermediate course.
  266. I've gone super super in depth.
  267. It's gonna teach you guys best, practices in a sense of how to get commercial ready,
  268. high quality, professional music from your mixing to your arrangement to your actual
  269. mastering with the new loudness standards, LUFS, all that kind of stuff.
  270. Okay. Again, come to this actual episode page.
  271. This is number 10, and check out the resource links.
  272. Okay.. Thanks for checking out the episode
  273. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com slash podcast, select an episode,
  274. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  275. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  276. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons, visit the link it'sgratuitous.com
  277. slash learning. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  278. I hope the best with your productions.
  279. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  280. episode.
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