A Novice's Account Of A First Release
tl;dr
What follows is a retelling of my journey as an electronic musician so far, culminating with my recent release of a debut EP. As the dust settles on what was an exciting few weeks, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect upon some of the things I've learned so far in the hope that some of my experiences may be helpful for others.
Learning Music From Nil
I began my journey as a music maker 4 years ago, on the cusp of turning 25. At that time, I remember wondering whether it was too late in my life for me to pick up new skills, whether this hobby was a waste of time that would never go anywhere. 4 years later I can only laugh at myself from 4 years ago. I wouldn't say that I'm the best music producer, far from it, after 4 years all I've learned is that I still have a lot to learn. But I am now capable of taking ideas in my head and sketching them in the canvas of a DAW. I have a newfound vocabulary that has allowed me to join in on a wonderful community of music makers, where we freely share ideas, techniques, and often times laughs. I have a follower on Soundcloud whom I've never met in person - how exciting is that? Someone out there liked my music enough to give me a follow.
The first thing I wanted to convey then, is that it is never too late. I remember feeling as if it was, but if you are in that situation I implore you to persevere. There is this long period of frustration where you're not good enough to make the sounds you want to hear. But I assure you it gets easier, and while there will always be more to learn, the frustration of being unable to express yourself does go away with time. And with every new thing you learn, you become that much more capable of expressing yourself.
If you are in your early stages all I can say is that youtube is your friend (as are the Home Of Sound classes!) and that you should be certain to spend several hours a week either in a DAW or along your hardware setup. In the earlier stages, much of your time will be spent experimenting aimlessly, just getting a feel for the tools you have available. As you develop some sense of comfort with the tools and they become more second nature, your attention will shift from learning how the tools work to learning how you can exploit them creatively.
If it's at all helpful, I've broken down some of the key skills you'll need to learn. If you're looking things up on youtube, it may be useful to use some of these keywords, especially if you've identified that this is an area you are struggling with.
Sound Design
In the world of electronic music, there are no limits to the sounds you can make. Unlike an instrument like a guitar, which is bounded by the physics that describe that object, you can program in almost anything, and there are no wrong answers. In the future, I shall try to find time to share some of my favorite techniques in greater depth, but for the time I thought it may be useful to share a few of my favorite channels:
- Mr. Bill is a neurobass artist and probably one of the most advanced Ableton users out there. He shares quite a bit of his insight on his youtube channel.
- Au5 is in a similar boat as above, he makes a broad range of electronic music and is a digital signal processing nerd as well as an Ableton virtuoso. He has a few things on youtube, though he's also partnered with some collectives which you can Google search where his thoughts are available for a low fee.
- From Home Of Sound, I found Swarm Intelligence and VSK to have some particularly useful insights.
There is a technique often discussed by pros when it comes to sound design that is described in great detail by Andrew Huang. The main idea is to have dedicated sound design sessions separate from any arrangement. I rather liked this while I was still learning, though over time you figure out what sounds you like and the line between sound design and arrangement gets a little bit blurry.
Arrangement
I don't have many resources to share on arrangement unfortunately, as this was something that I learned slowly over time. A few tips that could be helpful:
- You probably need less than you think you need. This was a piece of feedback I got from Lag in one of his feedback sessions - I had a scratchy synth playing every 2 beats or so, and the track was so dense that it was difficult to add any layers, and therefore difficult to create variations in time. Depending on your style, there is a chance that you need fewer elements than you think you do, especially in techno. In my case, the scratchy lead once every 8 beats sufficed. Scalameriya had a similar piece of advice in his Home of Sound masterclass (fewer elements, but make the ones that are there count).
- Ambiences are your friend. Long tailed reverbs that decay slowly can make 16 or even 32 repetitive beats sound interesting. Reversed long tailed reverbs can do the same while heightening tension. If you want to create an ambience that works well with your track, just take your lead and drown it in reverb. The timbre will be preserved, but the sound is now an atmosphere. Subtle processing (like pitch shifting, EQing, saturation) will continue to preserve this timbre.
- If you want to start a new section, either a fill or a riser is often useful. By fill I just mean cutting the kick out for a few beats. A riser can be something like the reverse long tailed reverb described above. When you start a new section, some sort of powerful event can play nicely into either of those two (e.g. a gong with a long reverb tail). This all depends on your style of course.
- In techno, you often don't need to start new things as often as you may think you do. I ran into this problem a few times, I discovered how to use fills and risers to my advantage, then spammed them too often. You can often let things ride for 16 beats, sometimes 32.
- Reference tracks are your friend. If you're not convinced that you can let something ride for 16 beats, just load up one of your favorite techno tracks and it's likely you'll convince yourself soon after.
Mixing
Mixing in electronic music is a bit of a weird thing. When you look up mixing tutorials, some of the best tutorials out there will often not be built around pure electronic music, but some combination of electronic music and instruments. The channel that immediately comes to mind is In The Mix. This channel does a spectacular job of describing mixing techniques, and is a personal favorite. However, the rules are a bit different for electronic music.
If you want to make a recorded kick drum more punchy, you can leverage a compressor. However, in a purely electronic setting, you can just synthesize a more punchy kick.
In recorded music, you expect there to be a guitar, a bass, a drummer, a vocalist, and maybe a few other instruments, all of which you should be able to hear clearly. In electronic music there are fewer goals or constraints - if you want to add the sound of a coin dropping on the floor and mix it in at -30dB, and it conveys your creative vision, then it's a good mix.
In recorded music, instrumental recordings will often be done in dampened rooms so as to minimize reverb, then reverb will be artificially added afterwards and mixed carefully. In electronic music, there is no room reverb, you synthesize the sound in your laptop - though you can of course add reverb to it.
These subtle differences are worth noting because some of the rules that work for recorded instruments don't translate as nicely to techno. Though in my opinion, techno just has fewer rules altogether, and there is no reason you shouldn't try something from In The Mix on your purely electronic music, it might sound awesome.
A few things that do translate well however, are EQs and compressors. Both of these are critical when it comes to mixing - they can be leveraged to a great extent to increase clarity in the mix. If you are finding that one of your elements is not cutting through the mix well enough, you do not likely need reverb, or distortion or anything fancy. It is much more likely you need an EQ.
If you are lazy, this plugin seems to be getting a lot of hype (from myself included) and does a pretty good job of getting your mix 90% of the way there.
This book is also an amazing resource, though it comes with the same caveat as In The Mix - it is intended more so for recorded music than purely electronic music. Nonetheless, a lot of the lessons there are readily applicable to a purely electronic project. Similarly, this channel has some amazing insights, though again it seems more geared towards recorded music.
Deciding Where To Release
A while back I had the pleasure of attending an intensive class hosted by the folks at Home Of Sound wherein we covered some of the tradeoffs between releasing through a label, or simply self releasing, either directly on your profile or through a label you yourself manage. Ultimately I think it comes down to a compromise of artistic integrity and ownership. Being that my recent release was my debut, I was not particularly keen to compromise any of my artistic vision and decided to simply self release.
The downsides are quite a few, many of which I learned about during the release process. I did not have the support of a team and an existing label with fans and traction to propel my release onto the feeds of many people. I had to do a lot of research around promotion, and admittedly I still have a lot to learn here.
Still, I'm happy with the way I approached this. My release is available on all major streaming platforms, where I expect people will chance upon it over the next few weeks, and importantly it gives my artist page on Soundcloud a bit more credibility. I also printed a limited number of vinyl copies to immortalize this moment in my career and share it with some of my friends and peers in the music scene.
The Work That Goes Into A Release
Setting Up Pertinent Accounts For Digital Distribution
Before you begin, here are a few resources you should consider having at the ready:
- An artist profile picture, preferably a square image.
- A banner photo, at least 2660x1140 pixels.
- A well thought out biography / artist page description.
You will likely want to have at least a Soundcloud and a Bandcamp artist page. In both cases, it is quite easy to create one, you can simply visit the respective platforms and sign up. Note that in Bandcamp, you can register as a user, artist, or a label - if you were already using Bandcamp, there is a chance you have a user account, in that case, you will need to create a new account as an artist. With both of these platforms, once your release is ready you are able to go live immediately, so once you have set everything up, no further work is required.
If you want to see your music on major music platforms, the process for creating an artist page there is a bit more difficult - you will first need to have content available on that platform which you can then claim as yours, and an appropriate artist page will be created for you. In order to release content on major streaming platforms, you will need to use a distributor. Depending on which one you choose, the payment models and associated costs will vary. I ended up using Distrokid which has an annual membership fee. Some alternatives to consider include CDBaby, Tunecore, and Ditto Music.
One thing to consider is whether or not you'd like to see your music on Beatport. Distrokid, for example, does support distribution to Beatport, but it is a hidden feature and I had to get in touch with customer service who enabled it for me.
Unlike with Soundcloud and Bandcamp, the distribution and ingestion time for getting content on major music platforms takes on the order of weeks - if you know your release date, you should be certain to have everything ready for your distributor at least 2 weeks prior to the intended release date.
For Spotify, once your content is available on the platform, you can claim your artist page on Spotify For Artists, or if you used Distrokid they have a partnership with Spotify that allows you to claim your page by following these instructions. Once you have claimed your Spotify For Artists profile, you will be able to make amendments to your artist page which will be reflected on the platform. Apple Music has a similar offering I'm less familiar with.
The process for claiming your Beatport artist page was a bit different - once your content is available on Beatport, you can register your user account as an artist account by filling out this form. Once the two are linked, you can fill in the usual information in your user account and it will be reflected on your artist page.
Digital Release
As mentioned before, the distribution time for releases to major platforms is usually 2 weeks - so if you are about to go live with a release, be aware that distribution to Spotify, Apple Music, Beatport, etc. via one of the listed distributors will need at least 2 weeks of advance notice. Soundcloud and Bandcamp both support going live with the click of a button, so you can put together your release on those platforms the day of.
As you prepare for your release, you should have the following things ready:
- Tracks should all be finalized and you should have them stored somewhere. Finalized names for the tracks.
- Artwork for the release.
If you have gone through a distributor, you have the option of picking a release date - once the big day arrives, your content will automatically appear on major platforms. You will then have to coordinate a manual release on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. In Soundcloud, I believe you can schedule a release for a future date, but in Bandcamp they adhere to a philosophy I rather like wherein you should hit the release button yourself on the day of the release, so be sure not to forget to do that.
Promotion
Admittedly, this is my weak spot. I got in touch with one of the Home Of Sound folks who was very helpful in pointing me to available resources, however as an artist who is just breaking with a debut release, it at times felt a bit hard to be taken seriously. Home Of Sound has a wonderful spreadsheet of compiled resources available here.
You can also consider some of the larger promotional channels such as HATE to help boost your release. These operate on a "donation" basis, though the donation is in fact a required payment. Depending on the promotional channel you choose, and the stage of your career, your mileage my vary - this was something I think I struggled particularly with around release time, though I still celebrate the presence of content on my Soundcloud page nonetheless.
If you are reading this and know more about promotion, I would love to discuss it in greater depth.
Vinyl Release
As this was my debut release, I decided also to immortalize it by printing vinyl editions. The process here can seem complicated but for the most part it involves working with an individual who will guide you through the whole process. In NYC, I had the great pleasure of working with Complete USA.
Before you begin, you should have the following prepared:
- Tracks should all be finalized and mixed down, track names finalized.
- Artwork should be available. Remember that in the case of a vinyl, you are responsible for front cover, rear cover, and the stickers on either side of the disc. You can find the templates that you can send along to your artist / designer here. Note that you may also be able to opt for no artwork, and default to a black sleeve, which will also be a cheaper option.
- Note that if you are doing custom artwork, you are responsible for any and all text that is to appear on the final print. This includes track titles, and any credits you would like to present.
You should inquire about having the tracks first be mastered for vinyl. It is likely that any group that prints vinyls will have enough experience to know how a vinyl master should sound, and will do that for you. If you have not worked with a mastering engineer, you submit the content and are returned the mastered content. You can then leave notes up to a certain revision until it sounds the way you want it to.
Once the masters are ready, and the artwork is submitted, you should be wary of the fact that there is a very long wait. This wait time may have been exacerbated by Covid-19, though nonetheless you should expect a delay on the order of several months from the time you submit everything that is needed to the time that it is in your hands.
You should also inquire about distribution, if you are interested in that service. In the case of Complete USA, they had a partnership with many stores throughout the US and would distribute some subset of copies of my vinyl to those stores, and pay me for them. Note that if you opt to distribute in this way, then the amount your are paid per record is much lower than if you were to sell them yourself on Bandcamp, or in person.
In my case, I opted to utilize the distribution network for 100 copies while withholding 100 additional copies for myself, to distribute among friends, family, and peers in the music industry.
Closing Thoughts
It took me over 4 years to achieve a level of proficiency in music production where I was creating content that I felt comfortable sharing with the world. I thought this would be a milestone, and the end of a ton of hard work, but it turns out it is only the beginning of much more work, though admittedly, much more exciting work! I hope that some of my experiences here are helpful to some of you in crafting your own releases and are inspirational to those of you who are just starting out.
If you made it this far, and are interested in the release in question, it is available for streaming here.
Nice post...very informational. Best of luck and good success to you!
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