Best investment for an indie producer?

[DAH]

IMHO setting your monitoring chain to be accurate from the git-go is the most important thing.
For example, my myspace tracks were done in imprper environment(acoustically), my soundcloud tracks are mixed in more accurate environmet.Judge for yourself if that helps. Ima not a producer by any stretch though, sorry.

[aproblem]

do you make beats or do you produce songs for artists? Or do you want to be an engineer? I would try and focus on one at a time, eventually they all overlap a bit anyways.. What kind of studio is the one you are talking about?? I agree with DAH about getting your monitoring and room situation squared away asap, definitely one of the best production investments you can make.

[Colin McCabe]

Just monitors, a desk, an interface, and a keyboard. There are a ton of free plug ins to get started. And if you're just starting, any computer will work in the short term. In the long term plan to build your own desktop or plan to spend a bit on a nice laptop. And watch, read, bleed producing and mixing. Just study music you like. I got away with some great deals by buying used everything. Just understand what you need and wait for good deals.

[mrwonderful]

I dunno. Id say both.

[drethe5th]

As previously stated, you have to do two important things.

1) Define the roles of producer, musician & engineer.


2) Decide what role is most important for you to focus on.

As a producer/beatmaker a decent mix is enough. A song isnt finished untill lyrics are written, performed,recorded and mixed.

The DIY method works better for some, worse for others. There are 3 huge factors in DIY success. Knowledge/Experience, Time, Money.

If you can afford to buy gear and treatment, great ! ! ! Now the question is do you have time to dedicate to learning the craft and executing it. Often all three dont line up.

Most pro engineers I know, have written and recorded very little of thier own music in recent years. They dont have the time to. Even though they are great engineers, when applying thier skill to other artists.

Dr Dre, Kanye, Swizz Beats ect..... Do not mix thier own records. They pay others because their own time is spent writing and producing. There are some who do it all but there is the issue of quality, productivity and meeting deadlines.

Can you properly do it all? ? ? If not choose your focus and excell at it.




Posted via mobile device.

[DAH]

Originally Posted by drethe5th

As previously stated, you have to do two important things.

1) Define the roles of producer, musician & engineer.


2) Decide what role is most important for you to focus on.

As a producer/beatmaker a decent mix is enough. A song isnt finished untill lyrics are written, performed,recorded and mixed.

The DIY method works better for some, worse for others. There are 3 huge factors in DIY success. Knowledge/Experience, Time, Money.

If you can afford to buy gear and treatment, great ! ! ! Now the question is do you have time to dedicate to learning the craft and executing it. Often all three dont line up.

Most pro engineers I know, have written and recorded very little of thier own music in recent years. They dont have the time to. Even though they are great engineers, when applying thier skill to other artists.

Dr Dre, Kanye, Swizz Beats ect..... Do not mix thier own records. They pay others because their own time is spent writing and producing. There are some who do it all but there is the issue of quality, productivity and meeting deadlines.

Can you properly do it all? ? ? If not choose your focus and excell at it.




Posted via mobile device.

All great guys u mentioned have good sounding production from the start, so accurate monitoring or access to it is quite necessary IMO.

[e_MusicStudio]

hi,
I think both are interesting and required:

1- go in to studios to understand and learn quickly the basics technics/ start to make some personnal artistic choice

2- test on your gear and find some audio test on the web

but...

saddly you have to find your own secret technics ( to match your artistic idea)

[Logical Mind]

GEAR.

[= F$ =]

Monitors and Room Treatment

[teamalkos]

so you can pay engineers to teach you? 35 a hour to learn how to mix? I didn't know that. However, that could be a good investment in your future. Everything I learned was self taught, watching videos and reading. I did a lot of things wrong, longer, backwards etc but I learned from my errors. The worst thing about being a engineer is your mix and equipment will never be good enough and you will tell yourself if I only had a better converter, damn I need a new mic, **** this preamp is not warm enough.

[szf]

A good shrink

Best investment for an indie producer?

[parkay909]

A good artist or an education from a university not a recording school so when the well dries up you can go corporate.

[MIDIchlorian]

The best investment is to invest in yourself.
Try to learn as many crafts as you can, Music production,Engineering,Video editing,Graphic design etc.
Especially being indi,the more you can do yourself the better.

[KevWest]

Seriously health insurance

Sent from my BlackBerry 8530 using Tapatalk

[jpeg]

just dont go out n spend a g on headphones or speakers or a microphone

[awhitebeats]

Crafts and save up!

[zoahk]

Listen to what your mind and heart is telling you, nobody else, you as an artist can only be unique, and to succeed as an independant artist you must discover your strength, and what you aspire to be, don't worry about whats best, what is better, or anything like that, because it varies for everybody, and I think if you put your mind out focusing on trying to do 3 things, performing, producing and mixing, you'll find they're 3 very different worlds. By all means you can try it, and many can achieve it, but it takes a hell of alot of dedication, time and experience.

Someone recently said to me, that as a musician they often feel quite down, cause they don't understand much about mixing and feel that if they don't know about it then they're not really a musician or won't really make it anywhere, and I told them, that they as a musician only needs to be concentrate on the music, I tell them their role as the musician is to give the best performance they can, and not to worry about anything else other than putting their life into the music, this is turn makes it much easier for the recording engineer, and mixing engineer to get a good product going.

And if that musican then decides to go ahead and try dabble in the dark arts of mixing, I suggest everybody start out from the beggining, recording, and recommend they invest the time in learning how to capture the best recording (after giving the best performance), before they then start to go on to mixing the recording. But as someone mentioned above, if you decide to go down the engineer route you will learn how time consuming it can be, I used to do quite alot of music, but lately have not been able to dedicate much time to recording my own tunes, as i've been preoccupied recording other people and mixing.

At the end of the day, do what YOU enjoy, don't do what everybody else say's is best for you, because you'll hear many different things, go with your gut, as an artist, be inspired.

[PRPS]

a solo soundcloud account

[lemonsquash]

eat well and have sexy time with girlfriend
betta beats will follow

[Zachariah]

As a producer (in any level of the profession), the most important thing to invest in is time. You need to be able to understand and articulate what you feel into a sonic representation of an emotion or feeling. The only way to do that is to practice.

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[Jesse381]

buy gear. don't waste your money in a studio learning. get your own gear, even if low end gear, and learn on that.

Its like buying a car for your son to learn how to drive. You don't rent him a corvette, you buy him a junker to learn in.

I will say buy the best gear you can afford, but don't just give your money away to a studio to practice on their gear for a few hours, and then you go home with nothing. You want something at home that you can use around the clock if you please.

btw, you can get piano/guitar lessons for $10/ week if you want more instruction. spending 50-75/hr for music lessons is crazy

[Elvis Gotta Gun]

Originally Posted by jpeg

just dont go out n spend a g on headphones or speakers or a microphone

I wish I'd spent a G on monitors before all the other gear (synths, compressors, mics, software, fx units, etc.) I bought.

Monitors should be at the top of the list.

[jpeg]

monitors and headphones should be the last thing u spend money on.


i would focus on items that actually produce ur sounds or format ur workflow in a way that is fast and allows ur creativity to be unstiffiled.


now if ur question had been "Best investment for an indie engineer?"


then i woulda said get some monitors or headphones

[Elvis Gotta Gun]

Originally Posted by jpeg

monitors and headphones should be the last thing u spend money on.

Keep at it for another 10 years and we'll see if you still hold that opinion.


Powerful computer and monitors are the primary tools.

[PRPS]

Originally Posted by Zachariah

As a producer (in any level of the profession), the most important thing to invest in is time. You need to be able to understand and articulate what you feel into a sonic representation of an emotion or feeling. The only way to do that is to practice.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

great answer here

[aproblem]

Originally Posted by jpeg

monitors and headphones should be the last thing u spend money on.


i would focus on items that actually produce ur sounds or format ur workflow in a way that is fast and allows ur creativity to be unstiffiled.


now if ur question had been "Best investment for an indie engineer?"


then i woulda said get some monitors or headphones

sound selection is a huge part of production and how can you select the right sounds when you can't even hear them properly.

[d1rdyd]

Originally Posted by PRPS

a solo soundcloud account

[jpeg]

Originally Posted by Elvis Gotta Gun

Keep at it for another 10 years and we'll see if you still hold that opinion.


Powerful computer and monitors are the primary tools.

already been doing beats for 10 years and i maintain my opinion u dont need 1000K monitors to make beats pure nonsense.

also u dont need a power pc either plenty of dudes made career using cheap pcs running fl studio or something similar

[Hobbs_Won]

drugs