Hey, guys, Will from EDM Tips and today I want to talk to you about the five biggest mistakes I see
new producers making and seasoned producers that ruin their chances of getting signed now. Before
we go any further I would say that we are all guilty of these five mistakes one time or another.
The key and the trick is to be aware of when we're making these mistakes, so then we can choose not to
make them. So, without further ado, let's hop into these five reasons why you might not be getting
signed to your favourite label now or ever. Okay, so number one and this kind of ties into number
three but you'll understand that in a few minutes. So, number one is not focusing on one genre. If you
think about your biggest and your favourite artists, they are almost certainly known for just producing
one genre and producing it very well. Now, in certain situations an artist might transition
from one genre to another but not until they've created a body of work in that initial genre, and
then after a year or two they can move on and try something a bit different. Examples of this would
be Deadmau5, who first shot to fame with his deep progressive house vibe but then decided a couple
of years later he wanted to try out dubstep. Now, obviously he already had the audience at that
point, so he could just try something new and see how it landed. If you are starting out and you've
been producing for maybe six months to a year, you've had a play with some different genres and
I'd say that's about the time you should start focusing on one genre and deciding to become
really, really good at that. If you think about it this way if you produce five different tracks
in five different genres, yes, of course, your skills are going to be improving as a producer but if you
produce five tracks in one genre, laser focused on the record label you'd like to be releasing
on, that is the fastest way to get your music up to scratch and have it match perfectly for that label
so they can't wait to say yes and start releasing your records. Okay, number two. This is something
that we are all guilty of. I say guilty but it's a good thing, right? Number two is actually trying to
be too original. Now, I see my students get caught up in this all the time. I've been caught up in it
as well. We think that we have to be super original because no one likes to admit that they're copying,
right, but the truth of the matter is your favoUrite artists all stand on the shoulders of giants, they
all reference other producers music, and there've been producers before them and before those people
there were producers before then all the way back to primordial suit. So, don't get hung up on being
too original. There's another reason for this as well and that's because record labels don't want
to release music that's completely original. They've already got a particular audience and
that audience knows what it wants when it comes to that record label. So, the sweet spot I found
is producing music that's about 90% similar to other artists on the label, and then adding that
last five or ten percent of freshness to help you stand out from the competition, without alienating
yourself from the audience and by extension the record label, by creating some crazy out
there stuff before you've got the audience and the name to try something a bit crazy if you want. Now,
when I started producing, I wanted to be completely original and this was a huge mistake. If only I had
just decided that I wanted to produce good music instead of original music, my career would have
taken off about 10 years sooner than it did. Okay, number three and this is kind of a life lesson or
just life. It's being too interested in what you want personally. I get hundreds of emails every day,
many of which say something like: "check out my track, bro!", "give me some feedback", "wanna collab?"
I'm not even famous and I get that many emails. Just imagine what these big labels are getting
every single day. So, if you're focused on what you want, rather than on how you can help the record
label and what they want, then you're approaching it from the wrong angle. Now, as I said, we are all
guilty of this, of course, we all have our goals, we all want to get our music released and ultimately
that's what we're trying to do but if we can have some empathy and try and put ourselves in their
position, it's gonna make our job of giving them what they want much easier. And, again, this ties
back to both number one and two. A record label wants to develop relationships with artists for
a longer period of time because it costs money and time to promote artists. So, you don't want to
be just a one hit wonder, which is why having three or four really good tracks produced ready for when
you do approach a label is a great way to help you stand above the competition; and also be respectful
of their time and try and provide value first. For example, you might have some skills from whatever
other work you do in life. You might be able to offer to help them in some way with something
completely unrelated to build that relationship and you have to be a bit creative here. You know,
use what skills you have to the best of your ability. You know, play your cards as well as you
can rather than just bombarding someone who gets hundreds of emails every day "listen to my music",
"give me feedback" because ultimately there are hundreds of other people doing exactly that, so you
need to stand out and put them first and see what you can do to help them .Okay, mistake number four
that I see producers making all the time is one of two things they either don't seek feedback or
they seek feedback in the wrong places. Now, it can bruise your ego if you get negative feedback from
someone, which is why it has to be from a source that you trust, but if you don't ask for feedback,
there are certain things that your ears might miss unless you're very very proficient at producing
and you've been doing it for a long time. I've been producing for over 25 years and I still ask a few
trusted people for feedback on my music before I submit it or release it because I know sometimes
a fresh pair of ears is all that's needed to pick up a couple of mistakes here and there.
Now, the second part of this is making sure that you get feedback from the right places. If you ask
your mum for feedback, she's going to tell you she likes your music because she's your mum. If you're
producing a house track and your best mate likes rock music and you ask him if it's a good track,
he might say "No, I don't like it" but it might be a really good house track, he just doesn't like house
music, so you have to ask the right people for the right feedback and then learn how to take that
feedback and implement it into your music without letting your ego flare up and getting defensive. We
offer feedback to our students each and every week in the Music Production Accelerator and
we're professional music producers so we're the right people to ask, so we know what we're talking
about when we give feedback. Now, you can find other places on the internet where you can get
really good feedback. A place to check out would be Submithub, perhaps join a couple of Facebook
groups with other producers there and offer to set up some kind of feedback exchange or reach
out to producers that you really respect and try and develop some kind of relationship before you
start asking for them to give feedback on your track; but many of them will because they want to
help you and we producers just love to share the knowledge we've picked up over the years. It's kind
of like a flex for us, right? That takes me on to mistake number five, which is probably the biggest
mistake I see producers making and that is giving up. Giving up in the 11th hour. When you're so close,
when you're so close. Perhaps, you hit that plateau, your track doesn't sound as good as you want it
to in your head, and instead of seeking feedback and implementing that feedback, you give up, you
close the DAW and then six months later you start feeling bad you're giving up music production so
you give it another go and lo and behold the same thing happens. Now, there's a couple of things you
can help to do with this not giving up. The first is to have a very strong reason for wanting to
produce. I call this your fire goal: the one that gives you fire in your belly. Maybe you want to
travel the world, DJ, perhaps you want to support David Guetta in a live gig, whatever it is. Whatever
it is that gets your fire going and makes you want to go and produce, write it down keep it close to
hand and you can check it off. I've got post-it notes on my monitor right here and that's what I
refer to that keeps me going when times get hard. The other thing is to join a community, where there
is accountability, maybe there's weekly feedback, weekly homework, which, incidentally, is what we
offer in the Music Production Accelerator. You might be more disciplined than me and you might
not need that community but by having deadlines and a schedule and sticking to them and getting
feedback regularly, that can really help pull you out of those moments of despondency, when you just
want to pack it all in because it doesn't sound as good as you want it to. S, I hope you found this
useful, guys, if you want to learn how to get signed to any record label, make sure to check out this
video here and leave a comment below this video which of these points can you most relate to? Which
of these have you done? I know for me it's been all five of them many many times and, as I said, at the
beginning the key is just being aware of when we fall into these traps, so then we can decide
whether or not to continue making these mistakes or see them and go "Ah, okay, I won't do that".
Anyway, if you enjoyed this video, please like, share and subscribe to my channel for the music production
tutorials each and every week, and until next time. Thanks for watching. Cheers and happy producing!