Put it out

Last year I spent as much time as I ever have writing, recording, and producing music.

I also put out 1 song in the entire year. It was the first single from my band DAMS and our album Icarus.

There are somewhere between 35-50 other tracks/songs/snippets that made their way out of my brain and into the ether. I didn’t put any of them out.

I’ve always been this way. As most musicians do, I have way more music in my personal archive than I do available out there in the world for people to listen to.

This year I am going to try something different.

This year I am going to put it out.

Finish and release at least one song per month

One of my new years resolutions is to finish and release at least one song per month. I could (and might) just release something that is already finished, but my intention is to finish something new or something that has been started and isn’t complete.

The challenge here is getting out of my own way and calling something ‘finished’.

It’s extremely easy to start something, it’s much harder to finish polishing it and call it complete.

By finishing it and putting it out, it’s going to be much easier for me to grow an audience of listeners who dig what I’m doing. If I don’t put it out, no one even knows what it is that I do.

Don’t put out garbage

Music and all art is certainly subjective, but there are always some rules or guidelines that make something better.

For me in music, those guidelines revolve around the sonic quality of the record.

Some people like a lo-fi sound, and that’s OK.  I am not usually up on that tip.  Instead, I prefer something that was meticulously thought through so that everything can be heard. Recording the sounds, mixing the sounds, and finally, mastering the sounds is where I like to spend my own time and where I truly appreciate others that have spent their time.

Now that everyone can set up a studio in their bedroom, there is no excuse for not recording. That being said, learning everything there is to know about best practices for recording sounds, mixing, and mastering those sounds can take a life time.

I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life heavily involved in that process to learn as much as I can. I want the audio that I put out to sound good, even if it’s a trashy sound. I want that trashy sound to affect the listener so it needs to be as clear as possible.

There is so much music being put out now where it’s obviously these types of things were not studied and applied.

That being said, what sounds good to me may not sound good to you, and vice versa.

I can’t be mad at the kid in his bedroom that put out an entire album themselves without regard to good mics, preamps, mixing techniques, and sending it off to a mastering professional, but it comes out and it sounds ‘fine’.

At least they put it out.