I feel like people start thinking about exposure and labels way too early in the journey, which is very restraining. Tbh some of the best years of music production I had were in the 2010s making dubstep and experimenting with weird sounds, with absolutely no knowledge in the music industry. Imo it's only once you've been through this kind of phase that you can figure out a long-term music project that is fulfilling to you.

another producer was talking about completing 100 songs. write 100 songs and finish them (full arrangement) whether they're good or bad, just finish them and then start the next one. when starting a track give yourself a deadline to finish it (and stick to it) and then move on. it teaches you discipline, commitment and time management, and by the end of it you will have a handful of songs you might actually like. this then becomes your base starting point of writing music you enjoy

You're definitely helping me. Switched from FL to Ableton and ran across your videos. Super big help. On your 3rd free start to finish tutorials. Doing paid ones next. Love your calm, simple teaching style!

This video got my attention. I almost felt like you were talking to me. I recently dropped a vape addiction and turned it into a video game addiction. Now dropped the video game addiction and focusing on just trying to live addiction free. I’m frustrated in life because I only get Sundays to work on music. The slow progress is what frustrates me. I’ve been working (making music) on Sundays since 2018. Im 40 years old now and have a family to support. I’m faced with a decision of dropping my developed IT career and taking the leap of faith into music, similar to what Jules did, or drop my dream and continue to grind in IT. This is on my mind everyday and I have little support pushing me to follow my passion. It’s a decision I will need to make alone, and I’m running out of time.

the pipeline analogy is spot on! I always question whether i can make a song just as good as the previous and it takes some perseverance to get to that 'diamond' but its always worth it!

Definitely agree! I've written so many songs just for fun and it keeps me so motivated. You have to have fun!

I sucked the joy out of music making in this past week or so (am still recovering). I'd written a track I experienced joy creating (it was super energising - the track wrote itself), but after a mate showed me how to get sections louder - I got lost for a week or so in rabbit holes of learning how to meter better, how to mid / side eq better and a bunch of other tricks to improve the cleanliness of my mix. While dissecting these topics and their applications in the track for hours, this past week - I lost all enthusiasm for the track. I also stayed home and had very little positive experiences withdrawing from the world to solve problems... And I don't feel I have all that much to show for it. I learned heaps - but I haven't created anything new with it... And now I'm burned out and need to recover. It was not healthy self care. I'm hoping I see some benefits to this hard work in the next track...

I love the diamonds in the shit pipe analogy. And the Ira Glass reading is really inspiring. Great stuff!

Yeah. Having fun, doing something for yourself is the best. The only reason I do it is because I absolutely love writing music.

Having fun yes but stuck by my technic and knowledge. Thats why I m following you. You are great man thanks.

this Video helped me more than any other thx for that !

you're amazing thanks Jules!

I agree jules i started out as a dj which I have been doing for 20 years but not done much lately as Iam drawn to live I get excited everyday day but it’s not so easy when you have mental health but I still want to go on Ableton I want to be as good yourself😊 one day I just genuinely get moved by melodic techno and progressive puts the biggest smile on my face! thank you.

Just gotta tell you.. I´m almost in to tears watching this. Already signed in Euphonic, Enhanced, Mango Alley, etc.. But I feel stuck and completely tired. I just came back home after 9 hours of office work, gym... I needed this advice, really.

This was great man. Feeling motivated to have fun. It's always good to remind ourselves that's why we do this 😁

It’s right on point. I feel like making music is my life joy sometimes and in other times it doesn’t flow and i just can’t grt it right. So the fun is lost and it becomes a chore. This cycle keeps me from being consistent and basically fucks up my dream of becoming a real producer. It sucks because many times I know my project sounds not as professional as I want, but I lack the tools to fix it, so giving up and procrastination seems easier and feel like genuine relief. :/

I needed this today thank you!

Thank you so much for showing me this video again from Hourglass. I watched it a few years back and it really inspired me when I started out to make music!

thanks bro! I really needed to hear this today :) ♥

Thank you 🙏🏼

Thank you bro!

This is where I have trouble with the adage "you must finish your tracks" because for me, making the ideas is the fun part, once I get to the arrangement it starts to be a chore, so lately I've just been sketching, to keep the enthusiasm up.

thank you!

The analogy of the pipeline and diamonds is just golden!! And it's the truest . I live by that rule

Thank you

Thank you for being real man🙌

That's a great video; it really summarizes in an accessible way what lots of producers and other creative types say. And, I've found it to be true. Thanks for that.

Absolute gems of a video! Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and sharing that Ira Glass video!

Really appreciate this Jules! Music hasn't been feeling fun for me lately and I've been really burned out from my full time job. All I've had the energy for is playing video games. Hoping to get back in the studio for fun now!

"Like I took longer to figure out how to do this than anybody I've ever met". Definitely hasn't met me, lol...that hit home. Thanks for this.

Thank you. At my almost 40 I rescued myself with coming to the music two years ago. All these bad things I had and have (health, risk to be deported and killed in my birth country, covid, other usual problems) - just disappearing when I'm opening Ableton. That completely replaced everything like games etc I enjoyed before. But at the same time the age, the fact that I didn't know anything about music before (including note names)) ), lack of time are killing me when I see how far I am from that was I heard in my head and what was actually uploaded to the distributor. It causes the feeling that I'm disgrace myself. Especially when I see how beautiful are things you're doing in 2 hours ) But also I feel that I can't stop already - the magic of the sound is so inspiring, this is the main motivator. How far I will get - has the meaning for sure, but I don't want to have my life without music. That's why motivating videos like this are really important for people like me - it is hugely important to hear sometimes "keep going"

Amazing vídeo, mate! Thank you!

I'm doing music because I can express my emotions with it. What makes it fun for me, is I can make my own favorite music, that gives me energy & surge of emotions, very exhilarating. That Jolt, that spark that ignites the fuel😃 rollercoaster of emotions & I can recycle that back into music tracks. Making music so I & other listeners can blow out their steamy emotions through healthy action/activity, even having that as background music when gaming makes you feel like a badass, that can do anything he wants, for example in that Call of Duty gaming session. 😆

Solid advice. I heard it many times, but I always forget. It is a good habit, as you do, to refresh this, because in the middle of the struggle, stress and disappointment, we all forget about this. I hope I will make it out of the gap one day my self.

Thanks! The video showcase at the end was especially helpful

Grape!

Loved the diamond analogy. Sounds messy 😄 Great post. Completely agree. I also really liked your dessert island analogy the other day.

The problem is Fun != Money. Most of us looking for fun have a disadvantage over those who grind and always try to make the next hit. And most of us want to make a living from our music, and unless we do all of the unfun for a while, it will be hard for us to keep up with the trends and the experts. It's either you get depressed because of not enjoying the process or get depressed because of the unsuccessful music career that forces you to work 9-5 as a doctor or something. You have to be really really good, talented, and different to be able to have fun and build an audience. This is the sad truth. And this is why most people give up or take long breaks.

This shit pipeline thing really catches me😂 thanks for the video!

There were some really great points on the iterative creative process here. Another way of describing the whole sifting through shit for the diamond analogy reminds me of the idea of staying in a space of non-judgment with one's own creations. When I get my head in that space, playing around with a single synth sound is all it takes to have fun and something bigger usually grows from there.

Really great video👌, so much motivated with the clip you shown at the end 🙌

Thank you for the valuable advice! I hit slumps often and REALLY wanna change that and will do so.

"Make sure you have experiences (in the studio / in front of your computer) making music where you having as much fun as you would be having playing your favourite video game (or whatever experience you love doing in your past time). If you are not frequently experiencing this (music production) as a fun experience it is going to turn into a grind". Good advice and I totally agree. The problem it is very hard to make happen (it can't be forced or consciously manipulated into happening). Especially when everything you come up on your own stinks. My chord progressions are bland, bass lines boring, melodies cheesy. There is never anything 'there there', nothing inspiring to build on. I have hundreds of '4-bar loop projects' (I force myself to do one / day, emphasis on force) and while it might be a worthwhile exercise to build them out into complete arrangement, I feel there needs to be a small kernel of 'goodness' in them to inspire you to do so. I've been 'producing along' youtube tutorials, digging into sound design, doing remakes, filling notebooks with stuff I like (like theory analysis of cool progressions) for a while now. While instructive and quite 'fun' what it doesn't do (at all) is helping me come up with original ideas. Following tutorials are very light on 'euphoric moments'. The closest I've come to 'having fun while doing something (kind of) on my own' is remaking tracks I like. There is definitely creativity (and plenty of work) needed to figure out notes, chords and crafting sounds plus effects from just a reference audio file. I'm hoping this will eventually give me some ideas, even though this hasn't happened yet. Having dropped into (and walked away from) countless hobbies in my life, I'm starting to feel music production is about to be added to the long list of failed projects. The simple fact is that it can never be fun doing something you are bad at, not in the long run when the novelty-factor has faded away and all that is left is your personal shortcomings.

Overall it goes in waves. There’s time I hate it because studio time didn’t go well. But about 10 years in I’m addicted to what it feels like when it flows. Addicted enough to wake up 4a to produce everyday before work. This is it.

This is great , your videos are really helpful and informative . I personally consider working on tracks my sweet escape 😅 by myself alone in my room one of the most meditative and peaceful thing , all though im a noob and not very good at it i make music to feel better and i enjoy making it just as much as i enjoy listening electronic music if not more 👾

Inspiring 🎹🎹 words

Thanx for this great advice. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Just in time this video for me. 100% true. Thank you for making me hear what I feel and I just hadn't put it into words, text ... Thank you!

I think this makes sense, but for people that have been producing for more than a year it’s important to take breaks and reset. Doing this and keeping it fun for a lifetime is different! Marathon not a race.

This video gave me motivation to go to the studio. Thanks

Thank you for this great video. In opinion some people define creativity as a magical thing which has to do with a special state of mind. To a point it is probably a bit like that, but producing is also a craft which can be learned. There is the musical part: Music Theory(Harmony, Melodys,Rythm), Songwriting(Arrangement) and the technical part: Mixing and Soundstudies - understanding of compression, eq, harmonic series can make a big difference. A studio with good acoustic to a certain degree is half the rent, expecially if you do big electronic music arrangements with a lot of tracks(frequency information), you need to hear the Frequency Spectrum to make the right technical decisions. Referencing other peoples work, can help. You can even ask an artist to send over some studio stems, to see which elements make the track sounding so good. Its more Formular than magic. There are also great educational instutes which can teach you all of that, but you need a big wallet for that and choose the right uni/school, there is a lot of scam as well.

Those are some wise words mate! Cheerio 😊

Thank you for this

I’m definitely the one who starts and stops, not because of loss of interest, but the creative block is real. Just need to keep studying reference tracks and keep pushing on.

Love the video on taste

Awesome video Jules🤙... just keep making music regularly... open new neurons

totally agree with you.

making music is fun for me and I really enjoy it, the only thing that kills me is the amount of time I have to work to sustain myself. sad but true.

We need a video about ear fatigue and how to avoid losing your subjectivity about the track your producing after being sucked up into the vibe of these endless loops. After few hours I'm not able to judge whether what I'm doing does sound good or not :(

It is so fucking helpful to know that I am not the only one who has these kind of struggle! Thanks man!

Hey. Could you do a video about adding different types of fxs and atmospheres please

lmfao ! the squad has been rumbled 😆😆 as for the music, never stop 💪

My Achilles' heel is actually writing. I'm good at editing and sound design but my writing is average. It's good enough for licensing but for actually standing out im not there yet. I see improvement but i guess i will keep pushing. Also i was looking for coaching but find out nobody will give me the answers I'm looking for. My advice? Only you can make it happen, keep the tunnel vision. ps: that video you show at the end resonated with me a lot thanks for sharing.

♥️

highly recommend to read "The War of Art" on this topic

Great video, man. Btw, you and @ Zen World being sponsored by Patagonia? 🤣

You ❤❤

USE A DE-Esser on future videos. (please)

Basically just get into modular synthesis

👏👏👏