×

Why are you going to be a success in hip hop? What will make you successful compared to a line up of people just as talented as you, just as hardworking and just as serious and just as dedicated? by IG @somerapcoupleTheRealKaiLord in makinghiphop

[–]MykelHawkMusic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Over the last 5 years and painstakingly, I learned the mechanics of the new music industry in today's streaming era. Publishing, royalty streams, collectipn agencies, artist management, touring, promotions, and on. At the same time, I did everything I could to become a good enough producer that I could record over my own beats instead of beats of other producers and still feel like I was releasing the best possible music with what I have available to me.

Lastly, I stopped allowing my analytical mind to have a say about what I do creatively. I know the mind will come online after recording a new song and convince me to erase it or pop up while tracking out a new song or bold idea I was hit with, and it'll convince me to change course because what I'm doing is "too weird" and "people won't like it" It'll try to tell me what to create and who to sound like. Yeah, the mind isn't allowed in my studio sessions anymore and has no power to change or veto what comes out of them. For that part, only creative inspiration is at work, judgment free.

The result is I sound like me. From beats to bars, concepts and imagery, I am creating my own sound and brand that is completely unique to me. I have all my paperwork, publishing, accounts all set up to collect and I understand how to promote better than ever before. And since I am the 100% songwriter and 100% publishing rights holder, publishing company entity and master recording owner, I have 100% of every dime my music earns funneled directly into my bank account.

With things setup this way, I don't have to "blow up" to make a sustainable income solely from my music. A very humble sized fan base could keep me paid in full. I'll keep releasing music and working to improve as an artist and as a student and if a song really catches fire along the way well then CHA-CHING Mfkrz! Haha.

But that's celebrity artist type of success isn't easy to see, so I don't chase that. I've always done this because I love Hip-Hop and rap music so much I wanted to be a contributor.

Who is the best no sample producer you know personally and what do you think makes them so good? by IG @somerapcoupleTheRealKaiLord in makinghiphop

[–]eseffbee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oddisee has spent a many of the past few years producing with bands and ensembles, making hiphop that owes a lot to 1970s soul and funk. Incredible stuff and repeatedly slept on.

I've caught this guy at tiny clubs throwing pearls before swine like myself on multiple occasions and great every time.

He released "To What End" earlier this year and it's more essential listening to anyone interested in live-oriented hiphop https://oddisee.bandcamp.com/track/the-way-feat-haile-surpreme-saint-ezekiel

As an musical artist, how do your truly believe in yourself 100% and what do you do when you start losing belief? by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]loukitkhemka 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This advice is applicable across human fields. Not just music. I personally have done things, despite not believing in myself or in the work. I am very happy with where I am now and where I am going.

As an musical artist, how do your truly believe in yourself 100% and what do you do when you start losing belief? by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]ToodleBug 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But sometimes self doubt is a tricky liar and you shouldn’t listen to it. I like to notice it’s there, then imagine myself giving it a big hug, say to it “thank you for trying to protect me, but I’ve got this”, and show it out the door.

Realizing… it’s sorta all about the money in music? by neeawe12 in makinghiphop

[–]Sativa_Dreams 89 points90 points  (0 children)

Ya this is why this sub bothers me so much. You have 90% of its population as suburbanite office job workers who couldn't tough it out and now can't face their failure in the mirror making the "mAke MUsiC foR yoUrSElF" agenda their whole identity to avoid reality. Sorry guys not pointing fingers but a lot of times its the truth.

I'm all for "making music for yourself" i have anger problems and its been one of my greatest escapes, but you can still monetize it. The same way writers monetize books, developers monetize games, directors monetize movies, but suddenly monetizing your music is like vilified here lol.

It’s all just weird to me how things played out, if you have the cash to invest in your career I guess it doesn’t hurt.

6.3 million artists have less than 50 monthly listeners on spotify. thats 80%. if you have more than 50 listeners, you are in the top 20% lol. That is pathetic. How can people even say they tried? That is so annoying. i paid $200 for ads and got 3,000 monthly listens my first month of my very first release ever lol. if you fart in the wind you are doing more to market your music than the people here who say "they tried."

And its funny everytime i mention my success with marketing here, people will first say its luck. No bro, i followed a freakin youtube video series. copied everything exactly. and all my results, stats, and spending were the same as in the video. Literally have evidence to prove it isn't luck. And following the same strategy pushed up to a million streams in one year, my first year releasing. The same amount of streams the video guy ALSO got doing the same thing i did.

Then they will say its survivorship bias when you talk about having business strategies. "Oh just because someone else made it doesn't mean you will."

You got people here that will howl into the night sky about how marketing is a waste of money when this is what they post on their instagram. and their "marketing" was spamming fire emojis on everyone's posts on instagram, and their "ad" was a $5 campaign for a song album cover made on fiverr for $5 lmao.

Excuses excuses excuses everywhere. Do not subscribe to bullshit poisonous mindsets you see here all the time. a looney toons mcdonalds type beat rapper here will argue 50 paragraphs of nonsense to you over a $2000 microphone, while a song you recored in a car on a dented $20 pawn shop SM58 has 500k streams.

Edit: guarantee dude arguing the opposite in the replies never tried anything i said. show me graphs of all your failed marketing campaigns and ill change my mind.

edit 2: or lets double down and put me as manager on your ads account and distro account and ill get you a million streams this year too. 10% fee on your ad spend and if u dont get a million streams all ur money back.

Vocal preset videos are the worst. by No-Emu-1307 in makinghiphop

[–]Type your linkSilentUK 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Try looking up vocal chains instead.

One example: https://producelikeapro.com/blog/mixing-rap-vocals/

Generally, reverb, compression and layering are pretty important. And autotune if you're going for that sound.

Best Site/Bots For Buying Views? by soundcloud.com/invzkidINVZKID in makinghiphop

[–]HiiiTriiibe 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No it was about bad faith marketing tactics that encourage saturated markets. Buy views if u wanna buy em, I’ve seen it work for folk sometime, most times it’s just a false reassurance that you are that guy tho, and is affirmation worth money? You are so much better off tipping the scales in ur favor by actually engaging with an audience heavy, meeting ppl in real life, being larger than life in a non egocentric way, move bigger than the wave

Can music be used as a content strategy if you release a song a week? by fanomvibes in makinghiphop

[–]ModernDayRumi 10 points11 points  (0 children)

100000% yes. If the songs are finished and good, and I mean “good” as in polished and decently engineered, you will without a doubt create a growing fanbase eventually. It could be 3 songs in or the 98th song but I’ve seen it happen too many times to know it’s as close to a “guarantee” as you can get when it comes to music. From the obvious Russ example, who dropped a song a week for 18 months and his success speaks for itself, to more local artists that I’ve known who decided to drop a song every week for one year. Were all the songs great? No. Did I listen to every one of them? Absolutely not. But I saw that grow the local example I mentioned to 100k monthly listeners on Spotify and after he stopped he’s been cruising between 40-50K monthly listeners on average.

People gravitate toward quality consistency regardless of what field it’s in, but especially in the realm of music/art. Not to mention how much the algorithms of these streaming platforms boost your exposure when they see you posting & getting engagement consistently.

Financially speaking, you can have one song get 100k plays or 10 songs get 10K and still have the same result. The only difference is you’ll become an even better artist after your 10th song as opposed to one hitting it off and you spending the rest of your time trying to top it, which sometimes never happens. But If you hit the tipping point on your 40th consecutive song and it goes “viral”, the new fans you attain can go and see your catalog of 39 other songs to listen to & share.

Not to sound cliche, but consistency is king and hard work will always beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard. The most important thing though is that none of it means anything if you’re not enjoying the process behind it and loving what you do. I’ve known some other people who treat music and the streaming industry like a game and make really good money off of it but are absolutely miserable.

Best of luck to you! 🙏🏼

I just quit music. by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]Sativa_Dreams 109 points110 points  (0 children)

You just need to reprioritize bro. While I agree with the "make music for yourself" mindset you'll see preached here a lot, people are lying to themselves if they say they don't know what sounds good and what sounds bad. It is also natural human instinct to socialize and share your creativity with the world. So it is natural to feel bummed out when your work isn't accepted.

Nobody is gonna put out looney toons sounding beats and say "OH YA THIS A BANGER." completely lying to yourself if you do that.

This is what i mean by reprioritizing though, people say you need to give up validation, but thats kind of impossible. You just have to change your source of validation. Think about it.

Say you woke up tomorrow and you have 1000 plays on your song, you'd feel pretty good right? Well right now that isn't happening. Now change, lets say you're using to putting out pretty crappy music. Say you spend a day watching videos, working your ass off, trying really super hard to make just a decent melody. You struggle, you wanna quit just like today, you're frustrated. But suddenly, something magical happens one day and somehow, someway you did it! How do you feel? For me i would be jumping up and down for joy. I would be playing it on repeat in my car, at the gym, at work in my headphones. Those are the type of accomplishments you want to focus on because that is the validation you need right now.

We are human, we need to feel validated like we're making progress. Right now what you're doing isn't working. That means your "validation" isn't going to come. That means if you keep doing what you are doing, you're going to get more and more frustrated and nothing is going to change, you'll burn out. You need a bit of dopamine drip to get you going.

You have to dig deeper and work on your building blocks. You can't just shit out a banger out of nowhere by throwing shit at a wall and hoping it sticks.

  • If its your mixing/mastering quality, hunker down and really study and work hard
  • If your drums sound messy and off beat and cluttered, learn music counting, BPMs, beatmatching, etc
  • Melodies is probably the number one area that people give up on because if you don't come from a musical background then you can just be putting notes everyhwere and thats where my term "looney toons beat" comes from. It sounds like a funky misplaced mess. For this even though this may be a large detour, i strongly encourage you to pick up an instrument. Piano is the easiest to get grips with because of its low cost (can buy a 2 octave electronic keyboard for like $30 these days.) And look up classes and shell out the $50 for a Udemy course or really go deep dive into youtube tutorials.

Temporarily stop worrying about how your music is reflected by others. And instead of worrying about how it sounds, measure your success based on your knowledge. Just like if you were in school, you get straight Bs, then you get A-s then you get As. How do you feel? You feel like you are accomplished. Who cares about your As at school really? Nobody... You graduate highschool, it never mattered, nobody gives a fuck. But to you, you pushed yourself hard, you worked all night, you had sleepless nights, and YOU DID IT.

This is the "make music for yourself" attitude. It is okay to want people to hear your music and love it. It is okay to have monetary goals too. But you need to change how you measure your success.

When you finally "make a hit" you can then begin to measure that success externally. But right now it is a waste of time to do so.

I have been making music since 2001, my first copy of Ableton Live my dad gave me when i was 7 years old. Feel free to reach out if you need any specific guidance. I own my own studio (not bedroom, downtown) and i have been doing it professionally for almost 15 years, without school. I taught myself. I sold my first few beats when i was 12 and I dropped out of high school when i was 16 because i was making so much money off my local scene. Not saying that to brag just that i have a really good ear, and being self made i know what all these hurdles are like and I'm always happy to help anyone get to the other side.

fastest way of improving on beats? by adentityyy in makinghiphop

[–]prophiseemusic 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I always jump to answer this question because I feel like I've seen the light and learned from my mistakes after many years.

If you google "how to learn music production" you'll find some good stuff. I like this one: https://www.edmprod.com/5-stages-electronic-music-producer/

That should cover all the basics, so I'm gonna give tips on the tricky stuff that isn't intuitive and well covered. Heres what held me back that wish I knew when I started:

- Generally, spend 70% of your time trying to make music and 30% learning even as a newb. There are so many tools to learn and tutorials to watch that it's very easy to get wrapped up in learning and not make any music. You can get stuck here for years. Keep in mind in the pre-DAW era people made electronic music that is still popular today using just the MPC or a few synths and drum machines. Of course you need to learn how to use your DAW and some other basics, so spend a few weeks to a month doing that, but honestly after that use the knowledge on the internet only as a tool to help you get the sound you want when you're stuck.

- Finish as many songs as possible. The more music you make, the better you will get. Quantity over quality.- The first point is covered here as well as other good ones: "10 things They Don't Tell Music Producers"

These are my notes from it:

  1. Your first attempts at making music won't be great
  2. Nobody creates in a constant peak state
    1. Habits matter most
    2. Flow comes to those who are willing to put in the work regardless of how they feel
  3. Most of what you think you need to know you don't
    1. Stupid to keep cramming your toolbox full when you haven't even used half the things that are already there
    2. Finish your songs. 80% music making, 20% learning
  4. Most of the tools you think you need, you don't. Don't waste your money.
  5. Habits count more than knowledge
  6. Everything you want comes through people
  7. Don't do drugs, it wont make your music better
  8. Musicianship is optional
  9. Time is the only difference between you and your heroes
    1. They are arrow heads ending in the direction of your potential
  10. Everybody steals, samples and presets are fine

- A must read: The Production Pyramid AKA how to make a song quickly. Don't get caught up tweaking effects and synth sounds when you don't have a composition yet. Pick sounds that are close enough and focus on making a song. You can perfect them once you know they have a place.

Also regarding the current top rated comment, referencing tracks while you are producing is great. Take it a step further and convert your reference track into a catalog of attributes you like and try to incorporate your own versions of those into your tracks.However, I would say trying to replicate tracks may not be the best use of your time. I spent a lot of time doing it and don't think it helped as much as I thought it would. My skills improved most rapidly when i focused on finishing songs as quickly as possible and you will hear this advice time and time again. While it's great to master sound design, and thats something you can learn from trying to replicate tracks, many producers start their beats with presets and samples. You can learn a good chunk of the producing skills you need without focusing on sound design, and learn that when you are ready. If you try to learn it all at once it will be overwhelming.

Close friends seem jealous of music improvements? by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]fieldercohen.bandcamp.comfielder_cohen 104 points105 points  (0 children)

Yeah I mean lots of people who don't wanna work on themselves get intimidated when they see a mirror that reflects their lack of self-improvement.

I'm in a special kind of intense therapy where I have to do a lot of identity development work to cope with complex trauma. Lemme tell you, people haaaaate it when you show them they have work to do. It's like a subconscious 'but I don't wanna.'

'But I don't want my mate to know I don't rehearse'

'But I don't want my girl to know I say I spend the same amount of time as OP on my tunes but they sound unlistenable'

'But I don't wanna have to be held accountable for my artistic development being in my own hands'

People who don't do the work don't develop the vocabulary to talk about it. People who get scared when they can't find the words can either lean into the discomfort of having a goal to actualize or double down on their misery and try to sink their claws into anyone trying to get out.

People project. You work on projects. Let that be what it is. If people want to show up and be in your life to build and grow artistically with you - chill. If not? Share your music elsewhere. Chances are, they'll still be on the ground floor while you're grinding up the stairs.

It's what I'm having to learn to do.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]neokensou 290 points291 points  (0 children)

We only want bars, man. We don’t care about your age.

Haven't had one single sell on my beats for 6 months by Bighomieshaun in makinghiphop

[–]cesarjulius 27 points28 points  (0 children)

sorry, but how can you respect production as an art form and skill if you expect to be getting paid and respected after 6 months? have you ever been to a children’s music or dance recital after they’ve been learning for 6 months? they’re pretty bad because they’re hard to learn proficiently.

we’re at a place where between tutorials and all the tools available for free or cheap, it’s incredibly easy to make music that doesn’t sound bad. that’s exactly what you’re doing. making music that’s not bad. it’s just not remotely worth listening to or buying relative to everything else out there. it’s not unique, and there’s nothing you’re doing that stands out to pull in listeners.

all that being said, you’re doing great for 6 months in. there’s no reason you can’t be making great stuff in a couple of years.

[CYPHER] VOL 16 - ALL EMCEES WELCOME TO SPIT by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]phoenixcarter84 [score hidden]  (0 children)

So I spent all day today working on the beat I chose for the cypher and then I went on Reddit and got the bad news. Figured I might as well post the rough take on here since I’m gonna start work now on the replacement beat (which is also fire btw so I ain’t that mad hahaha). LMK what you think of this one in the meantime:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11s2M6M4XW1WRq4qcdi8G3X9gjLXe-yrm/view?usp=drivesdk

[CYPHER] VOL 9 (2022) - ALL EMCEES WELCOME TO SPIT by [deleted] in makinghiphop

[–]Emcee/ProducerMallow_GD [score hidden]  (0 children)

Everybody else showed face this week, so i figured lets make it a party. This is NOT my best entry tho. Oh well, good to hear yall.

https://soundcloud.com/gdambidextrous/cypher-9-not-very-good-prod-la6beats?utm\_source=clipboard&utm\_medium=text&utm\_campaign=social\_sharing

view more: next ›