When it comes to making a record, and more importantly the budgeting of the record, many new artists are unsure where to start. There are many questions, without a lot of honest answers out there. Every audio professional is out there trying to convince you that their services are needed and essential and worth the price. As an artist, you need to sift through the noise and figure out what you, and your project, need.

“What can we do ourselves without really compromising quality?”

There are no definitive answers to many of these questions, no one-size-fits-all solution. There are however, guidelines (not rules) that can help to point in the right direction. Every artist, project, and genre will be different. Then personal things like pre-existing knowledge, willingness to learn, budge and different constraints will also play a role in deciding your next move forward.

In this episode I am trying to help artists understands what is involved, what can be approached more DIY without hurting the project, and what shouldn’t be compromised on. This only scratches the surface of this topic but should help you better understand where to get started and what questions you should be asking.

The Key Points:

Welcome to The ANAK Creates Podcast! I'm your host, Alex Krotz.

My podcast is all about exploring the art of engineering and music production, what that means to different artists, producers and engineers and how it affects the creation process. Oh, and with a healthy dose of music business thrown in. 

We talk about all things related to music production, audio engineering, editing and mixing, career development, and the music industry. Learn from myself and my guests as we give you different perspectives and inspire your productions.

I share my experience and insight of over a decade of working in the professional music industry with some of the biggest producers, engineers and artists. I have contributed to multiple audio engineering textbooks and continue to guest lecture at various audio engineering programs. 

For more info, full show notes and articles, my other helpful resources or more about me, check out anakcreates.ca

Find the video version on YouTube - https://bit.ly/3EjwjSe

In this week’s episode, I’m joined once again by Malcolm Cottle to talk about plugins, one of our favorite things.

We discuss how lazy engineering can result from purchasing plugins without learning how to use them. To further knowledge growth, using a plugin need go beyond picking a preset, and dive into actually understand the fundamentals of why the plugin is doing what it’s doing, and how it needs to be changed to best fit into your workflow or your mix.

Everything in music creation is contextual.

We dive into the fact that plugin presets are not a one-size-fits-all solution, but instead are a starting point and something to learn from. New plugins won’t just solve your problem or achieve the sound you’re going (regardless of the flashy marketing), time needs to be spent learning the tools inside-out to unlock its full potential.

Malcolm and I also go through our criteria for new plugin purchases.

1.  Do I have a plugin that already does the same thing?

2.  Does this speed up my workflow or make something much easier?

3.  Is this going to inspire my creativity?

4.  Do I have a project to use this plugin on right away?

5.  Is it on sale? (Why pay full price if you don’t have to!)

In the end, you need to be honest with yourself about why you are buying a plugin. It's only your own knowledge, workflow, bank account, creativity, and quality of work that will be impacted by not being honest and letting new flashy marketing overtake real knowledge acquisition.

Think smart about new purchases before you get them, and then take the time to learn everything you can and apply them to your own workflow. It won’t be two clicks and done, it requires trial and error, but the result is becoming a better producer and engineer.

Someones name attached to your project is not the one reason that's going to push your songs to the next level. You need a great production and a team willing to help achieve that. Sometimes artists get blinded by the though of having someones name attached to their project, they miss out that it may not actually be the best thing for their project, and they often overlook far better options that will get them further in the long run.

Someones name can help, but often it's their connections and endorsement. If you pay for someones ego, and they don't actually care, then that won't happen and you could be left with no money and a mediocre production that you aren't even happy with. They key is finding someone who is hungry for your project and wants to dedicate so much more time and energy to helping you make it the best it can be.

Music Production, audio engineering, mixing, songwriting, basically any form of musical creativity has NO RULES and no Step by Step Processes that are set in stone.

Yes, there are guidelines, and there and step by step instructions for certain processes to get you going in a general direction or a general sound, but they are fluid, always changing and meant to be bent and broken.

When you push the limits of what you're told, that is when you find new things, and that's how you develop your unique sound and your own process!

Video Version! - https://youtu.be/jegDxzFevf4

To be successful, and allow yourself to thrive and have a long career (or hobby) you need to embrace your authentic sound as an artist, engineer or producer. If you think your sound is to strange and no one will like it, you're wrong. Don't try and water down your creations to please others, make what you like, and people will be attracted to that.

Along with that, follow your gut instinct, even when trying something new, you can still just know if you enjoy it. If you wrote this song, and don't like it, and it becomes a massive hit, would you hate playing it night after night for the next 10-20 years?

These are some of the things I talk bout in today's episode!

This is episode 61, but it's the very first video version being released here on the ANAK Creates Podcast YouTube channel!

If you like this, be sure to check out my main channel where I talk about all things audio engineering, production, productivity, mixing, editing and more!

Also be sure to check out the past episodes as well, which you can find on your favorite podcast listening platform.

youtube.com/anakcreates

anakcreates.ca

#podcast #episode61 #authenticcreation

There's a podcast I really enjoy listening to which is the "My Forever Studio" by MusicTech. If you haven't heard of it before, it's worth a listen and there's some really interesting discussions about gear choice and workflow due to gear choice as well.

Basically, the guest has to pick their gear for their "forever studio" where budget is no limit, but they only have a set number of items they can pick and thus, choices need to be made.

So today, to celebrate 60 episodes, and because I thought it would be fun, I did my own version of this (with a few bending of their rules to make my own rules) and go through my choices. This is more of my basic setup that I would take with me, rather then anything super crazy changing in my setup, but I don't think this will be the last!

Comment on the episode with some of your picks!

https://www.musictech.net/shows/my-forever-studio/

These days, social media is such a large part in how we get our information. Likewise when learning thing, we like to follow social media accounts who's posts are relevant to what we enjoy, such as making music. The problem is that most fundamental educational concepts and social media educators (if you can call them that) don't really take into account the whole of many concepts.

In this podcast I talk about how social media might be ruining peoples creativity, how to tell and actual expert from a keyboard warrior in facebook groups, and why you need to look deeper into concepts or ideas shared in quick instagram posts, and not blindly believe the concepts you read.

Many social media posts are like the "rule of thumb" or the cheatsheet version of the notes, which don't actually make sense when you don't understand where they come from. So make sure you do your own further research.

Gibson (yes, the 127 year old guitar manufacturer) recently announced they will be entering the record label business. Along with this announcement, they also said that the first record they will be releasing will be with Slash (GNR) in 2022. Gibson Records (which operates out of Nashville) is also a partnership between Gibson and BMI.

So, is this good or bad for the music business and artist?

According the statements from Slash & his manager, they were really excited about the deal saying that Gibson is focused on making this record label artist focused and in this deal, Slash will retain the ownership of his masters. This is a huge deal!

In this podcast, I discuss my thoughts on this new endeavour for the brand, such as; Gibson's partnership with BMI and what that could mean, how Gibsons G3 (Gibson Generation Group) plays into this, how the brand is proving they are an artist focused brand, and what this whole thing could mean for the music industry and record label model as a whole moving forward.

This could open up the door for so many opportunities for brand-run record labels which, if done correctly, could hugely benefit both the brands themselves as well as the artists, big and small.

There's so much to talk about, let me know your thoughts on this and everything else I touch on in this episode!

I'm back! I had a little bit of a break after the last episode, and today I explain why, and what I was up to, along with the takeaway lessons to help yourself maximize your energy and prolong your creative energy and avoid burnout.

It's important to find an activity and things that help refresh you that you can do BEFORE you burn out. Not all "breaks" are created equal, and in this episode I talk about what works for me and give some times to help you find what works for you.