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S1E26 – Learning How to Research Effectively

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You may not think about it, but being a music producer requires A LOT OF KNOWLEDGE!

Nowadays, with us being “bedroom producers”, we actually take on the role of many trades to create our music.

Whether you’re aware of that or not, there will be a lot of reading/studying required from you to obtain respect in this industry.

I talk about some powerful ways to research and put a big emphasis on the importance of RETAINING the knowledge you’ve just read.

Tune in for the details!

Proper Producer Mindset Workflow

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S1E26 – Learning How to Research Effectively

  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 can 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. Alright, hey, what's going on, everybody?
  10. Welcome to episode number 26. So welcome to the new year.
  11. you know, I have a lot of things I want to tackle this year in a sense of products
  12. and courses and stuff like that.
  13. I actually have two ideas for books that I want to finish.
  14. I have like an FL Studio Beginners book that I'm working on, which I've been working
  15. on it for a while. I just don't have the time, you know, just kind of juggling
  16. different things around, but I do want to set aside some time to release that, get
  17. it on Amazon, as well as a piano book with pictures and stuff like that.
  18. I think that'll be really, really helpful to a lot of you guys, especially for those
  19. of you who have taken my piano course.
  20. So, with that said, I just want to let you guys know I've just released a brand new
  21. piano course. Okay, so now that I have nice camera, nice microphone, all that stuff.
  22. so I created this piano course before I had all that nicer gear, and it was my best
  23. it was my best selling course out of all of my courses.
  24. And I taught the piano from a beat maker's perspective, trying to teach you, you
  25. know, what as you know, as a beat maker, what do you need to know to play the piano?
  26. Okay, and really it comes down to knowing improvisation and knowing how to create
  27. catchy loops. And in order to improvise, you have to know what notes and keys you're
  28. allowed to play, which also dictates what chords you're allowed to play, okay.
  29. And now that I got this higher quality gear, this video gear, I decided to revamp
  30. that best selling piano course.
  31. Okay. So the new piano course is called Piano Lessons for Producers.
  32. And I break down, you know, how a piano works, you know, what are you looking at
  33. when you look at that piano, keys, chords, scales.
  34. but I also give you guys some kind of practice examples too, so you can kind of get
  35. up and running a little bit faster.
  36. So again, you guys can just check out piano lessons for producers.
  37. I'll leave the link in the resource section.
  38. I've also released another course, it's called you know, how to use automation clips
  39. in FL Studio. you know, I just want to kind of keep covering all these kind of
  40. common problem areas for newer producers.
  41. And if you have any questions, you know, if you want to, if you want me to create a
  42. course on a certain you know, topic like that, you know, because I've already
  43. created one on how to use an audio interface, how to use a MIDI keyboard, now
  44. automation clips, right? These are kind of just small specific targeted areas.
  45. And if you have questions similar to that, you know, send me an email, H I, so hi at
  46. it's gratuitous.com, and I can easily create another course specifically just for
  47. that. And if you are a member, you know, you guys always get these courses for free.
  48. So that's a huge perk. There's the monthly as well as the lifetime membership.
  49. Okay, so I want to get into this episode and talk about you know, so
  50. nowadays with so much information being available to us, it's really important
  51. to know how to learn faster. Okay.
  52. even if you search this into Google, I'm sure you're gonna get tons and tons of
  53. videos. but really the thing is is cutting out the fluff of your life, you
  54. know. So when you go to research a topic, you're gonna find so many different
  55. websites that you know are talking about that topic.
  56. But sometimes they copy each other's websites.
  57. So, for example, sometimes a website would go to another website, they read you know
  58. their main points, and now they start writing an. article based off of the other
  59. person's article So, being a producer, there is actually a lot to
  60. learn, and you always have to constantly be reading.
  61. I remember for myself when I first started, so maybe a couple years into producing,
  62. maybe about two or three years in, I ended up purchasing the Fab Filter Pro Bundle.
  63. Okay, so I ended up getting like Pro L, Pro Q, Pro C, Pro DS, Pro G,
  64. and then eventually when they came up with the multi-band Pro MB, I bought that
  65. separately as well. But I remember that you know, I couldn't get any information
  66. on us, you know, some of their features that they had, you know.
  67. For example, they have like the K-metering, like now I'm speaking like the very,
  68. very first editions, the first volumes of Fab Filter.
  69. Now they're on like version three, you know, just to kind of give you a reference
  70. point that I'm still using like the old gear that I've bought a long time ago, and
  71. it still works really, really well.
  72. So, again, you know, be careful of gear lust, you don't always have to buy the
  73. newest, the nicest, you have to buy what works for you, okay.
  74. But I remember reading through the manuals of each plugin, okay.
  75. Because if you talk about a limiter, for example, like there's a lot of information
  76. about a limiter and all like what all like the knobs do, for example, like look
  77. ahead. and if you're talking about like dither and you know,
  78. oversampling, you know, these words, and you're just like, whoa, like okay, so now
  79. we're kind of getting technical, like you don't just have to know just kind of like
  80. you know how to count beats anymore.
  81. It's now like you're actually learning how digital audio works, and by reading these
  82. manuals, it was like going directly to the source for the information, okay.
  83. So that has been one good way for me to learn how. to get direct information
  84. Now, not to say that these manuals are always right, you know, you always want to
  85. maybe double check, just do some research.
  86. But for the most part, you know, the person developing the plugin is knowledgeable,
  87. you know. It takes a lot of knowledge to program these VSTs.
  88. Okay. I've looked into it and eventually I do want to learn how to code my own.
  89. just you know, over the years producing, sometimes you think about something like,
  90. oh, I think that'd be pretty cool.
  91. But it's just, you know, the blockage there is to is knowing how to code, right?
  92. And the time to code it. Okay, so some other things I want to talk about about
  93. learning how to research and you know, find these questions.
  94. Because okay, so in beat making, I guess production as a whole, we have different
  95. stages of production, and in each different stage, that is actually a professional
  96. engineer's job in the real world.
  97. Okay. So, for example, if we talk about a beatmaker, okay, so that is one person's
  98. trade within this industry. They are a beat maker.
  99. Then we have the mixing engineer, you know, they are actually actually like that.
  100. Okay, so there's professional arrangers within this music industry, but you see,
  101. when you are a bedroom producer and you're trying to do this all yourself, you may
  102. not be aware of it, but you're actually taking on the role of many different
  103. people's jobs, and you're essentially becoming like that real producer, the one-man
  104. band show, okay. and with that said, you have to know how to
  105. obtain the knowledge and you know, keep it.
  106. You have to you have to know how to read and keep that knowledge, okay, because it's
  107. really easy to read a book, but then to retain that knowledge and remember what
  108. you've read., that is what the hard part is, okay
  109. And so being a music producer, you're gonna constantly keep coming up with the you
  110. know, these certain terms will keep coming up, such as like the NyQuest theorem or
  111. you know, your your sample rate or like your bit depth.
  112. And it's just like, well, what are these what do these things actually mean?
  113. now, just because the information is there doesn't mean you have to know it.
  114. A lot of the time it is nice to know the information, you know, it it kind of pushes
  115. your knowledge if you were to talk in like an interview or something, you know,
  116. you'd be able to relate to what they're talking about.
  117. because you know, if if you're gonna continue in this industry, if you become a per
  118. a professional in whatever role you're being, that beat maker or mixing engineer,
  119. whatever, you know, you want to have that knowledge so that if the interviewer asks
  120. you a question, you know, you can kind of speak a little bit about you know what's
  121. going on, or at least have an awareness like, oh yeah, you know what I've heard
  122. about that, I've looked into it, I didn't fully understand it, but I know what
  123. you're saying. Now, let's talk about Google, for example.
  124. So here's a kind of cool trick.
  125. It's more of like an SEO, so a search engine optimization.
  126. So if you guys are trying to, you know, get your website out there a little bit more
  127. and stuff like that. I'm sure you've watched some tutorials on SEO.
  128. It just helps you get your you know, your website at the top of Google organically,
  129. okay. So without paying for advertising, okay.
  130. When someone searches in a term or a keyword, your website is hopefully comes up top
  131. because you know, either you've blogged about it or in your product, in your product
  132. description, you've you know wrote certain keywords.
  133. Now, there's actually different ways you can type into Google to make
  134. certain I guess search terms come up better.
  135. Okay. certain So for example, if you put apostrophes around words, it makes sure
  136. that those words have to go like in that order and stuff like that.
  137. It's I believe it's what's called phrase matching.
  138. it's really really powerful stuff.
  139. I would even just go to Google and just type, you know, how to search into Google
  140. better or advanced Google search tricks.
  141. These are super super helpful.
  142. Like, for example, sometimes if you're trying to learn about like certain features
  143. on a compressor or something, sometimes like you're searching, but sometimes it
  144. might overlap into like a different industry sometimes.
  145. So, you know, let's say you're and I'm just making this up, but this has happened to
  146. me so many times. You know, with just even if even if even if I'm searching about
  147. something for like a kitchen item and then it relates to like something for like a
  148. sports something, right? So sometimes when you go to search, a different industry
  149. kind of keeps coming up, but it's just like, oh well, I want to want to find this
  150. specific term. So by using these more advanced Google search terms or search
  151. techniques, such as like the apostrophes, or you can use like the the square
  152. brackets and stuff like that. it allows you to hone in more on what your search
  153. result is gonna be. Okay. Again, you guys can just read more into this stuff.
  154. I just want you to be aware of it because being that music producer, there is so
  155. much that you actually have to read and learn.
  156. Okay, and you may not be aware of it, but like I'm saying, if you're gonna be
  157. learning how to be that beat maker, you guys gotta be learning about you know some
  158. music theory, you gotta be learning about like the rhythm, be learning about VSTs,
  159. you know, how to use your music program, etc.
  160. etc. Now, if we go into the mixing, okay, so now you have to be learning about
  161. frequencies, you have to be learning about testing on different systems, you know.
  162. So for, example, just because it sounds good in your studio doesn't mean it's gonna
  163. sound good out there in the real world, which is called translation, right?,
  164. you have to be knowing about EQ, how to use the mixer, all like the different signal
  165. routing, you know, if you're gonna be to be doing like parallel processing or just
  166. different techniques to make your music sound professional and at an industry
  167. standard. If we're gonna be talking about mastering, right?
  168. So there's so much knowledge in each of these sub-categories
  169. within making the beat, okay? And because there's so much knowledge, it can become,
  170. you know, you can become very, very overwhelmed.
  171. And I felt this way many times when I first started up producing music.
  172. And now that I've gotten older, now that I've been doing this for quite a while, you
  173. know, I don't find myself reading as much into some of the kind of easier
  174. things, such as like, you know, what does the attack do on a compressor, like what
  175. does the release do? It's like now I already know that.
  176. But if I were to go and read a topic on those, it just helps solidify my
  177. understanding even more. Okay.
  178. So the whole point of this episode was more just we as producers actually have a lot
  179. to read and a lot to learn. Okay.
  180. You should be getting your information directly from the VST manuals or your actual
  181. music programs manual. Okay, they break things down very, very straightforward,
  182. right to the point. You know, I guess the good saying is like straight from the
  183. horse's mouth, okay. But being that producer, first starting up, you know, you're
  184. just trying to figure out the music program.
  185. And then after you've kind of figured out your music program, now you're actually
  186. figuring out how to make a beat, like, you know, in a sense of like your drum loop.
  187. Like you may you may be be struggling to even get like that drum loop even to flow
  188. because it might be out of sync, or you know, your rhythm might weird, and then you
  189. go to add your instrument in, and you just don't know like the timing.
  190. So you have to learn all that stuff, okay.
  191. And really, that is like the most basic that you can get as a producer, and then
  192. once you start getting more advanced, now you're gonna be learning about you know,
  193. like layering, you're gonna be learning about the the different places where you can
  194. place your sounds, okay. You know, if you want to jump into like the piano now and
  195. like a MIDI keyboard, you have to be learning about your gear, your MIDI keyboard,
  196. your audio interface, headsets, you know.
  197. Do you want an open back headset or do you want a close back?
  198. And from in my opinion, I would suggest an open back, it gives you more natural
  199. sound as you're mixing your music, you know.
  200. But the reason why they have all these different tools and stuff is because there's
  201. different time to use that tool,
  202. okay. Okay, so I just wanted to let you guys be aware that you know when you
  203. actually research when you're reading, it takes time, okay.
  204. And just because you've read something today doesn't mean you're gonna retain it
  205. tomorrow. It may be you have to come back and read it a month later, and all of a
  206. sudden it's like, oh, now it clicks, okay?
  207. So don't get overwhelmed. If you don't understand something right now, don't worry.
  208. Keep making your music, you know, keep growing.
  209. eventually, you know, you're gonna read that same paragraph later on, could be a
  210. year, could be two years from now, and it clicks, and you're just like, why did I
  211. find that so hard earlier on? And again, it's just because you have so many things
  212. going on in your mind when you're first starting producing, especially, you know, if
  213. this is just a little side hobby, right?
  214. There's a lot to learn, and then there's gonna be a lot of reading, and I'm just
  215. gonna warn you that right now..
  216. But it's important that you learn how to research properly
  217. In addition, you also have to learn how to ask the right questions.
  218. Okay. again, a lot of these websites, they write articles that are based off of
  219. other articles, and you just want to find the information that you want that is
  220. direct and to the point. Again, manuals are really, really helpful.
  221. Forums are pretty dangerous. Don't get me wrong.
  222. Sometimes you can really find that one little nugget of information, and it's just
  223. like, oh, that's what I was looking for for so long.
  224. But it's a lot of opinion-based stuff on forums, so you just got to be careful of
  225. just the opinion stuff. For myself, you know, I do have my own opinions.
  226. I try to be pretty transparent.
  227. And if I do give my opinion, I'll kind of give you most of the time, like both sides
  228. to the argument. Be like, you know, let's say we're talking about like mixing the
  229. low end or something. You know, I'd be like, oh well, you know, I'll do it this way.
  230. I know a lot of people in the industry do it this way.
  231. However, I like it, I like doing it this way for this reason.
  232. Okay, so that's this episode. it wasn't so much music production related, but the
  233. thing is to get good at music production, there's a lot of reading involved, which
  234. does relate to music production.
  235. Okay. So I just want to remind you my new piano course is now released.
  236. Again, it was my best seller out of all of my courses.
  237. I now have 22 music production courses, okay?
  238. This one is called Piano Lessons for Producers.
  239. It teaches you so much about the piano from a beatmaker's perspective.
  240. Because the whole problem there is that if you go to YouTube, you search into
  241. YouTube, you know, how to play the piano, right?
  242. Or even how to play the piano for beginners, okay?
  243. Again, those are like the keywords, right?
  244. You know know, when I was talking to about like SEO and you, trying to ask the right
  245. questions.. Okay So beginners would be like the keyword for someone first starting.
  246. And they're gonna typically be teaching you just how to play the piano from a
  247. classical standpoint, or you know, kind of teaching you how to read sheet music.
  248. But think about it. As a beatmaker, we do not need to know sheet music ever.
  249. You could make a lot of money by being a music producer and not know how to read
  250. sheet music. And I teach you from a beatmaker's perspective how to play this
  251. piano so that you can improvise.
  252. Improvisation just means that you could literally create melodies on the fly.
  253. Okay, you don't have to worry about any you know, any sheet music, knowing how to
  254. read, you know, music or anything.
  255. You just have to know how a piano works in a sense of the notes, your octaves, how
  256. keys and scales work, because that dictates what notes you're actually allowed to
  257. play on a piano. Okay. When I first started making beats, playing the piano, I was
  258. always able to hit like the white notes, and but then as soon as I would go to add
  259. the black notes in, I was confused because it would always sound, you know, out of
  260. pitch. And so a piano has 12 notes, okay, per octave, okay, and then
  261. it just repeats every single octave.
  262. But when you pick a key and a scale, you're actually only allowed to play seven
  263. notes. And by you understanding that, it's actually a game changer.
  264. And I say that because instead of you trying to figure out what notes you're even
  265. allowed to play, now it's just a matter of trying to find a melody with the notes
  266. that you know that you are allowed to play.
  267. Now that's still hard, don't get me wrong.
  268. You know, trying to find that melody is still it takes skill..
  269. Okay But it's a lot easier than trying to figure out what notes you're allowed to
  270. play rather than knowing the notes and then just trying to find the melody.
  271. Okay. So in that piano course called Piano Lessons for Producers, I teach you from a
  272. beatmaker's perspective. You know, you guys, you guys will actually learn how to
  273. play the piano with both hands, improvisation on the fly.
  274. you know, I can only get you so far, I can give you the knowledge.
  275. It is up to you to practice, but it'll be a huge eye-opener for you.
  276. And then when you go to make your beats, you can just truly excel.
  277. So if you do want to get that course, I have it in my membership.
  278. So just come to it'sgratuitous.com.
  279. There is a monthly or lifetime membership.
  280. Lifetime gives you access to all courses and all future courses.
  281. so I just want to let you guys be aware of that because it has been my best seller.
  282. It has helped so many producers.
  283. I don't want to keep driving it home to you, but it has helped so many producers.
  284. I've gotten so many awesome five-star reviews saying like thank you, thank you,
  285. thank you, that kind of stuff.
  286. And now it's just a revamped version of that piano course now with high quality
  287. gear. Okay, so if you guys have any questions ever, just always feel free to reach
  288. out to me. Okay. This is, you know, I I like to I like to teach, I like to produce
  289. music. and you know, if you guys want some advice, I'm always here to answer your
  290. questions. So thanks for tuning in.
  291. I'll talk to you guys in the next episode and take care.
  292. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  293. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com/slash podcast, select an episode
  294. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  295. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  296. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons, visit the link it's
  297. gratuitous.com/slash learning.
  298. That page will redirect you to more info and resources..
  299. I hope the best with your productions
  300. I'm gratuitous and I'll see you in the next
  301. episode.
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