Looking for personal advice

[Electric Velocity]

I don't know if this is in the right place to post, because last time I posted a topic like this, people spammed me with links to the correct section. I'll give it a go I guess...

So I'm a 17 year old producer and lately I've been having some doubts about my music. I have no money or job at the moment so all I have to make music is a copy of FL studio my friend gave me. I love making music, but sometimes I can't get the sounds I want so I just settle with what I have. In my opinion, I've done pretty good so far and learned a lot. In most other people's opinions, my music isn't good enough to own. I try so hard and get minimal views on my soundcloud and almost none on youtube. I don't know how to put myself out there without begging. I've tried submitting to EqD and so far only EqD Music has accepted two of my songs. On that site however, only the moderator listened to my song once. I got no more views. I feel pretty pathetic when I make a new song and one or two people say "It's good". I came on this site to look for help in making music like Daft Punk (my main inspiration), but everyone tells me not to copy others. I need to be myself. All I want to do is make French house and electronic disco, but since I haven't been able to very well, I've started making music that I think will appease bronies and the like. Whenever I ask for advice, I either get people saying they can only tell me if the song is annoying or not, or "professionals" saying certain part of my mixing is off. I would usually take their advice, but after a while it feels like they don't really care and want me to figure it all out on my own. In summary, I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to get my music heard by people who like the type of music I'm going for, and who will actually help me improve. Not just on specific songs, but on future ones too.

[Nine Volt]

Alrighty, here we go:
If you want to get yourself heard, I'd advise you to wait, honestly. I don't know how long you've been producing, but I'd wait until you can create consistently high quality songs on a semi-regular basis before trying to get known. If you submit to less well known places, even just groups on Soundcloud, people will find you and you WILL develop some kind of following in that period. Once you can consistently make high quality songs, then try submitting to some more well known promotion networks, but don't go for the big ones like Monstercat right away.

Regarding Daft Punk: there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from a group and/or producing similar music to them. As long as you're not practically copying them it's perfectly fine.

If you're looking for specific critique, well, I'm sorry to say there's no truly reliable way to get it. Try asking friends or family members, or maybe message an internet friend on skype and ask if they have time to look at a WIP. Don't get discouraged if someone doesn't like it.

Sound design isn't the most important aspect of music. I'd really just advise you to get the basic french house sounds down then to focus on your mixing and mastering until you've gotten that down really well; good mixing will do a lot for a sub-par track, and conversely poor mixing will ruin an otherwise excellent track.

[Electric Velocity]

Who would be a good person to contact that would have time to listen to my music and tell me what it needs? I am sure I have the ability to create the sound required for French house minus the guitar samples, but I need someone who has also created or knows how to create them.

[Nine Volt]

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who does french house, but there's dozens of house producers around here (me included), and I'm sure many of them would be fine with reviewing a track

[Electric Velocity]

It's not so much about specific tracks I've made as it is ones I want to make. I've made lots of songs, but only a few I would consider "French house" and they aren't very good. I would rather start from scratch and have someone listen to what I do have so they know what I can do.

[Nine Volt]

Ah, well then maybe try making a thread about that here, or look on a forum like gearslutz or KVR and try to glean some tips from them. Again, I can't tell you any specific person though, sorry. Best of luck!

[the4thImpulse]

You can PM/Skype me with tracks you want critiqued or just general help questions, a lot of people already do.


Daft Punk weren't legendary producers/musicians in a year, or two years, even in five years they were far from where they are today. Give it time.

[Electric Velocity]

I want to make music regularly that resembles French House like Daft Punk. I need someone to listen to my music so they know what I am capable of and then maybe offer some tips and basic methods of taking samples and using filters. I use FL studio and have no money, so I won't be able to buy any new plugins.

https://soundcloud.com/electric-velocity

Again, I am looking for someone who will be able to listen to my music and work off of it with me. I know some of my music is not even close to French House.

[Electric Velocity]

Yes, that is very much exactly the kind of music I want to make. It's very good. The problem I had was finding tracks to sample from, so I decided to work on other kinds of music. I also don't know how to use Edison very well.

[Lying Pink]

I wrote a huge thing and then tried to shorten it. Also, the other advice people have posted seems a lot more specific, so sorry if this is all too vague to be useful.

You need to put the time in - keep working at your music, keep improving. It takes a long time. I'd disagree with the first reply in that even if your music isn't fantastic, there's no harm in putting it out there - all musicians evolve. If you're ashamed of it in the future just delete it and/or use a different music identity.
Don't worry about finding the right genre/feel of music to produce -- as in, don't stress about being pony enough, or shying away from French house because you feel other genres would give you more success. Make what you're passionate about and you'll find an audience. Try to second-guess what your audience are passionate about and they'll be able to tell and you'll just be chasing shadows.

Everyone draws inspiration from other artists and there's no shame in that. But try not to approach your music with the question in mind, "What would Daft Punk do with this track in this situation?" Instead, draw on their influences and ask yourself, "What do I feel would work best for this track right now?"

(How was Rome built? One brick at a time.) Keep producing. Don't give up. For the most part, audiences grow over time. Don't stress too much about getting featured on EqD or whatever. I mean that'd be awesome, but it's not some magic pill and *poof* you're suddenly an established musician, job done. Keep posting tracks when you've got something you're proud of (enter them into EqD if you want, sure). When you're feeling more confident, maybe consider doing a remix of a more well-known song that you really like. People will be more likely to stumble across that, and some might become regular listeners.

Oh, and interact with people. Provide feedback to other musicians if and when you can. Collab. Anyone who takes the time to listen to your music and comment, interact with them. Network -- or, as people with souls call it, talk to people. Make friends, contacts. This goes with the feedback, too -- the rule on the MLR feedback thread is that you need to give feedback if you want people to give you feedback -- same is true more generally. If you just turn up, get some tips and then disappear, people won't be as willing to help as if you actually interact some (that's not a personal jab at you, just a general thing ).

Keep making French House -- that would be the best way to get better at making French House :3 Watch/read some tutorials, see if those help. See if you can pick out anything lacking in your track that you can hear in a track you want it to sound like -- is the synth a bit off? The rhythm? That's the point when you get on the forums and ask, "what's wrong with my lead?" "How do I make my basslines funkier?" "My kicks sound weak", whatever. And the more "professional" tips -- if they're vague, ask people to be more specific ("The EQing is off" is an unhelpful comment. "Your low-mids are crowded and muddy" is more useful, for example). If the advice is too advanced, talks about stuff you don't understand, confuses you -- say so. Ask for clarification, or if someone uses a specific technical term that you don't get, google it. There's no shame in not understanding something, as long as you try to remedy it. And more in-depth mixing tips can make all the difference between an alright-sounding track, and something that really stands out.

[Navron]

The initial takeoff is definitely the hardest, but on the bright side, now is the time to discover your own sound, and work on improving.

I'm just now starting to work on a dedicated music channel for myself, but it's taken me approx. 2 years to get to this point.

I wouldn't try too hard to push for viewers and subscribers. If you make pony music, the brony community isn't a bad place to start gaining some followers, and you'll likely get more fans and followers faster than if you're trying to become known in the big music world.

Don't shoot the magic bullet too early. I wouldn't submit demo tracks or anything of the like to any companies until you've reached a decent level of skill in production, but don't look at that as the main goal.

Your goal shouldn't be to promote your music and find who accepts you. Your goal should be to make good music that you enjoy making, and practice hard to get yourself up to a level where promoters contact you, vs. you contacting them.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I probably won't say anything that hasn't already been said.

Be VERY patient with yourself.

Making music is something that can take years to become natural. When you're starting out, be prepared to put up with being bad at it. Don't let it get in your way, you've been at this for maybe a year or 2. Daft Punk has been around for closer to 20. The guys from the Pegboard Nerds have about 30 combined years of experience. It's all about patience, literally no one is good from the get go.

I'm still working out a lot of my musical issues, so is everyone else on this forum. You've no shortage of people to turn to here.

And like Navron said, taking off is hard. But finding your path and sound is onne of the most satisfying parts of this persuit.

[Electric Velocity]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll just keep doing what I've been doing I guess. If I had more friends willing to listen to my music, I would talk to them about it.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Go to the Music thread, there's a stickied thread where people review eachother's stuff.

You can only post your stuff if you review someone else's track though.

But you WILL get honest feedback there.

[itroitnyah]

Spend as much time as you need to on a song. Don't worry about whether the people who are already "following" you will stop following you if you don't turn out new pieces regularly. I just spent 6 months working on music until I finished up the song I'm working on. In total, I lost 1 subscriber on youtube, and I don't think I lost any followers on soundcloud. Honestly though, some people have spent over a year on a track (look at Alex S for example, he spent a really long time working on his Life As We Know It EP, and he's been making music for 8+ years), and when they finish, the track usually sounds really good.

Don't worry so much. Just relax and do something. I don't know, take a break from music. Sometimes it's just good to take a break and go do something else for the day. Maybe just play videogames, work around with your synths designing sounds and getting to know them better, maybe use a synth you haven't used before, just have a complete garbage day where you just don't worry about trying to compose and create something.

Find a song you like, open up FL and load up the audio file, placing it down into the track and changing the BPM to match the song's. Then just place markers on the sequencer (by right clicking on the sequencer beat measurement bar thing) whenever something new happens in the song, like a riser is introduced, a melody joins, vocals or samples are placed into the track, when a drop comes, just label wherever something changes. Structure your song similarly to that song, put plucks down where there are plucks, pads where there are pads, basslines, everything. Don't exactly copy the song, just the structure. It will help you soooo much.

[Freewave]

If you want to make a particular kind of music, focus on that, there's no reason to make music that you don't want to hear. there's every advantage for doing something that few others are doing. It means you're creating a niche that people can find you. Do keep in mind it takes months and years to get to a point that people (especially musicians who are the toughest critics) will begin to start enjoying your music and that people likely wont start subscribing until you reach that point. The first year i made music i only had 50 subscribers and i spent too much time making music and not learning how to make good quality music. Quality is the key and you will continue to make mistakes as you progress as there's too many things that can and will go wrong as you make a track. Prepare for that and accept it and try to make it a positive personal experience anyway.

I would focus on some important factors if you wanna make french house. You will need to find and use samples well (and that means knowing good and underused sample material) and how to use filters really well. Any musician will need to know how to Eq and mix their track but those 2 factors are key for doing what daft punk did. Incidentally i don't know how long ago daft punk started but their first track Musique is still epic today so i'm not sure i buy that people cant be good from the get go, but maybe they failed for awhile on a different alias.

Here's 2 tutorials from gloryboxmusic on how to do french house (again dont forget to search for disco house if you need to to). If you aren't looking up and watching ytube tutorials. do so



With Silva Hound leaving the community at least you have a chance of filling in a very big gap for the community in making french house (and hopefully with a pony theme if that's your aim) even if that will take awhile to be good french house.

Everytime you do something wrong, write it down, create a checklist or guide on how to do it right. I still make mistakes that i notice later that i beat myself up for. Try to avoid repeating the same mistakes and get progressively better with each track. Have the patience that it may take a month or 3 to get a good track together if thats what it takes. Listen and look for flaws in your work the day after severa times in a row, my guess is you'll find them and you can tweak and repeat. My ipod touch has a notes section and i keep a log of each song and what i want and need to fix AS i'm listening to the track so i dont forget it by the time i go back to the studio.

Please keep in mind that you should have peers in this community where you listen to each other's tracks. A lot of people start where you are at. There's likely hundreds of brony musicians with your same story. Doing this all by yourself is frankly too hard. Its something that should be mutual; expecting someone to help you become better without giving them good advice back isnt fair so either so look for someone who has a good ear for noticing the technical mistakes and try to have knowledge yourself on how to fix others music. Be their buddy and you'll help each other through the highs and lows (friendship is magic i hear) If you don't have enough technical know how on how to improve eq'ing, mixing, or music structure in your own or another person music then listen to more music and spend more time learning. You can't get good until you know what that sounds like.

Hope this helps.. just make sure its fun too, no point making music if youre feeling horrible about it.

[JSynth]

I only got a quick peek at your channel, but it seems that you are fairly new to the music community. I would not get stressed about views if you have only been around for a month or two. It takes time to get noticed, so don't worry about views at this time and focus more on quality.

[prozeyic]

I don't think you should focus on getting yourself heard. I think you should focus on improving your music. And yes, it is discouraging as hell at times but the only way to get there is to keep trying.

[Sonarch]

I find this to be very applicable. Especially to myself.


(this isn't to say that you suck though, to clarify)

And you're on the road to becoming a great musician, as you're already producing music! Hell, i've been here for quite awhile, talking to people and reading threads and occasionally giving feedback, but i'm struggling to take that first step into making songs. I hope to remedy that in the next few weeks. Point is, you're on the way, you just gotta keep at it (which I guess is what most of these guys have already said but I still wanted to comment)

Also, feel free to PM me if you'd like some critique, and i'll do my best to help you out!

[Electric Velocity]

I'm quite surprised this many people took their time to reply and give me support. Thank you. When I reflect on how long I've actually been making music, I can see I need to lower my expectations a bit. Waiting is one of the hardest things to do. A big part of my feeling anxious is not having the right tools to make what I want to make. Half of those can be learned from youtube or whatever, but a lot of things I need cost money. (New mic, VSTs, laptop) Right now I make all my music on my desktop, so inspiration is hard to come by sometimes. Once I get to a point where I can just sit down anywhere and just work on a specific sound, maybe I won't be so impatient.