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S2E24 – Is Fame Worth It (Success vs. Fame)

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I personally think the music industry is the MOST influential industry in the entertainment world.

However, when you enter the music world, you must understand that FAME does not equal SUCCESS, and you can have one and not the other. No matter who you are in this world, we all listen to music, and we all have our own favorite artists and songs from our own generations.

SUCCESS is what you WANT.. but FAME can lure you into thinking that you are “successful”.

Successful is a word without a real definition, because most people consider success different.. Is 1 million dollars successful? Is having a family successful? Is releasing your first beat tape being successful?

Now FAME is having people know about you and your “image”. There’s lots of famous people who have lost it all!

Success is being able to do what you want, achieving your goals, and still being a normal human who can enjoy their life!

The moral of the story is.. check your heart, and understand your intentions entering this music industry.

It’s very appealing, and can quickly bring you success, fame, as well as chaos.

The secret to it all is reading, understanding what you want, and knowing the pros and cons of each situation.

Take this one to heart.

# GratuiTous

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S2E24 – Is Fame Worth It (Success vs. Fame)

  1. Season two, episode 24, is fame worth it.
  2. In this episode, I want to talk about a lot of different things for you guys to be
  3. aware of. The music industry has always been an industry which
  4. really brings in attention, and you know, all always like the spotlight is on
  5. somebody. All right. And if you guys know my approach, I just like high quality
  6. education. I've been doing this for a long time.
  7. Yes, I worked with a Grammy nominated artist, but at the end of the day, it's just
  8. something I can use for marketing.
  9. It doesn't really mean anything special, right?
  10. At the end of the day, everybody's human, and you have to remember that.
  11. And I think a lot of people forget that in this music industry, okay, especially on
  12. YouTube. YouTube is getting really, really clickbaity even more than ever.
  13. And I want to talk about some things for you guys to be wise out there to not fall
  14. into you know the current trends of and just to be able to really enjoy your beat
  15. making and your music and seeing results.
  16. This is what I have done. It's allowed me to get really far in this music industry
  17. financially, education-wise, and as well as my skills.
  18. Okay. Now, before we get into this episode, I want to let you know that I just
  19. purchased a new single channel preamp.
  20. So I'm testing out my new voice running through it.
  21. it wasn't expensive, it was like $300.
  22. And you would have already known that if you would have checked out my new YouTube
  23. tutorial about how to buy music production equipment.
  24. I will leave that link in the episode resources, but I will tell you quickly how it
  25. works. So, what I discovered over the years is if you go to Sweetwater.com, since
  26. they are the number one industry leader, okay.
  27. So, since I live in Canada, if I were to purchase from Sweetwater, I would have to
  28. pay you know extra money to get it shipped across the border.
  29. But I use sweetwater.com for my product research, and I'll quickly tell you how I do
  30. that. So there is three quick steps.
  31. Number one is going to sweetwater.com and going into their product categories for
  32. what you want. Let's say you want an audio interface.
  33. Now they're going to ask you, is it PCI audio interfaces, Thunderbolt audio
  34. interfaces? But typically, we as beatmakers, we are using a USB audio interface.
  35. So you simply select USB audio interface.
  36. Now you filter it, like you sort the products from highest to lowest.
  37. This is going to allow you to see the most expensive audio interfaces.
  38. And it is interesting to quickly look at them just to see like what really
  39. differentiates this, you know, these $5,000 audio interfaces versus the ones that
  40. you can afford, maybe in the three to five hundred dollars.
  41. Okay. Now, once you know your price range in the left sidebar on Sweetwater, you are
  42. able to put in the max price. For example, let's say $500.
  43. So what's going to happen is now you're going to be looking at all audio interfaces
  44. from all the brands because Sweetwater has all the brands, and that's what makes
  45. their website so awesome is you're able to do amazing product research.
  46. So you go to the audio interfaces, you sort from high to low, and you put in your
  47. max price, and you will easily see all the products from all the brands.
  48. And then you can go and purchase locally and try to find the best price.
  49. All right. That has been by far the easiest way I've discovered to purchase music
  50. production equipment. It might sound simple, might sound easy, but I'm telling you,
  51. it will save you time. So again, check out the free tutorial in this episode's
  52. resources. Okay. Now, before we get into this episode, again, I have a free book for
  53. you guys. It's called Five Keys to a Successful Beat.
  54. So simple, it becomes creative..
  55. It's written specifically for FL Studio music producers, but many people who are
  56. just interested in making beats will benefit from it
  57. You can download it absolutely free by going to it's gratuitous.com forward slash
  58. five keys, sign up with your name and email, and I will send you the book absolutely
  59. for free. Again, visit the website, it's gratuitous.com.
  60. That is where I do all my tutorials.
  61. You guys can find all these podcast episodes.
  62. I do written descriptions for each podcast episode.
  63. Sometimes it has images. For example, on the last podcast episode where I talked to
  64. you about different hard drives, there is images of my music production computer
  65. back in 2017. I explained to you about a real mechanical hard drive to a solid
  66. state hard drive with images, and it really shows you what's going on.
  67. Sometimes listening isn't enough, right?
  68. Sometimes it's nice to see visuals.
  69. So again, visit it'sgratuitous.com.
  70. You will see my courses, my books if you're interested in lessons, all that stuff.
  71. All right. Okay, so let's get into this episode about is fame worth it.
  72. Now, when it comes to the entertainment world, I would honestly say that the music
  73. industry is the most influential.
  74. Okay, yes, there's actors, yes, there is, you know, athletes, but the music
  75. industry is the industry that takes the world by trends.
  76. And what I mean by this is doesn't matter where you are, you can put headphones on,
  77. you can put earbuds in, and you can just zone out to the music.
  78. And you know, for everyone, that's like their enjoyment.
  79. That's what they get to enjoy music.
  80. But you also got to be careful because at the same time, what is this music feeding
  81. you in a sense of you know, what are they really saying behind these lyrics?
  82. But besides that, that's a separate episode.
  83. But I want to talk about is fame worth it by being a music producer.
  84. Okay. So when you become a music producer, and if you start working with you know
  85. higher and clients, a lot of contracts are involved, right?
  86. A lot of you guys don't realize that contracts are everything in this industry, your
  87. copyright is everything. As soon as you give away your copyright, it's like that's
  88. that's your product. If you create a beat, that's your product, but it really it's
  89. your copyright. You can sell that copyright in many different ways.
  90. You don't have to just sell it to somebody, you can license it to them in different
  91. ways, okay. But I want to talk again about fame.
  92. So when we are on YouTube and we are checking out, you know, all these different
  93. tutorials, and you know, nowadays everyone's face is in a thumbnail,
  94. right? Like more than ever, and you everyone's always like pointing towards
  95. something. But I what I want to tell you guys is the numbers are not what you think.
  96. Now, just because somebody is popular, that's fine, you know, they have a following
  97. and people like their videos or their content, and that's great.
  98. But especially when it comes to let's say Spotify, you know, for example, you visit
  99. someone's page, and I'll tell you right now, like my page right now has like 50
  100. views like a month, and but what I want to say is you can't really look at that
  101. number and base skill level, base influence
  102. off of it, all right? Because people can buy views and listens.,
  103. so So in other words, they can skew you your judgment when you're looking and're
  104. like, Oh, this person has 50,000 views..
  105. Wow, they're actually gaining traction
  106. Well, yeah, are they? Or did they pay for views and listens?
  107. I'm not saying that people do or they have, but I'm just saying that this is
  108. something that you can do, especially with like SoundCloud, or you know, if you want
  109. to buy subscribers, or if you want to buy a product, you know, are the reviews
  110. actually real? And so, you, as the listener, you as the consumer,
  111. you know, you always have to be skeptical.
  112. And the music industry, this is how it works, right?
  113. It's getting it in front of your eyes, making you feel as if it's really, really
  114. special, but at the end of the day, most of these artists are all kind of copying
  115. each other. And I always talk to you guys about being original, being yourself, and
  116. doing your own thing. That is what I've done, and it's allowed me to have great
  117. success so far, and I've helped a lot of people learn how to make beats.
  118. Now, the next point I want to talk to you guys about is the freedom to live your
  119. life normally still. As soon as you reach this level of fame, like, and I mean like
  120. super fame, where like everybody knows you, you always hear horrible, horrible
  121. stories, and like people are always in your business.
  122. It's like, do you really want that?
  123. Like, for me, I like to take like a like like my mountain bike out.
  124. I don't, you know, nobody knows who I am.
  125. If I go to like the grocery store, it's such a freedom.
  126. Yet I'm still able to do what I want and make beats, teach people, talk with people,
  127. and I'm still a human, all right.
  128. As soon as you reach this fame status, you kind of pull away from being like a
  129. normal human, and I'm just like all you guys, I was an electrician. for 10 years
  130. So I know exactly what it's like waking up early, going to work, saving up, having
  131. goals, and eventually even reaching some of those goals, right?
  132. And it's just so exciting to actually do that and just build confidence is
  133. having people talk about you what you really want.
  134. And I'm talking more like the gossip, kind of like, oh, he has a child or she has a
  135. child, or you know, stuff like that.
  136. It's like that doesn't pertain to you at all.
  137. You have no idea who most of these people are, you have no idea who I am.
  138. And when you are being lured into
  139. watching these people, you just have to be careful because you have to remember what
  140. are your goals. If you're wanting to learn to make beats, then get in there, have
  141. fun and make beats. Don't be comparing yourself because what you're gonna do is
  142. you're gonna start following the trends.
  143. And I always tell you guys the trends change.
  144. Okay. Now, to finish off this episode, I just want to tell you guys that the end
  145. goal is ultimately you want to be able to do what you want.
  146. And when you reach the level of like super fame, you're not actually able to do what
  147. you want. You're not able to step out of your door, you're not able to just hop on
  148. your bike and just drive down the street, right?
  149. You're gonna have people probably taking pictures of you, and everyone's trying to
  150. make money off of you because you're famous and everyone knows your name.
  151. And that's not what you want. There's a difference between success and fame.
  152. You can be tremendously successful and nobody knows you, and that's where you want
  153. to be because you get success, you get to enjoy the things that you want..
  154. And if you really wanted to promote or market, you know, then you can look into that
  155. approach But the fame level is not what you think it is.
  156. It's very, very deceiving. It's very, very tricky.
  157. Okay. There is a scripture in the Bible that talks about a spider.
  158. And it lures you into its web.
  159. And once you get into into the web, you realize, like, how did I get here?
  160. And we all know what spiders do, right?
  161. They come and they eat their prey.
  162. You know what I mean? And so you do you don't want to fall into that.
  163. The whole point of being a music producer when you sit to make beats, is like this
  164. is your craft. This is what you feel as art.
  165. And it's so much fun when you can just sit there, you make your own style of beats,
  166. you do your own thing. It's just the best experience.
  167. That's all I can tell you guys.
  168. And I know that a lot of you guys nowadays are using loops, right?
  169. Pre-made drum loops, pre-made melodies.
  170. It's not making beats. And you want to get to the point where you can learn to make
  171. your own beats from scratch, your own melodies, right?
  172. You want to learn music theory.
  173. You want to learn how to program your drum loops.
  174. It's hard, it takes time. But I'm telling you, it is the most rewarding feeling.
  175. It's going to take you two, three, four years to be able to actually start getting a
  176. decent beat together. And then once you pass there, it even gets harder, right?
  177. You have to learn about compression and limiting and the mastering stage, which
  178. ultimately is really how your track sounds.
  179. I understand people say it's all in the mix, but in the mastering stage, you can
  180. really, really process your beat to get it exactly how you want, even if the mix is
  181. kind of poor. All right. If you really know what you're doing.
  182. And at the end of this, all guys, I always tell you, be yourself.
  183. It is the ultimate and all, be all for happiness.
  184. Right, you are a unique person, be yourself, create your own style
  185. of music. I understand that the trends are what sell, but eventually the trends
  186. change, and you're gonna have to change with the trends, and that's more tiring than
  187. being yourself and just going through the process.
  188. Okay, so that's it for this episode.
  189. So is fame worth it? It isn't, and there is a difference between success and
  190. fame. And yeah, so if you guys are wanting to learn how to make beats with FL
  191. Studio, you guys should check out my website, it's gratuitous.com.
  192. There's tons of courses, books, and you guys can start slow by downloading my free
  193. book. Just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  194. It's written specifically for FL Studio music producers, tons and tons of valuable
  195. tips. There's over 12 different tips in there, lots of valuable things that you know
  196. you will really see results in your beats if you read this book.
  197. All right, it's gonna allow you to pull away from the trends, allow you to really
  198. focus on what's important as a beat maker, and you will see results.
  199. So again, just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  200. And let me know how you liked the voice in this episode.
  201. I'm gonna listen to it when I edit, and hopefully it all turned out good.
  202. And so I'll let you know quickly.
  203. So before I was running through an art voice channel, I had that used.
  204. The tube failed in it. Okay, so sometimes when you purchase a single channel preamp,
  205. and so what that means is it's a sing singlele chann chelannel, which means you can
  206. only plug in like one microphone, so..
  207. and then the strip means that it has processing in it
  208. So, in other words, you have a preamp, which means that it's boosting the
  209. microphone. typically they have a compressor section, which means that you can get
  210. nice even vocals before you even do post-processing.
  211. Post-processing is when you're using EQ and compression after the recording.
  212. it has like an expander and a gate to get rid of background noise.
  213. I has an EQ section if you want to get a little bit more boomy on your voice or even
  214. some clarity in the high end. And they typically also have a DSer, which
  215. removes the S sounds, and these are come becoming even more popular than ever when
  216. it comes to like you know, podcasts or live streaming.
  217. You can get a nice vocal chain before it even hits your computer.
  218. And so, anyways, I picked up the DBX.
  219. it's called the 286 S. It's really really affordable, it was like 300.
  220. Even the used one I had, the art voice channel is like 500 brand new.
  221. I purchased it used. but the reason why I wanted to switch was because first of all,
  222. it was used, I was having some problems with it, and the tube failed, and I did I
  223. wanted to get away from the tube.
  224. All right, so over time this tube I guess can kind of burn out, and the one I have
  225. now, it's just a transistor, I guess.
  226. So, in other words, there's no tube, I just turn it on, talking to it, and I'm
  227. hoping that I get just really consistent, easy results.
  228. That's the biggest thing, guys, when it comes to buying your music production
  229. equipment is results. $300 is cheap for a single channel preamp
  230. or single single channel strip.p.
  231. Again, go to sweetwater.com, check out the single channel preamps and go the most
  232. expensive to the least exensive
  233. And they are like $5,000. And it's like that's ridiculous.
  234. within this audio industry, there is a lot of kind of like I've seen that one guy on
  235. YouTube where he says like snake oil a lot, right?
  236. And with audio, it's like because we can hear it and not see it, you can be really
  237. deceived, really, really easy.
  238. And I think my voice is gonna turn out pretty good.
  239. So yeah, so that's it for this episode.
  240. I'll talk to you in the next one.
  241. Again, definitely check out my website if you need help to learn to make beats.
  242. It's gratuitous.com. Thanks for listening.
  243. I'll talk to you in the next one.
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