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Season 3 ·

S3E13 – Business Tools vs. Personal Tools

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If you’re a new producer wanting to start your online business, be very careful in the tools you are starting to use.. this includes your beatmaking plugins, and any online services you start using like Email Marketing, Website Hosting/Tools, and any other type of business tool that can lock you into that company’s “ecosystem”.

The goal is to find affordable professional business tools that allow you to easily switch, and provide the most value to your customers.

Please contact me if you’d like me to cover online business tools more in-depth.

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S3E13 – Business Tools vs. Personal Tools

  1. Season three, episode 13, business tools versus personal tools.
  2. If you are new to online business, which essentially, if you're a music producer,
  3. you know, you're running an online business, you have to be very careful when it
  4. comes to selecting the tools that you're using because if you're not, you can get
  5. stuck with them, right? You might think I'm talking about plugins, and I am, but
  6. there's also a lot of other things which you can get stuck with if you're not
  7. careful. Because if you have just been a consumer, in other words, you are just
  8. purchasing things for your own personal use.
  9. And one of the most perfect examples would be let's say that bicycle I keep talking
  10. about. If I were to purchase that bicycle, and if I were to sell the bicycle, no one
  11. else is involved. So, in other words, I can buy the bike, I can use the bike.
  12. If I sell it, it doesn't really matter because no one else is involved.
  13. It's just me. But if I am running my platform, for example, where people are signing
  14. up and they are watching my FL Studio courses.
  15. People are now attached to my decisions, right?
  16. And so those are my business tools, and my business tools can also affect you as the
  17. end user. And we're going to be talking about that in this episode, okay?
  18. Before we get into this episode, you guys can visit it's gratuitous.com forward
  19. slash FL Studio. You can sign up for some free FL Studio training.
  20. You will get emails with free videos teaching you how to get started with FL Studio,
  21. how to set up the windows for my exact workflow.
  22. It's totally free. You just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash fl studio.
  23. All right, so before getting into this episode, I want to share that I have recorded
  24. a new course for you guys. It's about online distribution because Beat Tapes by
  25. Gratuitous Volume 10 is now complete, and I recorded myself uploading it,
  26. teaching you about the artwork, teaching you about how to export that audio for the
  27. best quality, how to organize your folder.
  28. And it went really, really good.
  29. So right now, what I'm waiting for is I'm waiting for DistroKid because when you do
  30. online distribution, you're gonna be selecting a distributor, and it's up to you on
  31. what one you want to select. I tell you in the course, I'm not recommending
  32. DistroKid, but I have used DistroKid for about seven years and I've had a good
  33. experience with them. So we do use DistroKid in the course.
  34. And now that the beat tape has been uploaded and submitted to all of the streaming
  35. services like Apple Music, Spotify.
  36. Now I'm just waiting for DistroKid to send me emails in regards to confirmation so
  37. that I can record that in video and show you the actual closing of everything.
  38. Okay. So I literally show you everything regarding to prepare yourself because when
  39. it comes to releasing your music in these online distributors, preparation is
  40. everything. Okay. You have to prepare your artwork, you have to prepare your track
  41. list, like what order are the songs going in.
  42. You have to make sure that your songs are mastered, right?
  43. I will edit up the videos, and then that one will be released for you guys in the
  44. platform. Again, that one is online music distribution course.
  45. If you want to get your music on Spotify, Apple Music, it's pretty straightforward.
  46. But again, I have released a lot of beat tapes and a lot of music over the years,
  47. and you will see that my approach to releasing the music on these streaming
  48. platforms is very structured, very organized, very simple, so that you can build
  49. your brand and keep continuity.
  50. All right, so let's get into this episode about business tools versus personal
  51. tools. So I want to talk about let's say a big corporation.
  52. So let's say you go grocery shopping.
  53. Now, these corporations, these huge corporations, when you go grocery shopping and
  54. you put all your items in your cart and you go to check out, you're gonna be going
  55. through their computer, right?
  56. Their computer is running a software that manages all their inventory.
  57. So, in other words, these corporations need a license to each computer that they are
  58. checking you out on. If there was 10 lanes, typically they would need 10 licenses.
  59. Now, let's say you've been running your business for like 10 years and you've been
  60. on these computers. What happens is the computers can get old, the software can get
  61. out of date, and now you want to upgrade to new software.
  62. That company has invested into this software to run their business.
  63. Now, here is the problem, what I'm trying to say to you, okay.
  64. So let's say you have this software and you started using it.
  65. What happens is it can grow roots really really deep in your business to the point
  66. where it's really really hard to remove it from your business.
  67. Typically, when it comes to let's say a website, we are using plugins to give us
  68. different features. When we are doing music production, we have our DAW, it comes
  69. with stock plugins, which is typically enough to get going, right?
  70. We have EQ, compression, we have all our different stock plugins, but there's tons
  71. of third-party plugins. And the question is, well, why do we use third-party plugins
  72. if our music program has stock plugins?
  73. And obviously, it's because more functionality, sometimes better sounds, and so this
  74. concept all applies everywhere, and you just have to be really careful that whenever
  75. you are using a product for your business, which can affect other people, you have
  76. to be very careful in what you're using and how it's being used.
  77. I'll just share this one with you.
  78. So, with my website, there is a plugin where you can install to give more features
  79. for coupons. Coupons are amazing for you know for any business, right?
  80. So, anyways, when I share this coupon in a link, because that's how online works,
  81. right? You have to share a link, such as so it's gratuitous.com forward slash, and
  82. then what are you adding on to that link?
  83. And that is how you can start adding like a coupon onto the link.
  84. Now, depending on the plugin you're using, they're gonna be using different words
  85. for their plugin. And so let's say I use this coupon plugin and I've used it for
  86. let's say four or five years, and in all the different emails I send out or all
  87. throughout the website, I've shared this coupon.
  88. All of a sudden, this plugin I no longer like.
  89. Maybe it's slowing down the website.
  90. Let's say I want to remove that plugin.
  91. If I remove that plugin, all those links are all over the website.
  92. Now you have to understand there could be broken links, which is really, really bad
  93. because someone clicks it and it doesn't take them anywhere, it takes them to what's
  94. called a 404 page, an air page, okay?
  95. In other words, a page doesn't exist.
  96. There's also a type of link where if you click it, we are putting what's called
  97. parameters onto that link. And it's not that it doesn't go anywhere, it's just that
  98. it doesn't work as intended, such as applying the coupon.
  99. So what I'm trying to tell you is if you are new to music production, new to online
  100. business, when we are acquiring business tools, there's a couple of things I want to
  101. share with you so that you don't fall into the same traps of what I have fallen
  102. into. Because the people who are selling the software and selling the tools to you,
  103. they don't care what happens to your business.
  104. They just want to make money from you so that you can use it for your business.
  105. And while the tool may be extremely helpful, it may hurt you in the long run.
  106. Because, like I'm saying, the tool at first is really useful, then you realize it
  107. starts growing into your business.
  108. into your business. It's almost like it has roots and it grows, but then those roots
  109. have hooks on them So it's almost like you can't even pull them out because they're
  110. so deep in your business. And then once you try to remove them, it's so involved.
  111. It's like you almost need a special tool to like cut them all or something.
  112. Now you might be wondering why am I talking to you about this?
  113. Because I'm here to always try to save you time and teach you about the experiences
  114. of what I have gone through in my own business regarding online business.
  115. Because when you're a music producer, it's essentially an online business, right?
  116. Like you need to build your email list, you need to have a product, which is in the
  117. case of if you're trying to sell your beats or whatever, like you know, that's your
  118. product. But in my case, I don't sell my beats, I am selling you know FL Studio
  119. courses, FL Studio Books, etc.
  120. Right? Like that's my business.
  121. But the overall structure of the online business is essentially the same.
  122. Like you need to capture emails.
  123. Why? Well, emails are really important so that you can send an email and say, hey,
  124. like you know, this is what's going on.
  125. Some people think email marketing is really spammy, but the thing is you have to
  126. understand that people have signed up for a reason.
  127. Sometimes you've given them something for free, and then yeah, people are gonna
  128. maybe treat your emails as spammy.
  129. But if you just get people to sign up out of authenticity, in other words, someone
  130. who truly wants to be like, hey, this guy can teach me FL Studio, and I'm sure that
  131. he sends out helpful emails. And if when I'm sending my emails, if you find them
  132. helpful, then it's like it's kind of a win win.
  133. Like you've signed up, and I'm able to notify you of new blog posts, new
  134. podcasts, or if I release a new course or a new book, you are updated on what's
  135. going on with the website. And then it's totally up to you if you wanna jump in on
  136. the sale or on the product or et cet.era
  137. So, anyways, this is what I've learned with online business.
  138. When you are acquiring.ing a business tool, which is much different than a personal
  139. tool, because again, a business tool is affect other people
  140. A personal tool, like I said, my mountain bike, which I've been having problems
  141. with, I can simply just sell that bike and no one else is involved.
  142. I can just go buy another bike.
  143. That's just between me, right?
  144. It's personal, and that's a really nice thing to have.
  145. And if you've always been living your life with personal purchases, then you have no
  146. strings attached to other people.
  147. But when it comes to business tools, we are affecting other people.
  148. And so when you are acquiring a tool for your business, this is what I suggest to
  149. you. You wanna make sure that it enhances the business, but at the same time, you're
  150. easily able to move on. If the business tool has a lot of useful features,
  151. you can use them, but just be careful that some of those features might start
  152. growing roots into the business.
  153. So, for example, let's say we have a plugin and it allows you to do 10 different
  154. things within that plugin. You just got to be careful about what features are you
  155. are you actually using because some of those features are really nice.
  156. You know, they're they're super useful, but you would be able to remove it from your
  157. business at any time, and no one would even know that the change happened.
  158. But then some of those features you just got to be a little bit careful because they
  159. can really start growing roots into the business.
  160. Okay. So when you are acquiring a business tool, it doesn't matter how expensive it
  161. is, it could be really expensive, it could be free.
  162. You just have to understand that how reliant are you on for that feature and for
  163. that tool. In my opinion, the best plugins and the best tools I've used in my
  164. business over the years are tools where I can easily switch.
  165. For example, let's say email service.
  166. I want to be able to switch from one email service to another really easily if I
  167. want to, because what happens with all these email services is typically when you
  168. first sign up, it might be like free for it the first amount of subscribers, and
  169. then it starts going to $9 a month.
  170. And then all of a sudden, from $9 a month, it can go to like $79 a month, and you're
  171. like, whoa, like that's a huge jump from $9 a month.
  172. But you just don't want it to the point where you're so heavily invested into what's
  173. called an ecosystem. I typically like to avoid ecosystems.
  174. I like to be able to be free when it comes to be able to choose what I want.
  175. And I'll give you a couple of examples.
  176. So Fab filter plugins are very free.
  177. All you do is you just install the executable file, you simply install the license
  178. code, and you're good to go. I can even use it on multiple computers.
  179. Same with something like Serum.
  180. They give us a license code, we install it, we're good to go.
  181. Silence one, you simply install the license code.
  182. It does limit on how many computers that you can install it on, but that's fine.
  183. You could just simply just install it with the license code and you're good to go.
  184. Very, very lightweight, right?
  185. Some of these other tools, you start having to like install tons of software always,
  186. or maybe you need to have this plugin with this plugin.
  187. And as soon as you start having to have one plugin rely on another plugin, that's
  188. where things can get really, really sketchy because if there's one problem with one
  189. tool, then it affects the other tool.
  190. You want to try to keep things as minimal as possible.
  191. Obviously, when it comes to music production, tools like Fab Filter are like
  192. indispensable at the moment. In other words, they give you so many features that
  193. typically you don't get with your DAW, which allow you full access to your audio.
  194. Things like you can EQ just the mid, you can EQ just the side, you can EQ just the
  195. left channel, just the right channel.
  196. It has dynamic EQ, which means that you can kind of emphasize transients or you can
  197. pull them back and kind of acts like a compressor for a certain area.
  198. These are really, really awesome tools to have.
  199. And once you don't have them, you'll realize, like, wow, like I really miss that for
  200. my business, my beats. So I'm just sharing with you, there's business tools and
  201. there's personal tools. You really have to understand that.
  202. And the mountain bike is the perfect example.
  203. That's a personal tool. If I wouldn't talk about it, you would have no idea I even
  204. owned a bike. But again, I was having problems with it, and so now you know about
  205. it. And so now if I were to sell this bike, and I don't think I'm going to sell it,
  206. like you know, I'm still enjoying it.
  207. It's just been a little rocky with a couple things, and once it gets fixed,
  208. hopefully it's all good to go.
  209. But I'm just saying that if I were to buy it, if I were to sell it, it wouldn't
  210. affect you at all. For example, if you are treating music as a hobby and not a
  211. business, because I always tell you whenever you start music production, you have to
  212. decide like right away. Don't kind of hum and haw.
  213. You have to decide like today, are you trying to pursue this as a career, or are you
  214. doing this just for fun? Because if you're doing it just for fun, music is going to
  215. be fun, it's going to be enjoyable.
  216. And if you're doing it as just a hobby and just for fun, any of the tools that
  217. you're purchasing, such as a MIDI keyboard, your speakers, all of that stuff is just
  218. personal, right? If you purchase it, if you sell it, it's all just you, right?
  219. It doesn't really affect anybody else.
  220. If you are running a business and you're acquiring these different tools, they can
  221. affect other people. For example, if I were to sell my reference monitor speakers
  222. and purchase new ones, I really don't know how they sound, and I'd have to learn
  223. them, which means that that would slow me down in terms of education or even in
  224. terms of my own beats, right? It really would slow me down because I've got to start
  225. learning those speakers. Something like the speakers isn't really what I'm talking
  226. about too much. It's more about like plugins, right?
  227. As soon as you start getting different plugins, you bring them into your software.
  228. Before you know it, it's almost like too late, and you're in so deep with this
  229. software that it's like, oh, now it's like in order to remove those plugins.
  230. And an example here is like let's say you've been working on tons and tons of beats
  231. and you were using certain plugins, but you're just like, you know what?
  232. I don't want to use those plugins anymore because you realize maybe they're really
  233. heavy, or again, maybe you don't like the ecosystem of that company.
  234. Be careful about how deep these business tools are getting into your business.
  235. Something like the speakers doesn't get very deep.
  236. Something like plugins can get very deep into your business, and then you realize,
  237. oh no, like I'm so deep in. Because, like I said, you made all these beats using
  238. these plugins, and then all of a sudden you realize I'm not going to use those
  239. anymore. And then all your new beats are working off of you know the plugins you
  240. want to use. But then let's say you want to release a beat tape, you start going
  241. through all your old beats, and you're like, oh, I like this beat, and then all of a
  242. sudden you realize you're like, oh, I was using those plugins, and now you're stuck
  243. with them, right? That's why I tell you make sure that you are selecting the plugins
  244. that you like to use, that you've tested them, that you know that they work really,
  245. really good, and all of these things will apply.
  246. All right, keep it simple. Things don't have to be overly expensive.
  247. Yes, Fab filter is expensive, but I'm telling you, in my opinion, it is worth the
  248. money, just the workflow, the features, the convenience.
  249. So that's it for this episode.
  250. So be on the lookout for beat Tapes by Gratuitus Volume 10.
  251. It is now submitted through DistroKid.
  252. So that will be live here very soon.
  253. Again, I recorded myself uploading it, so that will be. a course about online
  254. distribution And I'm just waiting for DistroKid to send confirmation regarding when
  255. it's live on Spotify, Apple Music, you know, Amazon Music, like all these different
  256. streaming services. When it's live, distro Kid will let me know, which means I will
  257. record the video sharing those emails with you, and then I'll edit it up and it will
  258. be live in the membership there.
  259. So if you guys want to join the platform, again, you guys can just visit
  260. it'sgratuitous.com. You will see an option to join the membership.
  261. And if you want to start slow, there's two options for you.
  262. You can try the free FL Studio training, or you can get my free beat making book.
  263. So the free FL Studio Training, you just go to it's gratuitous.com forward slash FL
  264. Studio. The free beat making book, which has so many beat making secrets of what
  265. I've learned over the years. Like I'm telling you, like there's so many secrets.
  266. If you truly want to learn, again, you always got to read.
  267. And if you read through that book, it's called Five Keys to a Successful Beat.
  268. You can get it by going to it's gratuitous.com forward slash five keys.
  269. In addition to the free book, I also send you emails where I'm reading to you a
  270. couple chapters because people don't often like to read.
  271. And in addition to me reading it to you, I'm also explaining some things as you go
  272. along. So you might get some benefit out of that.
  273. Okay. So business tools and personal tools.
  274. Make sure you know the difference because the business tools can get you locked in.
  275. And thankfully, when it comes to music production, most of the stuff is just like a
  276. one-time payment. And then if you want to upgrade, sometimes there's like an upgrade
  277. fee. but for these different plug-in services, like nowadays, you know, there's a
  278. lot of subscription services for plugins, which I don't think you should ever pay
  279. subscription for your VST plugins.
  280. Okay, because you want to have full ownership over your music, you want to be able
  281. to open up your projects from like 10 years ago and not have to rely on a monthly
  282. fee when who knows if that company is even going to be around in 10 years and
  283. they're charging a monthly service for the plugins, and you might not even be able
  284. to access the plugins in 10 years.
  285. So you see, when someone's new and they don't understand, they're gonna purchase
  286. because they feel as if it's a good deal, but they're not realizing the
  287. repercussions. Music production has always been you purchase the product, you get an
  288. executable file that you double click, you install, they give you a license code,
  289. and it's yours. You can activate it typically offline, everything, and then you can
  290. open up old projects. New businesses are starting to come in, they're trying to
  291. capture new customers, and you know, subscriptions with plugins should never be a
  292. thing regarding music production.
  293. Okay, so just be careful out there.
  294. Business tools, personal tools, know the difference.
  295. Again, you guys can visit it'sgratuitous.com if you want to learn to make beats.
  296. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you in the next
  297. episode.
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