Download the Free Creative Strategies For Finishing More Music Ebook seen in this video here: https://finishmoremusic.com/ebook/

This week saw the full release of our new FREE eBook, that features Pro producers dropping their best tips for you on mindset, technical skills and the industry. As part of the launch I jumped on a Live session to take some of the tips and go deeper with the concepts to really help you finish more and better music. We grabbed the best bits from the session and put them into this weeks video for you. One not to miss! 🙂

Soundtrack in the video:
INXTRACTO by Arkatekt on Reworck
https://www.beatport.com/track/inxtracto-original-mix/11804065

Transcript

Hello you people! How is everyone? Hope you’re well. Hey hello happy Friday! So first of all if you are watching this on at the replay, in this session I’m gonna drop a couple of killer strategies for you that I’ve talked in my Finish More Music community. And it’s seeing people really move forward with finishing more and better music. So we have a lot of members who joined in a situation where they hadn’t finished any tracks or they were hardly finishing any music at all and now they’re regularly releasing. And I’m gonna give you a couple of strategies that have really helped them to move forward. So how is this will come about? What are we here for? What’s the big deal? Well, let me just show you this. We have launched a brand new free ebook called Creative Strategies for Finishing More Music. So totally free, grab it finishmoremusic.com/ebook. You can see at the bottom of the screen there. And this ebook contains amazing tips on everything from the music industry to your mindset and creativity, productivity, all the way through of course to some good old technical tips. And you can see on the screen as well all of these tips have come from a bunch of pro producers that we have featured inside of the Finish More Music community. So we’ve got some pretty big heavyweights in there – J00F, Bjorn Akesson, Bwana, Shlomi Aber, Mark Jenkyns, Claude Young Jr., Phase. Some really big names all been dropping some excellent tips in there. So in this session, I’m gonna go a little bit deeper on some of these tips that these guys have dropped. And if you are someone who maybe you’re a bit of a detail tweaker, a bit of a perfectionist. I’m someone who battles a lot in with their perfectionism, so you’ll be a fellow perfectionist. If you find yourself detail tweaking and you get bored of your loop you sort of loop the trap to death and you give up and you’ve got like this graveyard of tracks that you haven’t moved forward on because of that obsession of tweaking and not getting the track done, I’ve got a great tip for you. And also if you’re someone who actually gets past that and goes running into the arrangement. Everything’s going great guns and then it just starts to fall flat and you realize you’re running outta steam the arrangement hasn’t got legs, it’s missing that killer element that you hear in Pro tracks that you like, and then you go into the whole kind of preset surfing, looking for millions of samples and not will embed and fit in the track and carry it forward and again you just sort of get frustrated, run out of steam and it goes into the pile of unfinished tunes, the second tip I’m gonna give you you’re gonna absolutely love for that. So once again the e-book is totally free, right you can see it here, go and grab it now finishmoremusic.com/ebook. And all of the guys that feature inside of this ebook have all been people who’ve given pro interviews some masterclasses as well inside of the community. And what I did was I think it sorts of three or four months ago, was I jumped online and I said to you guys listen we’ve been putting so much time energy and effort into the community and you know the guys in the community has seen absolutely amazing results. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Mha Iri case study that we put up a few days ago she’s killing it. All that San Francisco meet up again absolutely incredible stuff. But I made a commitment to everybody in what I consider to be like the wider Finish More Music ecosystem. So people on our mailing list, fans on Facebook, YouTube subscribers. And I said listen I want to start devoting a chunk of time to getting content to you guys and helping you as well. But of course all my direct coaching, you know everything, the advanced training system and all of this stuff I direct at my community but I want to start giving to the wider ecosystem as well. As a result, Podcaste promised it every week delivered. YouTube tutorial I promised it every week delivered. And now we’ve put together this ebook for you as well with some of the best hints, tips and strategies from the guys who’ve delivered pro interviews or masterclasses inside of Finish More Music. So it’s a super cool ebook. I won’t spend too much time going through it. But it’s beautifully produced. Totally free as I said grab it at finishmoremusic.com/ebook. And we’ve got loads of epic hints and tips to help you finish more and better music inside of the ebook. So Mrs. M whom we’ve got online? I can see a few herbert’s I can see here. Let’s have a quick shout out to a few people before I dive into the tips for you. And if you’ve got any questions, now is the chance to ping them at me as well and Mark Jenkins himself is here. So Mark’s done an amazing like an absolutely brilliant masterclass. Like the smash hit of IB that I think it was was it last year maybe two years ago is it last year’s Sirens like fantastic track blew up was in every club in Ibiza. He actually opened up his DAW and showed the community how he made the track along with his template his track start a template and he did a pro interview talking all about DJing and how to build a career. He’s got tips inside of this ebook. He’s good handsome self on the cover as well ting. Who else we got any Matti, mate long time no speak. Our man Ray, Chris Fafalios. Good fellow. Silvio good to see you. Lee’s jumped in as well. The mighty Shin as well. Shins rocked up. So Shin flew over from Japan second year running for our London Finished More Music meet up by absolutely epic. This year was like just blew our mind if you can hear moaning that’s the hound as well DJ it’s not Mrs. M that often sounds a bit weird I need to clarify that. And Shin flew over we had a bunch of people flying over from the US, all around Europe but Shin holds the flag up for the furthest traveled. Shin, you’re a legend mate. You absolutely know that. Felix is in the house as well and Christopher brilliant stuff. And we’re yeah we’re streaming to the YouTube for the first time ever as well. So hello guys Enrique’s here as well flx from Germany Felix I’m guessing that is FLX. Am I right am I wrong? Hello, my friend. So once again, all about the e-book finishmoremusic.com/ebook totally free. RAM full of tips for you.

So I want to get cracking and dive straight into the first tip and this is one that’s come from Shlomi Aber and I’m going to sort of elaborate on this for you. But the real sort of important thing about this is that these guys are all pro’s who’ve done exceptionally well now. Shlomi as you can see here on the image and that it was a circle, he’s on the biggest labels, okay. Just won awards out in IB Febreze DJing. He runs one of the most successful underground labels B as one. And this guy knows he stuff inside out. Did a pro interview for us and the big thing that he talked about was breaking out of the loop and don’t fuss about the quality of your first loop. Basically get it arranged. So if you are someone who’s a real detail tweaker and a perfectionist and you’re always tweaking away at the loop and you’re not moving forward, this really is such an important concept to grasp. Now Shlomi talked about the idea of going from that loop even if he’s not in love with it, right. And you know we’re talking about a top top producer here even if he’s not in love with that loop he’s got something going, he’s got a bit of something about it, he’ll get it arranged and the deal for him as he puts it is get it to a full arrangement that I can dance to and then start adding the details. That’s really important to think about why this is going on. What is the goal for your track? If you are making a dance music track it is to get people to dance right? It’s to get those emotions, is to get the big moments. If your track does that and you’re going yeah this is this is a piece of music now this really is something, now of course it makes sense if you like it to start getting into the details. But it doesn’t make sense to do that when it’s just a loop because you don’t know how it will translate into the arrangement. Often a loop sounds killer and when it goes into the arrangement there’s a hell of a lot that needs to be done to turn it into a piece of music. So best to make sure we’d actually got something that’s worth spending that extra time and energy on rather than getting into all the minut, one decibel adjustments on the compressors and all of those tiny tiny details that’s really easy to fall into. Now I totally get why a lot of people do this. There’s a number of reasons, first up is the fact that you might not be comfortable with arrangement. In fact it’s one of the biggest things with their producers that I mentor that people struggle with. The arrangement is if you ask a lot of people sort of their Achilles heel. And so it’s natural to perhaps try to avoid that particularly if you’ve got a killer groove going on, the next bits gonna be hard I’ll just tweak what I’ve got already. And for that it’s for that reason I focus massively on arrangement in FMM and levelling everybody up and this skill set as much as possible. But there are other things there’s loving the loop and if you’ve had an experience of extending it into an arrangement and it sounded a bit naff before that’s the reason that you think, God if i move this forward i might ruin it. So people tend to kind of avoid and getting out into a full arrangement because of that. And then also this idea of running out of steam halfway in.

Now my next tip is gonna really help you with that running out of steam idea. In this one what I want to give you is a tool for getting from your loop to your full arrangement. The key is speed. Now I always say this, it’s sort of one of my catch phrases – Creativity Loves Speed. If we start spending an age on something it will run out of steam and we’ll lose the bus. So as soon as we’ve got that loop when we’ve got an idea of how it’s gonna work, boom we want to get it out into an arrangement. And one of the fastest ways to do that is by using a Ghost Analysis. Basically using a template of a pro track that is similar to your track. It’s got similar elements, similar kind of vibe. And you map it out and then you can quickly arrange your track out so that you’ve got something to work with, it won’t be perfect, you’ll need to play it through and hear how it flows. But you’ve now kind of got saying that you can sculpt instead of that sort of ominous scary-looking blank page in front of you. So it’s a killer way to do things, if you go and grab a copy of the ebook, actually what’s gonna happen is the next email I’m gonna send you I’ll send you a template. So again the free template that you can use as long as giving you a step-by-step on how to build your own. So I’ve got you covered on that one. When you download the e-book it’s the next email you get after that hey here’s the e-book. So a big tick in that box. But what that enables you to do is map out your arrangement quickly. Killer tip for you, delete the reference track. What you don’t want to do is get into the comparison game but you’ll end up with your loop now completely arranged literally at a ten minutes maximum. And then you can listen back and you’ll find it so much easier to finish the track. And you’ll get it to that stage where you’re going, okay now I’ve got a piece of music how much time do I want to invest in the details. So that is tip one if you get stuck in the details absolutely try this if you get stuck in the loop. I promise you it’s absolutely killer. It’s got loads of members of the community moving forward and something that I go into a lot of detailing as well. But as I said you’ll get a free template when you download the ebook. So an e-book and a template I’m delivering on my promise to give you a load of super super cool stuff. So I’m just kin actually to ask in the community and also seeing Nick Bowman’s joined us as well on YouTube, how many of you guys already use some kind of template when it comes to your arrangement? Just stick a Y in the comments if you do this and an N if you don’t. Are we really keen to see exactly what what you do at the moment, what your strategy is for the arrangement.

In the meantime I’m just gonna show you where the next tips coming from, it’s our man Bjorn Akesson and Bjorn drops a really cool tip that’s going to help you if you do get into the arrangement you often run out of steam. So can see my man Shin here was saying, “happens quite often that the top art is the most beloved tracks of what they are not happy with the true story.” Absolutely Shin. And Shin you’ll probably remember Shlomi talking about this when he did the pro interview inside of FMM and he was talking about the fact that a lot of the times he finishes his tracks and he listens to other people’s music and he thinks it’s a million times better. And this is a guy who is like at the top of the pile, peak of his powers, like amazing producer everybody loves his music. And I’ve like listened to I used to have loads of his tracks on vinyl back in the day and still he’s got that mindset as well. The key is just get moving and as I said Creativity Love Speed, get moving fast you know.

So let me just ever guzzle. I like this mug. Enjoy today. I’m sure I’ve touched some of that off by putting it in the microwave. It might have like a metal coating on it or something along those lines. Okay I can see Robs joined this as well.

I want to dive into tip number two for you so this man absolutely fantastic gazer. Brilliant brilliant Pro interview. So Bjorn Akesson. You can see the labels he’s releasing on at the top of the tree in trance – Coldharbour, Black Hole, Regenerate and what I love about his music and is the melodies. He writes the most beautiful of melodies. I used to be a massive trance head and don’t listen to it so much anymore but when I check out his tracks they are fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. And just before I move on a bit sound absolutely I need to I get in the sound design weeds way too much. Yet you are not on your own with that my friend. I can tell you. It’s so easy to do but I mean there’s there’s a hole I could talk to you for days about sound design and when to do it and how to do it and how to integrate it into your music. Again it’s something that I’m sort of really big and being conscious of when I’m helping people to move forward. So I want to get into this tip anyway. Bjorn Akesson. So Bjorn said create the main theme first and practice practice practice! So this was all about learning melodies and I want to just quickly clarify what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the main theme. For Bjorn its melodies, for you it might be something else what we’re talking about is what is the lead character in your track. What is it that people will remember? What is it in the track that if we took most of the other elements away your track would still shine. People as soon as it comes on in the dance floor, go it’s this track what is it that is doing that for you. That basically is your theme okay and the idea is get the theme in first and a Steven quite Covey quote always springs to mind here, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” And here’s why, when we try to write the theme later when we’ve already stacked up a load of other stuff there’s often easier to do like chopped loops in and all this other mad stuff when we’ve got a full thing, think about what you’re trying to do there. You’re putting your main sound it might be a couple of sounds, it could be like a chord progression and a melody, it might be a vocal hook that you’ve got in there, maybe it’s some groove elements. But when you’re trying to get that in, if you’ve already put a load of stuff into the track, now this new sound has got to comply with the rhythms that have already been set. The timbre’s, any existing pitches ie harmonies that might be created in there. Think about the mixdown, the frequency space, the volume that’s been taken up. All of these different things. So it’s no wonder if you do find yourself halfway through a track and you’re now trying to go, “God this is really missing sort of that main big deal”, and you start going through your presets, and you spend like hours at it, and you’re flicking through them and nothing seems to fit either sits on top of the mix, or is hidden in the mix, or you can’t put your finger on why it’s not working. Well of course it’s trying to fit in with all of the support cast. It’s the lead character but the support cast have already set all of the tone and there at the front of the stage and you’re trying to get this even. So by focusing on the main theme first and becoming awesome at it you’re gonna then be fitting the other elements around it. And trust me when you start getting into the arrangement if you realize something is missing it’s so much easier to add incident or a fix or a background pad or another tops line than it is to try and put the lead character in. And that’s the deal with a piece of music. If the theme isn’t there, if the lead character isn’t shining, no amount of arrangement, mixdown, processing is gonna save the day. So this is an absolutely killer killer tip for me. Create the main theme first and practice practice practice. Get really really good at what that killer thing is in the music that you love writing. Amazing tip. So two tips, we had one for getting out of the loop and avoiding the detail tweaking quickly and then the other one for making sure that you’ve really nailed and you are an expert you’re a pro the big deal in your music everything else will come from there.

So if you like the tips we’ve found this useful you like care that ebook you want to grab yourself a copy. Give us a few thumbs up as always. As I can see I’m wobbling the camera like a lunatic there. Give me some thumbs up let me know that you’ve enjoyed the tips. If you’ve got any questions about these any mindset, creative stuff or anything that you’re hitting a wall with at the moment, ping it over. Very very happy to answer that for you now we’re getting to last thing on a Friday so I’ve got a little bit of time to wind down on what’s been an epically busy week. But quick reminder that the ebook here is totally free right finishmoremusic.com/ebook. Totally free, it’s on me. I promise three four months ago but I would stop delivering and helping people in the wider ecosystem of FMM on our email list, YouTube subscribers, Facebook. By the way if you’re not on the Instagram, get on there @IamKeithMills. DM me. Absolutely love hearing from everyone. Can see the thumbs up for coming on the screen they’re brilliant stuff that you’ve enjoyed it.

Shin as well, “practice practice practice and a bit more practice I would add it’s absolutely huge it’s one of the big things that we’re always focusing on in FMM”. Shins got it well and truly drilled and Shin by the way absolutely fantastic music – spray can attack are its name like if you’re into your dubby techno, you need to check it out absolutely brilliant brilliant stuff.

There we go okay, so I think let’s just dive over here again show you the ebook one more time in case you’re just joining us and then I think we are largely done for the session. So again this is completely free finishmoremusic.com/ebook – Creative Strategies for Finishing More Music. All of the pros that you see on the front here Mark Jenkins, John double o Fleming, Warner, Bjorn Akesson, Phase, Shlomi Aber, Roberto, we’ve got Claude Young Jr in there. We’re talking everything from tech house to trance to banging pounding techno. All of these guys, top of their game got I don’t know thousands and thousands of releases between them have all dropped tips on creativity, how to finish more and better music, the music industry, DJing, the whole works, we’ve grabbed some of the best bits from their masterclasses and interviews inside our Finish More Music and compiled them into, I’ve got to say, what I think is a pretty damn beautiful ebook as where it is a beautiful thing to own and to add.

So what I’m gonna do as well, I don’t know if you’ve seen this but just in case you haven’t I’m gonna play it a little bit of a video for our outro which I think will be a super super cool. Thank you very much for joining me on a Friday. I hope you have an absolutely banging weekend. Let me just make sure I’ve set this up because I’m a bit of a pro making a dog’s dinner with a streaming software. So let’s make sure that I get this a nail perfectly for you at first time. And last thing make sure you’re following us on youtube if you haven’t checked out the podcast yet finishmoremusic.com/podcast. All the different episodes, I’ve been blown away with a response for that
so jumping follow me Instagram @IamKeith Mills DM me, I read all of them, I respond to all of them. Absolutely love to hear from you. DJ Rob Nicholson’s just jumped in we tidy looking ebook as well. Yeah actually get to see a little bit of Rob in action now as well cuz im gonna play yet a super cool video if you haven’t seen it before. Ladies and gents thank you for joining me live. Take care have a kick-ass weekend. Grab yourself a copy of the e-book to enjoy and as I said I’ll also send you a template for your arrangement when you download that as well. Oh I can see just quickly on youtube and “get my melodies out invoice menu usually complex a pick an average
BPM / genre stock drum loop put my melody over it and edit out the complexity to suit the style”. That is a really really good point and i’m just elaborate on that for a second a bit a bit shifty I love the name. And here it is, one thing that can be really good with starting the theme first, little ninja hack for you, is to put in what I call a context sound so something that sets the mood and the vibe. So for me I like really kind of dark, edgy, music. So I’m often putting in some sort of drone or texture that’s got a sort of men
see edgy feel to it and I find that it helps me to them program my riff whatever is that I might be putting in with more of that vibe in mind. So last tip. Take care everyone thanks for joining me and check out this video.

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