10 tips/tricks I wish I knew before I started making music - FL Studio

1. Intro: What's up, guys? This is weasel. And today I'm going to talk about ten tips that I wish I knew before I started producing. So we're going to start with the least important tip and then work our way upwards to the most important sit. So let's start with tip number ten. 2. Shortcuts: So tip number ten is learn all the shortcuts. So when you are starting out in a new program, it's always good to learn all the easy shortcuts, right? If the beds, of course you have to standard stuff like Control a to select everything and control S to save your projects. But you also have like control plus L for legato. Then, for example, control plus G2 marriage, all touching nodes with each other. Then you can use Control. Up arrow, Control down arrow, Sue shifts your notes up an octave or down an octave. And you can use shift up or down to do the same with the notes. And that's just a small glimpse of all the shortcuts that you can use within FL Studio. So go check outs, image lines, help desk if you have FL Studio like myself, but able to have something alike, as does a logic. So why this is important is because you are making music, because you'll have musical ideas. They're all eager heads and you have to get them into the projects that are workflow is what is between your hands and your projects. So your workflow should be as smooth and as fast as possible. At least that's what I think. And you know, using shortcuts is an easy way to really fast and up your workflow. 3. Reference your tracks: Tip number nine and also a really important tip already is to reference your tricks. If you are starting producer, you're going to get at the points that you think that your productions are sounding really professional. And you know, they could be released and a big label. I had bet myself as well, I felt, you know, this is as professional as it gets. This track is going to be attracted, is going to be signed and it's going to get a lot of streams. Reference your tracks so you know where your flaws are. We love beginning producers. They always send me their trek and they simply cancel here. What is, what is making a difference from a professional trek? And referencing or trick like literally throwing a professional trek into your DAW, like FL Studio and then just, you know, a being your track width professional trick is rated the quickest way to develop an ear for what sounds good and what does not sound good. Because if you're going to start out with producing music, it's going to sound shifts for a really long time. And you know what's, what better way there is? Just listen to what the pros are already making and thrives and learn from that. If you do, if you want to do it all in your own, feel free to do so. But in my opinion, the quickest way to learn is to reference professional tricks. Not just makes wise, but also metadata wise. You know, it could even be just a drums, you know, if you have a certain drum loop going on, just go to a reference track and compare how lousy the kick is in comparison with your cake, in comparison with all the other drum elements. So reference your tricks. 4. Don't worry about mastering: Tip number eight. Do not worry about mastering. If you're producing music and you're just starting out, don't even worry about mastering. Because if you signed a trek to label, they are going to take care of it's in almost all cases. The only thing you should worry about is that your track is somewhat loud enough. And nowadays you have a lot of different ways to perceive loudness in your trick. I still use RMS, which is kind of a technical term that the overall reference for RMS level is minus five dB RMS on your drop. So a plugin like isotopes, ozone maximizer can find out what your RMS is. So if we go to one of our tricks and we go to the drop, you can see right there that the RMSE surrounds minus four, which is quite loudly. But for clumped US debt is pretty good. Rms, another measuring unit that is used nowadays is loves. And if you're going for club use, you should go for lunch between minus six and minus nine. So once again, in this plug-in femtoliters pro L2, you can go to the loudness meters right here. And then here you can checkout difference standards. So I now have it on minus nine. And if we play the trick, seven and I think for club cuz you can go from minus nine to minus six even. And also, you couldn't see the different standards here. So for streaming, that loudness should be way less loud than for on a CD. And of course for club you as you once you're correct to be even louder. So that's also a way to measure that allowed those of your trick. I don't care which one you use. They both have their own pros and cons without being too technical. I think Love's is more of a perceived loudness and RMS is more of a technical loudness. So use both through reference. A Latin speaker treks and don't worry about the rest because the labels going to take care of that. 5. Don't overwork your project: So tip number seven, do not work on your projects for too long? I have I've had a lot of projects where I just listened to drop over and over again. And if you listened to a certain projects too long or too often, are going to get used to its complexity. And for example, if you have a really complicated melody that you've heard over a 1000 times, it's going to be really simple mentally for you. But for a first-time listener, like you're streaming audience, it's still going to be a very complicated metadata. So don't Spence tons of hours just listening to the same drop. You know, in an ideal world, you would switch between different projects so you don't really get used to anything. What I do when I when I spent a lot of time on a project is sometimes I just back off, go to sleep and then listen to the same projects the next morning. And you will often see that once you create it, what you felt was a good project is really ship project or a less good projects. It's all because of your air. It gets tired to certain moments. So don't work on your projects for too low. It's impulsive. 6. Use copyrighted material: Tip number six, don't worry about using samples or acapella has from existing tricks in group projects. I think, you know, using copyrighted material is, you know, of course you have to clear it's in the end if you're going to release its rank. But often in your projects it's a really good starting points for my music. It was at least, you know, often when you use an acapella, you can create a lot of stuff around it that maybe the Indians, you're going to throw away the whole sample, the whole acapella. But still you created something around that, which you can now work further upon. And do make sure that if you have a track finished with a sample in it or an acapella in it, and you want to release its, then make sure to clear it, of course. Because now it is a see this where trends happening where producers use a sample, use copyrighted material and just throw it on Spotify, and then hope that they never get caught. Well, if you don't want to end up in courts or paying like a hefty fine. Please don't do that. It's going to by Joanie as somewhere in the future. But yeah, you samples, don't be afraid to use them. And you know, if you, if you signed a trek to label at some point, they can often clear it for you or your publishing company can. So don't be afraid. 7. Use a template: Tip number five, Start your own templates. So just kind of speaks for itself. But still I see a lot of people not doing this. Starting your own templates and using it is just such a good way to quick an up fast enough your workflow. The sole reason for that is that if you have something that you want to use in this project, you know, you just throw in a sample, for example, some kind of drum loop, whatever. It can instantly throw it on the, the correct mixing trick. I always use like a percussion well-known my mixing buzz. And you know, the more often you work with this templates, the more it's going to be memorized in your heads. So, you know, you're gonna know that pianos go on 27 and instantly they will be psi chains to the cake. The vocal goes and 23 and instantly it's getting routed to a vocal Reefer up that you think is nice. It's the, incidently getting its low frequencies cutoff. You know, you can really create all kinds of shortcuts for yourself by creating standard templates. And, you know, same widths. For example, the, the arrangement of your song. You can just throw in a standard arrangements. You know, you can throw your standard drums and just use a template. It's going to be so much quicker for you in the future. And of course you can alter its all the time. You know, IF five different versions here, instead of spending ten minutes on the basics of laying out your projects and laying out your samples, your standard drum loop, you can all just have that ready and undergo with the templates. So starts your own templates. 8. Start your own sample folder: Hit them or for start your own sample folder. And also this one is a pretty obvious one I think. But still I see a lot of producers not doing this. We all know the struggle of going through countless sample packs and downloading all kinds of stuff from splice. And often it's of medium quality. There's maybe a couple of cool samples you find in his shirt and peck. But most of the times, 75% of it is rubbish. You can't use it. And creating your own sample folder, which just stuff you created yourself. But I'll show shambles from other folders really quick and up your workflow once again, you know, I have in this folder alone, the tops loop folder, I have over over 600 loops, all just of good quality that I selected myself. And you know, that way. For example, sometimes I have a project and I, I am missing something. I'm, there's something missing in the drop, like a little since Hoover or something, you know, sample packs on. All. Organize the synth Hoover as what I call it in a different way. Some simple thanks Colleen, and affects Luke. Some simple basic holiday effects, ambient loop. Some central banks call it a symbol. And because you know, what do you mean, you can organize all those cool samples according to your own name. So if I will be looking for a cent loop, I will just go to sit loops right here and pick something out of all those samples that I collected. And I don't have to search manually to true all the sample packs that I have, you know, it's just, it goes so much quicker. So starts to run sample folder. 9. Read the manual: Tip three reads the manual of your doll or synthesizer or any plug-in. So this is also a pretty obvious one, but still, I felt for me it was a big thing. I often found out then when I read the manual, certain synthesizer, that I found out that there was a certain way to do things within it synthesizer, which I previously always use another plugin for. And that's just a small example. For example, Edison is like the standards audio editor in FL Studio. And I often just used is to, you know, edit samples on the get-go. But true to manual, I found out that if you use like a shirt and if you throw an assertive sample and take something out of this, for example. And that's the click that you can then use the equalizer to isolate certain frequencies out of this sounds. So for example, I think this is an E, e2. So for example, we can now say that this note is on E2 and then take out all the harmonics that are not e2. And then also infrared, it's OK, that's sounding nice. Now we have a really clean sounds. So that way you can really tighten up your sounds and clean them up. And without manual, I wouldn't have any idea on how to do this. So yeah, that's just one of the things that I found out my reading the manual. And one tip I would suggest is that sometimes you're traveling. I live in the Netherlands. I go by train a lot. I just throw the manual of the synthesizer or plugin on my phone and I just reads the manual when I'm on the train. It could be on a plane or in a car or whatever. Well, water driving force. So reads the manual. 10. There is no secret: Tip number two, there is no secrets. So I always tell this to young producers. There is no secrets in creating music. There's no secrets. Mixing channel, certain plug-in or certain presets that is going to make your hurt, your music sound professional. There is no such thing. There's also not a comprehensive guide of how to create charts, topping melodies. You know, there's a lot of sample banks were immediate pecks that tell you difference. But it's, there is no secrets in creating any kind of music. Of course, there's people that are talented and have a really good air for what sounds good or what sounds sketchy or what, what's sounds groovy. But there's no technical aspects of creating music that will make you from an amateur to a professional in a matter of a few clicks, it doesn't exist. And for me, you know, I've been teaching for over ten years. For me, that was also a big revelation. Because I always used to think that I always was looking for 100 secrets. You know, I was watching tutorials from, from UK musicians. And then I hoped in that video that they showed their master channel because that will be my breakthrough if I knew debts, that will be the big breakthrough for me to, to make it all professional in the music business. Well, that's doesn't exist, so I'm just giving it to you right now. There's no such thing as the secrets to good music. 11. Have fun: And then Tip number one ends the most important thing, have fun. And also it is one is a really obvious one. But if you're making music a lot, you're going to get at this points that you're thinking, Am I still making this for myself or am I just creating something too in hope to make music my career or something? And I think if you have debts kind of faults going around you, your heads, it's going to bite you and yes, somewhere in the future because the main reason or domain motivational thing that you are going to keep producing music. You're having fun producing it. And if your motivations are corrupts, like for example, I want to make music because I want to be a famous DJ or a famous producer or something like that. You're not going to be happy with the hours you're spending into it's because you will give up at a certain moments because you're not really happy, you know, making music. And I often have these kind of, Yeah, what do you call periods in my life where I had to forget that, you know, that you're you're supposed to have fun in Studio. And of course for me it's my job right now. But, but having fun should always be on the number one spots. Because else, you know, especially if you want to make it big into the music business somehow, we're going to have to be really persistent. You know, you, you, it's not about, you know, creating one song and then hoping that it's a hit and then you're done. No, it's about keep creating music and keep working from the heart. You know, I know it sounds kind of spiritual, but I think it's a really important step, really important sip. And often I struggle with it myself. You know, I'm also, I'm thinking about the audience, of course. And what's, What does the audience, audience wants? What does the music business wants or do the labels wants. But in the sense that the, they, they all, they all have their influence of course. But the most influential voice should be your own. And I think that voice is powered by the amount of thumb you haven't studio. I hope that makes sense somehow. Yet. That's if those were all the tenses and that's it, guys. I hope you learned something. I wish I knew all these six before I started. Luckily, I noted now and you need to see you next video.