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S1E29 – Keeping it Real No Matter What

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In this episode, we talk about a couple things related to music production, but more of just an update of where I’ve been.

I announce the release of my two new books (FL Studio Beginner’s Book, and FL Studio Ultimate Template Creation Guide), talk about some money management mindsets, and what’s to come with the FL Studio membership!

Some big things are to come, and your feedback is welcomed.

Branding Proper Producer Mindset

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Transcript

S1E29 – Keeping it Real No Matter What

  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. Hey, what's everybody? Gratuitous here and welcome to episode 29.
  10. So it's been a while since I I released my last episode and I've been super super
  11. busy, okay? in that time, I have written two books here on Amazon.
  12. The one book took me a while, okay?
  13. It was called FL Studio Beginner's Book, and it actually took me a year to write,
  14. okay. I talked about that, I believe, in the last episode there.
  15. And you know, the reason why I took so long is just because you know, I pretty much
  16. finished the book. I ended up reading through it.
  17. I just found it was really jumpy, you know, went from one section to the next, kind
  18. of really harsh. I just kind of kept solidifying it, and finally I released it.
  19. I got it printed, and I just wanted to wait until I actually got a paperback in my
  20. hands, and I was so impressed with how it turned out.
  21. It's my biggest book, it's 160 pages, okay.
  22. So if you guys purchase it off of Amazon, yeah, like you know, I actually released a
  23. video here on YouTube. You guys can check it out, and I'll leave links in the show
  24. notes as well. The other book I released is called FL Studio Ultimate Template
  25. Creation Guide, and my whole goal behind that book is not to teach you how to create
  26. a template, it's more about your mindset behind the template, okay?
  27. So for myself, I just discovered that you know, okay, first of all, a template is
  28. awesome, right? It saves you time.
  29. But in my early years, I thought, oh, I'm gonna create this huge template that's
  30. gonna save me so much time, and I ended up adding in all these different plugins.
  31. but what I realized actually, like, you know, maybe about a month ago, as I was
  32. starting to create a new beat tape, is I was going through like you know, my beat
  33. catalog of old beats. I loaded up a beat and I realized I was like, oh, this was the
  34. old template I was working off of, right?.
  35. So, again, the awesome ideas I had back in the day turned out to not be so awesome
  36. My goal behind this book is to teach you a good decision versus a bad decision
  37. within this template. Okay. So, again, I'll I'll leave the links in the description
  38. below. Okay. So, where have I been?
  39. What have I been up to? So I actually quit my full-time job as an electrician.
  40. It was just kind of some problems at the job.
  41. I've never really wanted to do the foreman position.
  42. And the reason is because I I've always done this stuff on the side, you know, music
  43. production, and I don't want to take my work home.
  44. So I was always kind of like the subforeman, you know, I'd always be making sure
  45. that the guys are getting the job done.
  46. And if they're not, you know, like I I love to teach, right?
  47. So I'm actually gonna break down and share with them, you know, what I like to see,
  48. how I want it done, and really for efficiency.
  49. and there was just problems at the site I was at, and you know, I pretty much I you
  50. know, I tried to talk to the higher ups and say, hey, fix the situation, nothing was
  51. getting done, and you know, I I've never quit a job on short notice.
  52. I literally went in, grabbed my tools like the next day, and I was like, guys, like
  53. I'm I'm out of here. it was it was a huge step for me.
  54. but the reason why I say that is because I actually want to start creating
  55. electrical courses here. So since I'm in Canada, I've been an electrician for about
  56. 13 years, okay. And in all honesty, it's it's been an awesome job to do with music
  57. production because you know, as you go to school, a lot of times you have a lot of
  58. you know downtime to do like music production, or you know, sometimes work is slow,
  59. and many times you can get like EI, so in other words, like you know, you get paid a
  60. reduced salary, you know, even if work gets slower, and so it's just kind of always
  61. just been a nice job, right? But I just found as I was going to school, you never
  62. really learnt anything, and you know, as I started to get more and more seasoned in
  63. electrical, all these new, pretty much young adults coming out of high school who
  64. just finished, like you know, maybe like their first year of electrical, and they
  65. actually have something called pre-app.
  66. Okay, so they take this pre-apprenticeship, and it's supposed to teach them, you
  67. know, really like the basics so that when they're out there in the field that they
  68. have a general idea of what's going on, and honestly, I have just found over the
  69. years that that pre-apprenticeship really teaches them like nothing, and I guess
  70. it's probably even similar for music production school that you know, these people
  71. they go to music production school, really they come out into like the real world,
  72. and it's just kind of like you know, now they go to make a beat, and it's just like,
  73. well, yeah, you learned the theory, but you need to actually apply that theory,
  74. right? So, yeah, like now I I I have a lot of time.
  75. Okay, so I've actually I'm within the membership, I'm going to be updating the you
  76. know, my actual website and how it looks.
  77. I really want to get that membership super super simple for you guys.
  78. You know, there's now 23 courses on there.
  79. Again, for those of you who don't know, there is a monthly as well as a lifetime
  80. membership option. So your feedback is truly appreciated.
  81. I will listen and I will apply it.
  82. but I really want to get that going.
  83. I also want to look into you know marketing at a you know, at a pretty higher level
  84. to really get my courses out there so I can really do this full time and be really
  85. financially stable off of it because you know, I have a lot of different goals that
  86. you know, my goal is really to teach you and really get you learning best practices,
  87. right? yeah, sure, like the money's cool, but really like the money is just there to
  88. support me and what I'm doing.
  89. You know, I really I really don't care about fancy stuff.
  90. Like for myself, I drove the same car that I had from high school.
  91. So I only had one car from high school, and it lasted me about 10 years.
  92. And what happened was my gas lines rusted out, and you know, the car was probably
  93. worth like a like 700 to a thousand bucks.
  94. It was actually an Acura Integra, it was a pretty mint condition accuraintegra.
  95. It was in 1994 to fix the gas lines.
  96. It was like it wasn't even worth the cost.
  97. So I actually purchased, you know, a nicer car recently, and you know, it's like
  98. cool, but it just sits in my garage most of the time because you know, I I usually
  99. work on the computer now. you know, when I was electrician, it's like, yeah, I use
  100. that car to drive to work, but then when I come home, it's like what I'm trying to
  101. say is like, you know, money is important, but for me, you know, I really don't care
  102. about the luxuries. I really do like to teach, and you know, just having the money
  103. to allow me to teach and allow me to have the time to teach because really, you
  104. know, figuring out a course structure or even having you know high quality gear to
  105. make that course super professional for you guys, that's what's required to be
  106. professional, right? So, in addition to quitting my job, I actually had like a
  107. basement renovation. I think I talked to you about that on the last episode.
  108. within that time, I had a problem with one of the tenants.
  109. they just were not working out and they wanted out of the lease early.
  110. I actually brought in a new tenant to show, and the person actually scared
  111. away the tenant I was gonna be showing to the unit.
  112. And I was just like, what is going on here?
  113. Like this is so unprofessional.
  114. And it's just like, you know, things like that happen in life.
  115. And finally, I just released a huge course about how to write a book for Amazon.
  116. Okay. So, since you know, releasing these five books over the years, and now I have
  117. the time to do this stuff. I created a course on how to write a book for Amazon.
  118. So if you guys are interested you know in writing a book for Amazon you know it
  119. could be for any topic right I again I teach I teach you about like you know that
  120. template setting it up and really just you know what Amazon's guidelines are to get
  121. a nice professional result. So again check the link in the description and come
  122. check out the FL Studio Beginners book.
  123. Like honestly I was so impressed with myself with this book.
  124. Like it's 160 pages in this book.
  125. Like you know all my other books have been kind of thin right and this one I just
  126. like as soon as I took it out of like the Amazon packaging I was just like I was
  127. like whoa like I can't believe I actually did this like it turned out great.
  128. Okay. So the the beginners book isn't just for beginners it's for beginners as well
  129. as like more seasoned producers.
  130. I teach you like you know workflow tricks keyboard shortcuts and why I like to do
  131. things the way I do it inside of FL Studio okay so let's get into a topic I just
  132. kind of thought about this topic off the top of my head right before I was doing
  133. this right before I did the podcast this this podcast here this episode is super raw
  134. okay I don't even have notes at all I just there's just been a lot going on in my
  135. life and really I putting the podcast to the side just for a little bit so I can
  136. start organizing myself so even I have a website for myself called Rileyweather.com
  137. where is where I release you know these business kind of courses so I you know I've
  138. created one called how to create an online course also how to use like a newsletter
  139. effectively for example if you guys are on the newsletter where once in a while I
  140. will send you out an email about a new course or something like that right, email
  141. marketing is huge as a music producer.
  142. Okay. So again, if you are a music producer, you want to be capturing what's called
  143. leads, right? So potential customers who are interested in buying beats from you, or
  144. you know, if you sell sounds or whatever right,?
  145. So an email list is huge. So again, I have a course on that on Riley Weller.com.
  146. also now I have this how to write a book for Amazon.
  147. And that one that one actually took me a while.
  148. I think it was almost 30 videos inside of that course, okay.
  149. But what I want to talk to you about is is pretty much like money, okay.
  150. So as a music producer, for most people, it's a hobby, right?
  151. And in order to get yourself out of hobby mode into professional mode, it's like you
  152. have to somehow provide this income for yourself.
  153. Now, it doesn't mean that you even have to make your money through music production,
  154. right? You could be making it through even for myself, you know, selling a business
  155. course about how to create a course or how to create whatever, right?
  156. You know, if if you're really good at Excel, like you know, Microsoft Excel sheets,
  157. or if you're good at like sewing, or if you're good at you know, because man, I even
  158. have a buddy and he he sew is and it's so cool.
  159. Like he sold us himself like clothes.
  160. So if we sometimes you go skateboarding or something, he has like a shirt that he
  161. that he's sewed, and it's just like nobody would even know that he sewed that except
  162. like me, and it's just it's just you know it's cool.
  163. So you know, just don't forget to be yourself, okay.
  164. You know, that's one thing that I want to always stress to you guys, right?
  165. So, about money, the reason why I want to talk about that is really you guys want to
  166. be having a goal for your passive income number, okay.
  167. So, what I mean by that is this number is gonna grow as like inflation continues,
  168. right? But right now, honestly, probably like that five thousand six thousand dollar
  169. mark is a really healthy number, and you know, if you want to make more than that,
  170. well, that's that's cool. but really for myself, I don't think I need more
  171. than that, okay. Because again I I don't like the luxuries I really don't care like
  172. I just want to have somewhere like you know when'm living that is quiet that's
  173. comfortable that I'm not like stressed out about money but I also don't I don't need
  174. like the nice cars or I don't need like the nice you know like let's just talk about
  175. audio equipment like obviously yeah I'm gonna buy nice audio equipment I don't need
  176. like the expense of like ten thousand dollar preamp equipment but you know maybe
  177. buying a two thousand dollar preamp maybe eventually you know I would upgrade to
  178. that level because you know audio is such a huge part of my life you know I'm
  179. talking into a microphone very very often with courses now this podcast right so you
  180. kind of got to think about what's important in your life and you know how you're
  181. gonna achieve these goals so a big thing with your finances is to discover
  182. your unnecessary purchases right and especially like monthly purchases which are
  183. unnecessary because those keep adding up right so you know again you know by no
  184. means am I some financial expert but you just want to be thinking about this this
  185. number that number that you want to reach to and how are you gonna achieve it
  186. because if you want to do music production full time you're gonna need the money to
  187. allow that lifestyle right the last thing I want to talk about is yeah just like the
  188. advertising and the marketing so I've actually getting my courses ready to market
  189. on a larger scale I'm looking into like affiliate programs so if you guys are
  190. interested in marketing the products you guys can always get in contact with me and
  191. if you guys know a lot, like if you're actually in the industry of like SEO or
  192. digital marketing, you know, funnels, lead, you know, landing pages, all that stuff.
  193. feel free to reach out to me. I am looking for someone to hire.
  194. It's not something that I specialize in and, I honestly I really find it boring.
  195. I Like, understand about SEO, you know, search engine optimization.
  196. In other words, for those that don't know, you know, how to how to get ranked in
  197. into Google number one for organic content.
  198. And what that means is if you have a website and you're blogging, you write a you
  199. know a blog post. How can you rank number one?
  200. Right. And it's all to do with the certain keywords that you use.
  201. For example, with music production, if we're talking about compression, right?
  202. We can be we can be talking about you know how to use a compressor, you know,
  203. compression basics, you know, compression tutorial or like the attack knob, the
  204. release knob, right? You can be using these different keywords to help yourself rank
  205. higher, right? Or you can just do paid advertising, which you know you're you're
  206. paying per click or whatever, for the actual targeted keyword, right?
  207. And then once they come to the actual landing page, right, you're trying to pitch to
  208. the potential customer what you're trying to sell them, right?
  209. In my case, it would be FL Studio courses, right?
  210. So again, you know, I'm really looking to really ramp up my online business here now
  211. that I have the time. Okay, so what you guys as members will be seeing here soon is
  212. just a new updated layout to the membership.
  213. Okay, that's my next goal here.
  214. I actually have like a whole list of different things to tackle.
  215. I'm gonna be starting to release a couple videos from the courses onto YouTube and
  216. again just kind of promoting different you know, a coupon that these people could be
  217. using to join the membership. And really, guys, just take advantage of the private
  218. forum, like it's there. If you guys ask a question, I'm totally all ears, I'll be
  219. there to answer. Recently, I've done a couple different lessons with you guys, and
  220. I've just again I've even thought of more ideas for courses, things that I see where
  221. you know newer people are kind of struggling with certain things.
  222. Okay, guys, so I hope you guys are all doing good with all this COVID 19 stuff..
  223. Kind of a funny story for you guys is when I was actually still working at the job
  224. as an electrician there So I actually worked for a super cool contractor.
  225. Okay. So, you know, typically what happens is in these condos, there's like the
  226. actual developer or like the the actual contractor, okay?
  227. And then underneath the contractor is like all like the subtrades.
  228. So for example, electricians, plumbers, okay.
  229. And it's the contractor's job to make sure that all the subtrades, electricians,
  230. plumbers, are getting the job done, okay.
  231. but they treated us so well, like they would always give us like free food on
  232. Fridays, and like I'm talking like make pizza to like chicken to like sometimes
  233. burgers and stuff like that. But when all this COVID-19 stuff was really blowing up,
  234. it was like we were all sharing, you know, the food.
  235. For example, like let's say can you know Kentucky Fried Chicken or whatever?
  236. It's like you know, they they would order all these buckets of chicken, and people
  237. were just putting all their hands like and you know, in all this food and then
  238. putting on their plate, and it's just like this this whole COVID-19 stuff's going
  239. on. It's just like, you know, the thing was it was just like okay, if it's serious,
  240. well then treat it seriously. And if it's not serious, well then like you know, why
  241. are like why are we even caring about it?
  242. It was just funny, right? We're all just kind of sharing food, and it's just like
  243. all this is going on, and and it's starting to get worse, right?
  244. Like, you know, they're talking about staying home, like almost mandatory and stuff
  245. here now. So thanks for tuning in, guys.
  246. I will talk to you in the next episode.
  247. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  248. If you had any questions, visit it's gratuitous.com/slash podcast, select an
  249. episode, and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  250. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  251. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons.
  252. Visit the link, it's gratuitous.com/slash learning.
  253. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  254. I hope the best with your productions.
  255. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  256. episode.
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