The myth around fancy plugins and gears is so true. I consider myself a beginner in music production but whenever I could not get something to sound like how I imagined it in my mind, I blamed it on my gear and plugins. But Im slowly realising that it's the "process" and not the "plugin". If you even stack your plugins in a wrong order, it's going change the output. It's not magic, you have to keep at it and improve each day. And as Nathan says, if you can get your music to sound good without all the fancy mixing and mastering tricks, your job is 90% done.
Tbh. This is only true for a true audio engineer. There is a reason plug-in differentiation exists lol. A plugin will not make the artist , but it can make the production if you understand how it’s meant to be used in said context
@@anthemsjam ah yeah, and there's also the difference between Sound Module type plug-ins, used to playing sounds, versus the editing plug-ins that people use for mastering etc I use a VST called Hensive for sounds, and have my own VST that I made with all my processed drum sounds. I bought Portal yesterday and it's insane! Regarding effects and stuff it's really good so I uninstalled Drip VST.
Thank you, your videos and encouragement are very helpful. "I don't work with record labels because I don't want to." Yes! This needs to be said more often for so many reasons.
I love your no-nonsense videos. I started writing and producing music less than a year and a half ago, 3 days before my 60th birthday. And I’ve been writing, producing and releasing albums so quickly I thought I was doing it wrong. You’ve eased my fear about that. But I just go with my gut, which is 100% not like me. I’m in software, and over-analyze everything. But for some reason, I feel like I can trust my intuition with music. Thanks for these videos. I’ve learned so much.
At 3:40 , you were actually speaking of mastering & not mixing. Cause the mastering process is the final stage of production which is made to polish the audio signal. The quality of your mix is what determines the quality of the mastering & not the other way round, so to speak.
love from Kenya,I know alot of art ideas in music yet Im a home producer,i do it full time while learning video and animation part time,I know 7 work stationfrom studio one to logic
I Agree With You, Nathan! I'm Sing Song With My Only Smartphone & Still Able To Make Good Music! I'm Proud How My Music Turn Out....Sometimes Bad, Sometimes Good, But I Accept! I Learned To Accept! I Won't Give Up!
93-acres is a cool example of producing fast, he does remakes of popular songs in 1 hour. it shows how much you can get done when you just choose a kick sample and go and focus on the actual music and layers and story your telling rather than choosing between 20 kicks a listener cant tell the difference between
Great video ! I'M pretty sure you will give a lot of guys a lot of hope to make more than just some songs for their hobby. It's really cool how you explain things and let us know about the way how you see things. This video motivates me a lot now ! Thank you buddy !
Nice video Nathan, could you make one speaking about important things about being your own producer as an Artist? would be amazing, greetings from Germany
yea..I have dived into that trap, i made two!!! good projects in 3 years. used to be 102 pr year. but i am trying to dig out of this damn hole who made me think i needed all the big instrument, and synths vsts and ofc the king of comsumuing time and creativity it self... N.I Kontakt! i have been a drug addict on those libraries. i think i have made use of perhaps 5-6 of them while the other 28TB ive filled up .. yea.. u get it.
I don't use plug in... I play the music and do it how they did in the 60s and 70s, just play the whole thing right, it doesn't cost extra for the tape now a days, just delete the file, it's not burning through money anymore
I'm aware of all of these, but thank you so much for clarifying it more for my overthinking brain lol. I need to hear people actually say this more often around me so I can get tf up and just do my thang and not worry so much
there's no such thing as "hits", it's HITS. if you don't get that, you probably don't have the mindset of making hits in the first place. i doubt if any of the hit producers ever described hits in such a derogatory way, not even before they became hit producers.
I write music and produce from my bedroom. I get sales here and there and a few bucks. But I've never wanted to be some super famous person who is hounded wherever they go. You get famous, you go out of style and are forgotten. I do it for the love of it and the money is secondary.
Hmm. I've been in the studio business for 20 years and the industry as a whole for about 40 and I'm not sure about the view that says the gear doesn't matter. I do agree with you that if you have NO idea what you're doing then no amount of gear is going to save you. If you DO know what you're doing you can make good music but not great music. You can waste a lot of time chasing sounds that you (or more importantly your clients) are after that you will NEVER achieve when what you need is a particular piece of gear with the right sound. Even Yehudi Menuhin couldn't make a cheap violin sound like a Stradivarius. Hendrix didn't play guitars from Woolworths. Can you imagine trying to sound like Hendrix on a £50 guitar? Again of course it's true that Hendrix could get a better sound out of a £50 guitar than I can out of a £50,000 guitar but that's because I'm not a guitarist. How much time would you waste and how low would your self esteem be thinking that YOU were to blame... and having that view supported on RU-vid... when the truth is the instrument just isn't up to the job. It's the same for gear and plugins. I agree that just buying gear for the sake of it won't make you any better but NOT buying the RIGHT gear is also a falsehood.
Nathan can: load in a full band. Get the drummer set up, get drum sounds, chart & talk 8-10 songs down. Get the guitar cabs/mics dialed. All edits and multiple takes, oh and vocals, harmony passes/edits. Then mix it. Master it, and bam! One…maybe two days. Bullshit. And you know it. This video is just another grift to get the click on the next video. “How to produce….FAST, grift LIKE me. Click and comment…” Put your money where your mouth is Nathan. I wanna see a full video load in of acoustic drums w/ full band and it’s turned around, mixed and mastered ready for publishing in two days. I DARE YOU!
I mean, considering I literally have worked on commercials for television where I have a single day to deliver - this is just a part of the job. So to just call me a liar is, to be totally frank, extremely ignorant. Not only that but go look at my livestreams - I have actual livestreams where I am producing start to finish. It really is sad how cynical and seemingly unhappy people can be though.
Thank you for putting light on the fancy plugins' point. I deadass make music with almost all free plugins AND mix with free or stock plugins. The shiny object is actually your hard work and consistency! 🤙🏻
Great video, Nathan! Love this message. Also I can 100% vouch for both Dan Grimmett (Dark Label) and Tommy Zee’s course Making Music For Brands. I’ve worked with both of them and in both cases I more than doubled my investment within a number of months. Highly recommend both of them for anyone interested!
I have lost my producer recently and I instantly regret devaluing him... Doing all the work of producer does now is personally bearable but exhausting work. My band is sadly losing patience with me, because I'm not a professional producer as such projects are taking longer than they should because of my lack of digital music production experience. Long story short, pay your producers appropriately you'll regret it if you don't.
You know, at least I don't feel weird now that I hear that producing fast is an advantage I can't say enough times how many times I've surprised myself when I realize that I can easily just ship out a song as it is after working on it just for a little bit. Sometimes releasability came to me faster than expected and I felt weird cause this used to take me longer. Usually on FL the timer doesn't even hit double digits, and occasionally says just something like 4-8 hours on a typical track
Recording School is absolutely stupid, when i finished highschool and i signed up for a Music Producer school, i asked if i could take the course with Logic Pro X because i saw it on their website... However, when on the phone with a managing member, he told me I have to use Pro Tools, he said people arent gonna take you seriously if you dont Use Pro Tools, and its whats gonna make me a proffessional mixer........
Thanks for the shoutout Nathan. I appreciate ya! And great point on speed. That stuff isn't discussed very often! So important for upcoming producers to know.
I started creating music-related TikToks last year, I’ve now made commercial music for 2 Fortune 500 companies, I too don’t have a “hit” but I still consider myself a full time musician, and I’m fortunate that I’m able to put bread on the table
I think the reason most home producers can't produce fast is because a lot of them actually have no real musical background. They don't have a history playing instruments and don't really understand music, they just have a laptop with samples and pre made sounds but don't actually grasp what actually makes a 'song' a 'song'.
I reallllllllllly want to start music production - because I just really really REALLY like music! - but I have no clue where to start, I own Logic Pro x… and that’s it. I’ve found some courses and i have issue paying for learning. But can anyone tell me where they starter, and what moved them forward? Did you make “goals” - like “okay try to make an emotional feeling from this sample” - I really hope someone reads this!
Excellent video! You gave me an interesting thought...why is music production different than any other profession? Saying you have to produce a hit to be "real" is like saying "you must not be a real (teacher / engineer / nurse / farmer / whatever) because I haven't heard of you". How many people are famous in their professions? And yet we all work to make a living and we can all do good work.
I don't use plug in... I play the music and do it how they did in the 60s and 70s, just play the whole thing right, it doesn't cost extra for the tape now a days, just delete the file, it's not burning through money anymore
I never said it is easy. I said it is doable and it is the possible. That doesn't mean it is easy. Starting any kind of business is HARD. But the opportunities today are better than any time in history to be a music maker. But there is no question that it is NOT easy.
hey guys do anyone know how i can get my daw sound into discord or anything other? i tried some methods on yutube but the sound quality is soo bad in discord but in ableton its really nice
Where do you stream my dude? I'm not really on streaming sites, just RU-vid. Problem is even if I was I'm probably never going to be able to catch it because there is probably a 10 hour time difference. Would you consider uploading the really good ones to RU-vid like other producer's I watch?
Everything you say it concerns me. I do everything myself and that just for about 3 years, with the help of RU-vid videos, but so far it does not sound professional, although I also use(d) your producer accelerator course, which I appreciate very much. I wouldn‘t be anywhere without this course, but the accesses are very low so far. Obviously I don’t make the right music that is wanted today nor is my singing good enough. Nevertheless I won‘t stop making music in my mini home-studio as long as I‘m healthy and I‘ll keep on watching videos primarily by Nathan but also by other Logic experts …
Not sure if this will help you (I hope it will), but I started to sound professional in my last year after around 17 years (on and off). I did online courses on various topics. Some helped more than others. There wasn't one which transformed me or my music overnight. Not because they werren't good, but I think it's due to the fact that there are multiple pieces that will come together as your way of producing, mixing and so on. It's taking quite a lot to be good at something. And consistency is require as well. I'm sure that someone who is very disciplined can pull it in 2-4 years (depending ofcourse on his/her goals and the number of hats he/she wants to have on - producing, mixing, singing, mastering, sound design - are all different arts.
@@adrianconsta1139 thanks so much. Your answer brings a little comfort to me, but if you talk about 17 years, I‘ll probably not live anymore after 17 years as I‘m 66 already or I am not able to make music anymore!
it is not a lie that it can help to have lots of gear, specifically effect plugins, to get inspired and to finish music. i can not count how many times i have finished a great beat just because i wanted to test a bunch of plugins. because in the process of doing so i got so fascinated by the sounds that i could make that it sparked the wildest desires to make those beats the best beats of all time. sample libraries could never give me the same spark of inspiration. with their pre-made character and often not very versatile way to transform their sound they can only be used to reference an existing, and often already wellknown, vibe. but they will not be groundbreaking like some effect plugins or really advanced synthesizers are. the gear doesn't create the music. but nor do pure musical ideas create music. i remember when i deleted all my cracked plugins and decided to go full legit. i bought cubase artist 9.5 and boy, was i fckd. with the stock plugins of that daw you can barely make a good sketch of a beat without getting angry. people with DAWs that actually have good stock plugins, might not know the pain and think that it's ok to resort to stock plugins only. but they will also see some day that there can be 3rd party plugins that really have the potential to help them out. i'm doing this for more than 20 years now and i still love to check out all the new plugins that come out every day. it keeps fascinating me what everyone is coming up with. that's why i became a vst developer myself. this just shows how wildly different musical approaches can be. there are no lies in music. if you believe in lies being a thing, you are just limiting yourself. and it might be good that you have your own pov about that. music can become confused if you are too open to every perspective ever. but i'm just leaving this comment here for the newbs who are not sure yet what to think of all this: just follow your heart! if you don't like effect plugins a lot don't use them. but don't ever believe it is the ultimate way of doing things. it is not.
What has helped me so much with the production process as somebody who hasn’t even owned Logic Pro for a year yet was forcing myself to figure out how everything in logic works, where it all is, and how to apply it to my creations. Shortcuts and hot keys, super important. I owe a lot of this learning process to you, and putting in the effort myself I’ve found tons of information about logic that basically shows it has alternative ways to create the desired effect of almost any plugin you can buy. The convenience of plugins you can purchase and just turn a knob and you’re done is GREAT, but I learned so much more about how to use Logic and navigation by forcing myself to do things for free!! It’s huge!
There is a whole other world beyond making beats for producers if you don't work with artists. So saying you're not a producer if you don't work with artists is just not true
So true: if I'd be honest, every song I produce and mix have to plugins that I only spend 20 $ on. And these two are Xpand!2 & Xenoverb. If someone asks me to write/produce or mix a song I only need 5 vsts (which doesn't mean that I doesn't like to play with fancy stuff).
In my opinion to get good vocals you need a good microphone(and vocalist), although you hear stories of people using a 58 for a whole album its in the minority so at the very least invest in as good of a mic as you can afford......but yeah you don't need a $10,000 microphone going in to a ssl consol to get a great sound but if you are mixing in the box....you will NEED decent plugins to get your sound to compete with the big boys.....I have heard from pros in the industry that your production needs to sound polished and radio ready to be treated seriously so I agree with you that having all that gear isn't going to do anything if you have crap songs and bad arrangements and don't know what you are doing but you will still actually need equipment that will give you a great starting point otherwise you wont break free of that demo sound
One question. When you say you produce an entire song in one sitting, what do you mean by “produce”? Do you mean designing an arrangement, recording, editing, mixing and mastering?
Thanks bro for the tips. Can you do a videos on collaboration platforms where we individual producers can connect with other musicians to produce music. Thanks that would help alot.
This is exactly why I subbed to you because you give legitimate info about music producing. Don’t know 100%. But I can at least see that is your intentions 🖤
Do you have a video about how you made the connections with clients, got your name out there, and secured jobs? I would appreciate knowing where to start! 🙏
A but more complex than I could articulate in a comment. But you have to seek our Production Houses. They are the ones that get the ad agency clients and hire the composers (me) to write for the briefs (commercials)
@@NathanJamesLarsen nice. I know of one in my area. After being unsure whether I should send them any demos i think i should just say f it and go for it
