You don’t need to hire an expensive studio to make amazing music – but it does help to have a suitable environment and know a few tricks of the trade. If you want to start making amazing music right at home, then here you’ll find 12 things you should know. Read on for advice that could change your entire process and revolutionize your music.
Invest In A Soundproof Room
First of all, it’s a good idea to invest in a soundproof room to keep sounds from outside out. You don’t need anything too fancy. Sound curtains and thick blankets can help to keep the noise out, as can bookcases and acoustic wedge panels. It’s also a good idea to get rid of any shaky items or those that could begin to vibrate once you play music. You can get more technical with it, but this is the easiest way.
Practice As Much As Possible
Amazing equipment won’t be enough to get you by if you’re not practicing on honing your craft and getting as good as you possibly can. Practicing is the key to making amazing music, but make sure you set goals for your practice. Schedule practicing in just like you would any other important task and having a goal for each session will help you to stay on track, and will also give you a good idea of how you are improving. You can practice just for fun, but if you really want to improve, set specific goals. These little goals will add up and make a huge difference over time!
Eliminate Hard Surfaces as Much As You Can
Make sure you eliminate hard surfaces in the room you’re going to make music in. They can be your biggest enemy since they bounce sounds around. You might think things like hardwood floors and countertops won’t do any harm, but they could ruin your sound. Installing thick curtains and carpets is often the easiest way to create a more acoustically sound room to practice and record in. Round furniture can also stop sounds from bouncing off surfaces too much.
Use A Metronome
A metronome helps to create a more consistent tempo as you play your music. Our natural timekeeping can go up and down, so this will ensure you stay in time no matter what. Your sound will be cleaner, and it’ll also make the digital editing process so much easier. Your metronome will sync up your recordings and you’ll have an easier job of manipulating them later.
Tune Your Instruments Regularly
Ok, so you don’t need to tune before every song you record. In fact, it isn’t unheard of for big stars to stop in the middle of what they are doing and tune up their instrument – Jimi Hendrix, for example! However, you should make the effort to tune your instrument before every major recording session. Don’t forget to tune, and you’ll sound great as you get into ‘the zone’. If you record with an out of tune instrument then you’ll need to retake, and this will no doubt be frustrating.
Find The Right Equipment
When you’ve got the above sorted, you can look for equipment upgrades if you feel they are needed. They won’t help you to be the best if you’re not consistently working on your craft and everything else involved, but they can make things much easier and help you to sound better, too. Check out an authoritative technology blog to see what the best pieces for you might be.
Build A Platform To Get Feedback
You might not feel ready, but that makes it even more important to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself by putting your music out there. Pick a platform and put some music out there, and don’t forget to ask for feedback! It takes guts to finally put yourself out there, but it’ll be good practice for when you’re creating masterpieces. It’ll also help people to get to know you and begin following you early on. People love following the journeys of the musicians that they enjoy! It might also be a good idea to use forums so you can ask people who do not know you personally for feedback – this way, you can make sure they are not biased.
Visualize What You Would Like To Achieve
Visualization might sound hokey to you, but many athletes and entrepreneurs use it to successfully get to where they want to be. See where you would like to get in your mind’s eye. What would you like to sound like? What sort of results would you like to get? What sort of a following would you like to build? Make sure you incorporate all of the senses as you do this!
Learn From The Greats
Make sure you also take the time to learn from the greats. Analyze the songs you admire and research the artist’s processes. You might be surprised at the weird and wonderful techniques that you come across!
Be Specific With Your Time Limit
Time is a hard scale to balance. If you have too little time you won’t get anything done, but too much and you’ll have too much time to think and second guess. Diamonds by Rihanna was written by Sia in 14 minutes. Give yourself 10-15 minutes and see what you can come up with!
Cut It Out
Cut out some words swimming around your head and see if they inspire ideas. David Bowie did this for Moonage Daydream, and called it ‘a very Western tarot’. You don’t need to limit yourself to words. You could do it with anything – chords, notes, melodies, or something else.
Seek Out A Mentor
Is there somebody you know who could mentor you and show you the ropes? Perhaps you could ask them if they will mentor you, even if just for a few sessions. Maybe they’ll agree to listen to and review your music, or teach you a few of their tricks. Don’t try to do it all alone!
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