IMPROVE YOUR MUSIC PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES BY LEARNING ONLINE | Presenting Soundteams
Author: Jade Le Moigne from Soundteams
"Try to experiment as much as you can to push the limits of your sound, even if it does not look like something other people would do. The secret is to experiment and push it to the limit."
Soundteams is a French digital education platform specialising in electronic music, including production masterclasses, business masterclasses, and 1on1 tutoring. Our vision is to allow young artists to improve their technical skills and correctly orient their thinking around their projects and careers.
Here are 5 steps that we think can make learning online a successful and fun journey.
1. Set your environment and get the essential tools
Learning well remotely will depend on the physical environment you are in. Create a dedicated space for music production: a comfortable chair, a computer, a pair of high-performance speakers or headphones. In short, an environment in which you are comfortable and can learn music production and recording techniques. Be motivated and organised; let your instincts speak for themselves.
You don't need a ton of equipment to make great productions: a computer and a good headset, good teachers, relevant courses like on Soundteams, and you'll have to let your creativity flow and be very curious. All DAW's are represented on Soundteams, Ableton, FL Studio, Bitwig, Logic Pro, Cubase, etc... to improve your skills and develop your creativity with these tools. Many plugins are also studied, such as fab filters, Valhalla, Waves, Xfer series (serum, ott...), and many others.
2. Online courses offer a structured way of learning.
Online courses usually offer a more complete solution to optimise your learning and technical development in music production. Masterclasses provide you knowledge that is applicable by producers of all genres, in sound design as much as in songwriting, with general ideas and techniques as much as learning about a specific tool that will take your sound to the next level.
When choosing the right learning platform, it's essential to look at how masterclasses are presented. Soundteams offer an intuitive, structured solution, where every class is divided into clear chapters to make it easier for you to follow your favorite producers' techniques step by step. We would suggest taking notes and finding out how to integrate the content within your own workflow. There is a class for everything on Soundteams.
Why online learning works? You can access masterclasses anywhere, anytime, from your laptop or your phone. Watch and learn about different genres and try to incorporate influences and techniques from these different genres. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced and experienced producer, there is a class for you, and if you want to push it further, you can even book a class with one of our producers/tutors.
3. Get a mentor to push things even further
When you feel stuck on a project or struggle to take it to the level you want, talking to an impartial outsider about it can be very inspiring and will give you the perspective you need to complete it.
Soundteams offers "One on One Sessions," where you can receive personalised coaching from a seasoned producer of your choice. These tutoring sessions are booked directly on the website and take place on Discord. When you book your session, mention the topic you wish to discuss and prepare your project accordingly. Your teacher will contact you if they want you to prepare something else. This one-to-one tutoring will allow you to supplement your Soundteams lessons and focus on a particular project while at the same time covering many technical and creative aspects. The final result will be a track closer to what you really want!
4. Learning about the music business is as important as learning about techniques.
Nowadays, artists can no longer be only producers. The new generation of artists must take an interest in all the creative and commercial aspects of their project to:
- build a solid team that will be able to develop the project with them
- understand and identify the various constraints encountered and how to overcome them
- be able to make strategic decisions at each stage of its development.
It takes a lot of knowledge to learn the ins and outs of such an opaque commercial field, and it is the objective of Soundteams to help you understand the different agreements around the various actors of the music business: labels, bookers, managers, and the role they play. Our classes cover the different marketing and promotion aspects to build your reputation: digital marketing, trade marketing, distribution, press relations, content/image, to name a few. The aim is to give you all the keys to success.
5. Importance of persistence and creativity
A theory says it takes 10 000 hours to master something. Get your 10 000 hours, spend as much time as you can producing and experimenting but do not overdo it. Music has to be fun. It has to remain enjoyable even if it becomes your job. We manage producers who lived through it. The dread of trying to make another hit is not leading you anywhere. Taking breaks, getting inspiration from the outside world, other artistic mediums, traveling, meeting new people, having other activities can be your biggest sources of inspiration. If you push too hard, you risk limiting your creativity and getting stuck in the technicality of things. Take a step back from your work, produce for yourself, do what you like, have confidence in yourself.
It can be challenging to be in a creative industry. You tend to compare yourself to others and wonder 'how to make it?' 'what works?'. You should never do that under any circumstances. Of course, it is a human trait; however, remember this: No groundbreaking project, no pioneers ever followed a trend, but they created their own path. For me, it is all about creating your own path, creating the rules rather than respecting them. This is what music is about. When you doubt, look back on this billion of little steps you took over the year and look at the farthest one to realize how much you have accomplished. We tend to be so obsessed with the goal that we forget about the journey, but every little step counts, every day counts.
About Soundteams:
Soundteams was launched at the end of March 2021 and currently has 18 music production masterclasses with top artists:
- Drum and Bass: Buunshin, Vowel, Jon Tho, Skylark, etc.
- Dubstep: Samplifire, Blanke, Ray Volpe, etc.
- House Music: Moksi, Lodgerz, Tour-Maubourg, etc.
- Bass: Maazel, Heimanu, Basstrick, etc.
Our library is based on a Freemium model, some of them are free, and the rest are only accessible to premium members. As a premium member, you can access the whole content catalog for 16,99€ / month, anywhere, anytime.
Try here: Soundteams School
