Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. For music producers, it is all about sending your newest content to notify your fans that you have just released a product which they might have interest in. It’s known as one of the most effective way to allow your products to reach a massive amount of people. For an example, when you release a new track, you want to let people know that you have just released a track and you want them to listen to it. In order to send out those emails, you need to have a list of contacts in your hand. That’s why building your own mailing list is so damn important for the marketing needs. Here are some tips and tricks that you can do to start collecting those emails.
Organizing A Contest
You must have wondered how are you going to do that. Here’s how. When you first enter a new remix contest, you will need to download the stems of the producer’s track for you to start remixing it. Before you get to download those stems, they usually will set up a download gate which needs you to provide values for the organizers. You can use that function to collect your emails. Participants will have to give you their personal emails before they get their hands on the remix process. The more the people joining your contest, the most the emails that you going to receive. Therefore, don’t forget to promote your contest.
Free Giveaway
This idea applies the same concept as organizing a contest. The only difference is producers do not make any effort to win it because it’s just pure luck.
Blog Posts
Music producers mainly gain knowledge through 3 ways: watching tutorials on Youtube, reading blog posts and experimenting themselves. This is why you see all the companies doing business in the electronic dance music world usually have a blog section at their websites. When they publish a blog post with good contents, it usually attracts a lot of music producers to that post. When the content is so satisfying, people want more. Therefore, they provide a free email subscription service so that the readers can get notifications when a blog post is published. Indirectly, they collect the readers’ emails for future marketing purposes.
Youtube Tutorials
This is what W.A Production is doing right now. Every week, Roman uploads tutorials onto W.A. Production Youtube channel to teach people how to take their music production skills to the next level. As a token of appreciation, fans are required to follow W.A. Production social medias and give in their emails in return to help W.A. Production to grow bigger and better. With the help of their new download gate system “Pump Your Sounds”, all these things can be done easily and most of all, it is all FREE. Who doesn’t like FREE and QUALITY stuff?
Sample Packs
In producers’ prospective, who doesn’t like free sample packs as it has that top quality? For an example, you can try to level up your drum design skill and create a pack of tight drum samples to share them with the music community. In return, you ask for their emails so that you can send them notifications in the future when you release a new sample pack. Why not killing 2 birds with one stone when you can upgrade your drum design skill and build your email list? Isn’t that great? It’s one of the best way right now to build your own audience while you’re learning at the same time.
Introducing PumpYourSound.com
The #1 way to increase your social following and build your email list.
What is Pump Your Sound?
Pump Your Sound is a platform where you can offer download of your amazing work or music in return for Soundcloud followers, reposts, likes, Facebook likes and Youtube follower. With recent update, you can ask for fans’ email as well to build your own DJ email marketing list.
It’s all FREE and does not limit you from creating unlimited download gates.
Here’s an example of download gate offered by PumpYourSound.com
You can set and customize your own download gate in every track that you have released.
Collecting emails has never been so easy.
Still hesitating? PumpYourSound.com has open so many opportunities to music producers worldwide. See it yourself.
Start using it today and see the results yourself.
Thank us later. 🙂
Hope you like it and have a great day!
The next 5 elements that need to be addressed before any official announcements should be made about new music coming out are
If you didn’t get the chance to read through Part 1 we encourage you to please do so before reading this.
We have condensed these 2 elements as they go together like cookies and milk.
Plan some milestones starting two months before the release date, and have some benchmarks for at least one month after the album comes out. Here is how this could look:
Contact an entertainment lawyer to make sure your copyrights are secure and register your music with ASCAP, BMI or Sesac.
This is a practice that you should get in the habit of and your whole band should be helping.
Find your friends and people you admire (bloggers, other artists, venues, local spots you like to hang out in, etc.) on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and friend away!
This will increase your audience because as many of the people you follow will follow you back.
If you have not curated lists on Twitter, make some to keep track of your favorites.
Also, start reaching out to people in your inbox and outbox and get them on your list (remember it’s illegal to just sign people up so do this with integrity and ask each person).
Your newsletter is the place where you will be able to monetize so, don’t skip this step.
People like to follow along to real-life stories (case and point: reality TV). It’s a great way to form a stronger bond with your current and growing base.
Send updates on how the recording, mixing and mastering is going using videos and photos via your socials, plus capture longer-form stories for your blog and newsletter.
Engage with your following on milestones like artwork and song titles by polling your fans (Twitter has a polling feature which is cool!) and holding contests to select what cover or title to go with, have your fans weigh in on photos, graphics and get them involved with the process. The goal of all this activity is to get people excited so they are engaging and sharing your updates with their friends.
Submit your music to your distributor and make sure to let them know you are releasing a single FIRST before the EP (if this is the case).
Tunecore, CD Baby, and other aggregators like 4-5 weeks to pitch your music to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon Music, and other digital service providers (DSPs). Get your social posts in order and draft your newsletter announcing the single.
One Month Before Release
This is a great way to build buzz, get fans excited, and also get some music bloggers interested. Any reviews you can place will help build your overall online profile. On the press side of the house aim for appropriate blog targets. If you are a brand new artist Pitchfork is probably NOT appropriate. Go for smaller, more targeted music blogs!
That being said, be sure to reach out to your “within reason” dream targets with your single(s). It’s not the best idea to wait to reach out to these loftier sites with your album. Album reviews take a considerable amount of time and, if you look, most music sites are reserving these full album review slots for the most anticipated albums.
Download and read our Spotify & SoundCloud Guide to make sure both of those platforms are set up correctly and you have done what you need to to get these working for you.
If you play live shows, book a release show and do something to make this show more special than the others. Decorate the venue, work with the bar to create a special shot or cocktail, pre-sell a merch pack, hire a party bus, ask a food truck to pull outside the venue, etc.
If you don’t play out, create a listening party at a small bar, create an after-work happy hour, or choose a local favorite. If you are just starting and don’t think you can draw a large crowd, hold a listening house party with wine tasting, cupcake bake-off, fondue party, etc.
Think about your fans and make this special for them! And, of course, the key is to announce that tickets are on sale.
This is a great way to build buzz, If you are hiring a PR team – work on the strategy with them or if you plan to do it yourself it’s time to prepare – for help, Download the Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity
This is a great way to build buzz, get fans excited, and also get advance sales. Send the word out to your newsletter and socials. Work with Pledge Music to help you with your pre-sales to offer tiers and build excitement.
This is a great way to build buzz.
Keep the excitement up on socials by scheduling a countdown.
Hold a contest to win the new music or give away tickets to your show or listening party.
Again, the more activities you can plan leading up to the release and after it drops will help continue your story and profile building.
The more press and social media-worthy points you can arrange for after a release will keep contacting press with new content, while at the same time reminding them about the new album.
A lot of social media elements are covered in the timeline above. At Cyber PR Music, we consider your blog and your newsletter to be part of your social media strategy.
Newsletters should still be going out once a month, blog posts being posted, and socials should never go stale.
Just because you may not have a big “news” item (for example: a new release) doesn’t mean you should stop communicating with your fans on a regular basis.
You should be updating daily and updating also means responding to and interacting with others.
In addition, to all the content we have gone over in this guide, post about things happening in your personal life, repost interesting articles or news items or post a song from a band that you love.
News, food celebrity gossip, parenting, fashion, art, and sports all make good topics for people to engage and connect around. Let your personality show!
Social Media rules are constantly changing and shifting (hello Facebook) so make sure you keep up on social trends so that you are not using antiquated techniques.
We love Mashable, Social Media Today, and Social Media Examiner. And of course, follow our Social Media Pyramid for content guidance.
– #mcm = man crush Monday
– #transformationtuesday
– #wcw = woman crush Wednesday
– #tbt = throwback Thursday
– #fbf = flashback Friday
Anytime a fan or a press outlet talks about you or your music, share it on your social media outlets. Press and fans alike love when you share a post they’ve written about you.
A big component when promoting a new album EP or single is getting PR. You can accomplish this by hiring a team or by going the DIY route. When hiring a PR team make sure you do your homework and make sure your music is a good fit with that firm’s approach and philosophy. Be sure that the team talks to you about their well-thought-out plan for your campaign.
A PR company should work with you to make sure you are fully prepared before you are introduced to the press.
This is the first part of their job when you engage a firm.
If you’re going with a do-it-yourself approach here are some tips for an effective music PR campaign:
Make sure you have at least 3-4 great images and variety is important. Most music blogs feature square or horizontal photos. When getting photos taken think through your brand and think about variety to keep your images fresh as time goes by.
This series is packed with DIY tips, but we suggest hiring a professional to write your bio, which we call a signature story around here. Even if you are a strong writer, it can be challenging to write about yourself. A professional writer will be able to craft a compelling bio that effectively conveys all the important details while keeping the audience in mind, which in this case includes press and music industry folks. We would be delighted to write one for you.
The first people to target should be local press and press outlets that have written about you in the past (if applicable). When contacting blogs make it personal. Be sure to research which writer/journalist of the site is the best or most appropriate to reach out to (if applicable). Before you start talking about your music be sure to address why you approached them and not some other blog. ALWAYS include a Soundcloud link to either your single or album. If your album/EP is unreleased, you can include a private Soundcloud link to the album/EP in a private playlist. Follow up approximately once a week and if you’ve received some press since the last time you contacted them, be sure to include a link in your follow up email.
Then as we touched on in Part 1, plan ahead so you will have content for multiple press outreaches such as a new music video, remixes, or tour dates, as you don’t want to repeat the same message about the new music.
Please DON’T write and pay to distribute a press release. Press releases are relics of the past and are not favored by music bloggers. Press releases are great if you have something truly newsworthy and releasing an EP, single or album is actually not “news” (even though it is extremely important to you). If it is newsworthy then DO follow this guide.
Building a Targeted Media List
There are many ways to start building a targeted media list. One method – identify a musician or band that is slightly further along and fits into your musical wheelhouse, and take note of the press outlets that they are getting featured on. There is a great chance that those publications may also feature you.
Know That You Need 2 Separate Strategies for SoundCloud and Spotify
SoundCloud will be what music blogger will want. So, you have to have a great Soundcloud Page. Follow our handy guide to get great at this! You need a separate strategy for Spotify as you will need to be known in the platform with verification, a decent amount of followers and of course your current bio announcing your recent release. Spotify has an entire site dedicated to helping you learn how to get established in the Spotify ecosystem. Start here with their guides and best practices and read our 3 part Spotify Series.
If you are already building through touring, continue to tour, hitting the same markets that you played while supporting the new music to build on the momentum that has been made. Martin Atkins has the BEST book on touring called Tour Smart. If you don’t have it, get it!
We also love this post from Ari Herstand.
There are undoubtedly limitations though on how often you can tour and you more than likely won’t be able to tour to every market where there are fans.
And many artists are not touring at all, so if this is the case for you, consider virtual shows and live streaming.
This is our most widely read series here on the Cyber PR Music blog and we have recently updated it, just for YOU.
In this crazy ever-changing music industry landscape we see the same issue over and over again: A vast majority of artists who don’t have a long-term plan in place.
The reason for this is, in today’s DIY landscape there is no one in charge of creating such a plan. To make things worse, the pressure of consistently releasing great singles or EPs, social posting, writing newsletters, booking, plus learning new technology and platforms, keeps artists busier than ever. These never ending tasks battle long-term perspective.
Marketing Plans used to be a combined creation of manager, label A&R and marketing team, booking agent, and publisher who would be responsible for coming up with a big picture strategy and implementing a plan for each domain that he or she was responsible for.
We pride ourselves on creating long term Marketing Plans for artists, which we now call Musician’s Total Tuneups as we thought “Marketing Plan” was just not doing them enough justice.
Today, most agencies that indie artists hire tackle what needs to be done right now and handle only their responsibilities without taking a 30,000 foot view.
This sadly has a lot to do with how the artists approach their releases. We know once the music is finished a deep sense of urgency rushes in, screaming – “release release!”
We urge you to take a deep breath and read on…
It is completely baffling that an artist or band would work so hard on new music, dedicating hours and hours practicing, writing songs, not to mention spending large sums of money recording, mixing and mastering, creating visuals, and album artwork only to rush the release with no plan in place.
Here are the basic components of our Total Tuneups / long-term Marketing Plans to show you the key elements you need to consider before you get too far ahead of yourself.
Even if your release is not new, it’s important to backtrack and reset the stage.
There are 15 elements to keep in mind when planning a new release – they break down into 3 groups of 5.
Below are the 5 areas that need to be addressed before any official announcements should be made about a new album, EP, or even a single coming out. To see these in more detail, download our checklist at the bottom of the page:
Let’s dive in!
(again, if you already released music, don’t worry! Backtrack and reset the stage.)
Digital distribution moves a lot faster than it used to, but you should still choose a distributor. If you are ordering physical copies of your music, make sure that you get them in plenty of time, especially if you are running a pre-sale or having a release party and you want to offer physical product at the show.
*Note: albums used to come out on a Tuesday and now Friday is the official release day (if you are going by industry standards).
CD Baby, Tunecore etc. don’t cover everything, and independently you need to also be aware of additional distribution outlets for increased reach, a list that includes Soundcloud, Pandora and creating playlists on Spotify.
The music industry is built on appearances. To be taken seriously it is very important to have a complete and professional looking online 360 degree presence. This starts with your online home – your website. You need to have a modern and functional site that you can update on your own. Download the checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can to build your online presence. Your website should have a section where fans can easily listen to and buy your music (not a player that automatically plays, please!), a news section with latest happenings, and a newsletter sign-up that offers an incentive through a juicy offer (such as exclusive tracks).
Ariel wrote a detailed guide to help you with the architecture.
Time and energy needs to be spent building a strong online presence in order to be taken seriously as an artist for when the time comes to start actively promoting.
What we see: many artists don’t know the basics. This will hurt your promotional efforts as music industry professionals, music bloggers, and fans will visit your socials to see what kind of existing following you have and how serious you are. Stale, overly promotional, or boring profiles will not help your chances of engaging anyone.
We will focus on the 4 most important socials: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
Branding is Key
Upload cover photos and banners that are in alignment with your brand. Use a publicity shot or your current album artwork with text on top of the images that promote the single, EP, or album release date, new music videos, and tour announcements. We love a tool called Canva for fast and easy banner and social skin creation.
We love Twitter because you can easily build a following of targeted users and jump into conversations. Every single person you interact with in real life should be followed on Twitter (friends, musicians, producers, club owners, etc.) Jump start your followers by following people and many will follow you back. Lastly, target similar sounding artists and follow their Twitter followers, as there is a high probability that they will also like your music.
To keep your profile active with Tweets, use Hootsuite. In as little as one hour you can schedule a week’s worth of tweets. Vary the topics you tweet about from career news (which should be no more than 20% of your output) to your interests, passions, and hobbies. News, politics, sports, and/or culture are all great topics to share for people to engage and connect around.
There are many relationship-building practices and benefits for being active on Twitter, of course, that we teach our clients, but by following these instructions you will at least have a respectable presence on this powerful platform.
Watch Ariel’s Twitter Video Class it goes over the basics:
Pay-to-play is the reality on Facebook for a Page to get any real exposure. We suggest you spend money from time to time but have goals in place before you do, and you should have a complete Page that is active with daily posts. Make sure the page has a cover banner (as discussed above) and install apps that work as promotional tools for you and your music. Three we love are: an artist profile Bandpage, a store Bandcamp, Tunecore or CD Baby, and a mailing list signup form MailChimp. Even though posts won’t get seen by a large percentage of fans who have liked your Page without advertising, organic reach is still possible, and an active Page helps show that you are an active artist. Videos and images have a greater chance of being seen, so share photos and upload videos as much as possible and finally, ask questions to increase engagement.
For an advanced, deep-dive into Facebook Pages. Our resident Facebook strategist, Andrew Salmon, has a 2 part masterclass in the Cyber PR Social Media House Course.
Watch Ariel & Andrew’s Facebook Class:
Part 2:
YOUTUBE
YouTube is the first place where millions of people go to search for music. It is a very powerful platform where artists are getting discovered. For any artist looking to increase awareness, it is imperative to have a presence on YouTube with a professional looking channel, and a cover image that is linked to your other socials so people can connect with you across platforms. Make categories to group your videos for easy viewing, such as “Behind The Scenes”, “Official Music Videos”, and “Live Performances”. Also, highlight an official music video in the featured spot at the top. The channel for The Flaming Lips is a great example of these practices put to use.
For the videos themselves we often see artists leaving off their artist name in the title of the video, which is terrible for search engines. Make sure you include keywords in your tags and place those important keywords/ keyword phrases at the start of your tag fields. Use adjectives that describe your music and similar artists as keywords with your artist name also being a keyword, the latter of which will show up in the “related videos section” after one of your videos is viewed. We also often see description sections left blank too. This is a crucial piece of real estate to tell the viewer what they are watching and provide links to other content you own, such as your website and iTunes, where they can go for more. Here is a video from NYC blog The Wild Honey Pie, they pack all their descriptions full of information where the viewer can go to learn and watch more. Their channel is branded well too, utilizing the features discussed.
The most popular visual social platform has experienced a meteoric rise. As of the end of 2016, there are over 600 million active Instagram users, over 30 billion photos shared and 80 million photos a day. If you haven’t yet, connect to people you already know on Facebook, and if you choose, you can also search and connect to contacts in your phone. Next, link your socials.
When you post photos, choose at least two hashtags, as this is how photos are found. Top hashtags is a site that will display the top hashtags trending in real time if you are stuck or want to get into the conversation.
In addition to hashtags, you can also add captions to your photos before posting. I caution you to be selective about what you cross-post to socials. You want to tell a separate story on each social channel to get people to join you, and not get fatigued by the same posts across channels.
This is the most important part of the strategy that you will want to skip – DON’T.
While social media is key for attracting your crowd and building your numbers, email is still the most vital asset you will build for generating revenue. You make relationships with fans on your social networks, but you turn those relationships into customers with email.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing produced an ROI (return on investment) of 4,300% — or $43 for every $1 spent.
Contact your mailing list once a month with news. Spend money on a mailing list service provider that can help you design a rich looking email and provide analytics and tracking capabilities so you can measure the effectiveness of your newsletters and make adjustments where need be. A premier solution that many of our clients enjoy working with is MailChimp.
P.S. We strongly suggest downloading the checklist (at the bottom of the page) to make sure you’re not missing anything about this extremely vital step.
Here are Ariel’s recent articles on Newsletters:
5 Critical Things to Add to Your Monthly Newsletter
Cyber PR’s 3 G’s – GREETING, GUTS & GETTING – How To Write An Effective Newsletter
It might seem a bit early to start talking about press, but it’s not. PR takes time and effort to execute well.
Sadly, many artists believe that PR = blasting a press release out to the top 100+ music sites that they have Googled. This never works, because PR placements start with astute research.
Blog savviness gets placements.
You should now start to identify and familiarize yourself with online publications (blogs), podcasts, and radio outlets that are appropriate and strategic for you and your release. If you live in a smaller town (read: Not in New York, San Francisco, LA, or Chicago) there may be some local press that you can go after, too.
There are thousands upon thousands of active music sites, and there are a million more non-music sites that can
feature your music as well.
Your big goal might be a review on Pitchfork, but what’s your backup when Pitchfork doesn’t respond to you and then doesn’t respond to your follow ups? Is Pitchfork even the right outlet for you to showcase your project? Sure, they have a large audience, but is it the right audience for you? It’s OK if the answer is “no.”
Not only will familiarizing yourself with music publications help you to know where to pitch your music, but it will also give you invaluable insight and ideas for your press photos, your music video, and pinpointing your genre.
Research is not the only thing you need before you send your first pitch. To find out what to do come download our Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity.
Pro Tip: Keep in mind that a music blog is made up of content written by individuals. When it comes time to pitch, you will be pitching to these individuals. Increase your chances that they will be interested in you by first being interested in them. Make a connection by following them on social media and re-tweeting them. Better yet, try to strike up a conversation with them on Twitter if the opportunity arises. A conversation about literally anything other than your music is recommended.
This way when you send that writer an email about your music (or if a publicist does that for you), there could now be some familiarity there and existing relationships that will help in getting your emails opened and even further, help your new music to be featured.
Now that you know how to build a solid online foundation and the beginning of an online community, now is your time to dive in and do it!
Creating a long-term plan with proper execution will put you ahead of the game. Do not cut corners here. Having a true base will put you in a much better position when you are getting ready for your next 5 steps, which is when you will start calendaring for your release. This is the topic for PART 2 of this 3 PART series.
Countless blog posts will profess to you that they have the 8 ultimate solutions to building your fanbase, or the 5 top tips you need to grow your audience as a musician.
Invariably they will state the case for covering all the bases, surrounding yourself with a collection of motivated people, getting a street-team, booking gigs and hoping for the best or any number of other solutions. These may all be important factors, however…
Your email list or database is easily the single most important thing you should have up and running as a musician, label, artist or DJ.
How many people do you know who have shunned Facebook or removed themselves from Twitter because it’s no longer seen as useful, or because their feed is just full of nonsense?
How many people do you know who are actively trying to “get off Facebook” because they feel it’s a distraction?
Maybe a couple, maybe a few, maybe a handful. I’d bet it’s some though, right? I know plenty people who hate social media, and I know a huge number of artists who are desperate to spend less time blasting nonsense into the ether.
Even if it’s a small percentage, consider this: How many of those people have email addresses? Most of them? All of them?
More people have email addresses than social profiles.
1 billion people might be using Facebook but According to a Radicati Group study from January 2017, there are more than 3.7 billion email users worldwide.
So vs the biggest social network in the world, good old email still has more than 3 times the amount of users.
How often do we hear people complain about the fact that their post, update or tweet has been missed by their own fans, because an algorithm has changed, or because the fleeting nature of social media has left their update festering at the bottom of an infinite scroll?
Now, there’s an algorithm at play when you send an email to someone. The dreaded spam filter, but it’s a far more sensible and tangible obstacle than any social media calculation.
Spam filters are relatively predictable and are really designed to deliver the right email to people, so provided you can write a normal email which isn’t full of salesy nonsense or trigger-words that initiate a shift to the spam bucket, then you’re pretty much onto a winner.
Granted, you’re still up against other subject lines, you still have to handle image-loading and you can’t do fancy stuff like embed video or audio players, but you can encourage one of the most powerful actions someone can take on any form of communication — a mouse click or link visit.
For now, it seems like email is also future-proof.
A bold statement, but in the face of a changing social media landscape, it seems relatively resilient.
Social media comes and goes. MySpace came and went, Facebook has come but hung around (too long if you ask me). Twitter sees ups and downs and various other networks appear and disappear. Some just as quickly as they have appeared.
Through all of this email has remained. Most of these networks even rely on email themselves. It makes sense that it will persevere.
This one is going to vary for everyone, but the most important thing is making sure that whenever anybody interacts with your music, you can encourage them to join your email list.
For me, this is a case of offering them a selection of freebies that are enticing enough that they ask themselves “why wouldn’t I sign up for this?”.
I offer my first EP, a bunch of remixes, downloads of my mixes, videos, project files and even sample and patch packs for other producers. All in return for an email address.
Then once you have the email address, it’s a case of being respectful, but trying to build the relationship in an engaging, but friendly way. Autoresponders are a common way to do this, but to begin with, you could even just email everyone individually and say hello.
You’ll also want to build that relationship over time so that people hear from you relatively regularly, but get emails about relevant things.
If they have signed up with an interest in your music, you’ll want to let them know when you have new music for them to check.
You could take this much further, and segment your email list by location so that you can target people for particular gigs, or use it to arrange an appropriate tour. You could use it to recommend other artists, you could offer other assistance, or even look for one-to-one conversations with people.
Once you start to build a solid list of people who are somewhat engaged with you or your brand, then you’re in a position to feasibly monetise things.
Imagine you have 10,000 people on your list (which isn’t too difficult to achieve) and you make a new album which you decide to release.
You email your list about it, and nothing else — you could feasibly expect 100 people to check it out and buy it, but probably a stack more — let’s say an engaged list would yield 500–1000 sales. That’s enough to fund the production of the physical album, or enough to put towards the next release allowing you to continue to produce, without having to worry about paying for PR, social media boosts, shows, press, blog submissions, channel promotions or anything else.
If you don’t have an email list set up in some way, and if you’re not collecting emails when it comes to your music, you’re making one of the biggest mistakes you possibly can.
Sort it out now. Get it set up, and start collecting email addresses. You’ll not regret it in the slightest.
If you’re keen to find out how, or to know more, then I’ve actually put together a course which takes you through the entire process and includes things like auto-responder scripts to try as well as various other bits of information that will get you up and running in no time.
This is a guest blog by a music producer DJ, designer and label owner Alex Cowles. Alex’s music has featured in games, documentaries, short films and he has received national press and airplay. He has owned and run 3 record labels since 2008 and also writes and manages How To Self Release, a platform and set of courses to help people get their own music out there.
The clock strikes midnight. You’ve haven’t gotten up for 3 days working on this mix. Or at least that’s what it feels like. You’re up to your ears in EQs and compressors and come to a startling conclusion:
“I don’t know what this sounds like anymore.”
Your reference for balance is skewed. You can’t tell if what you’re doing is helping or hurting. You’ve gotten so deep into this project that you can’t hear it objectively any more.
First of all, go to bed and rest your ears. But if you still feel this way in the morning, it may be time to change your approach.
In this article, we’ll take a look at using feedback effectively to improve your mixes, as well as some common terminology you may hear from those commenting on your work.
As producers and engineers, we can’t avoid getting deeply involved in what we’re working on. Sometimes we can lose perspective on how an unbiased listener would hear the track.
Listening to other music is a great way to regain this reference. Hearing the differences between your work and a professional, high-quality mix can provide some clarity while mixing.
You should be familiar with your listening setup (headphones, monitors, or a combination of both) so the only differences you hear between tracks are purely mix differences.
However, at a certain point you may hit another wall. Even with other music as a reference point, you’ve still listened your mix to death. It’s time to get another pair of ears on this.
Getting honest, specific feedback on your work is really important. We all have different perspectives and ways of approaching problems, especially in something as subjective and limitless as music. Hearing somebody else’s take on your work can be really eye-opening, and can bring your attention to something you would’ve quickly glossed over.
Now, let’s discuss some general concepts in getting helpful feedback and using it to improve your work. We’ll also touch on terms that you may hear from critics, along with how to address them in the mixing process.
At the end of the day, you’re the only one who can improve your mix. You could get an ultra-specific critique from a world-class engineer, but if you don’t implement it well, nothing will change. How you digest the feedback that you receive is the most important part.
That being said, there are a few key ideas to mention when it comes to seeking out and receiving feedback:
Anybody’s opinion on your mix is worth hearing. Feedback from engineers (amateur to professional) is often the most useful, but don’t ignore what the everyday listener has to say! They do, after all, make up the majority of your audience… Get as much feedback as possible, and use your own judgment to apply what’s necessary.
Feedback from an expert, or at least someone whose mixing skills are better than yours, is ideal. They’ll tend to pick out the most important issues that you need to address, rather than giving you a long laundry list of nit-picky details. Take what they say to heart.
Getting thoughts on your track from someone who’s at a similar level to you is also helpful. If they’re complimentary of your work, you’ve probably done a good job, and should seek out some expert opinions as well. Your peers will likely give you a ton of potential fixes when critiquing your work, so be mindful which are the most important ones and address those first.
(Generally, focus first on comments dealing with important areas like overall balance or not being able to hear an element. Details should be dealt with once major problems are solved.)
A non-engineer’s comments may be as poignant as a professional’s. Don’t dismiss any feedback instantly. Listen to them and pay attention to body language (whether they’re jumping around or not even nodding their head). Try to unpack any comments and find a way to apply them. What the average listener brings up is being said for a reason…
NOTE: It should be a bit of a red flag if you’re hearing the same feedback from multiple sources. If something is a problem to several people, you should prioritize it.
Along the same lines, it’s important to know where someone’s coming from when they provide feedback. Different people will focus on different things, and the same comment from multiple people could be interpreted differently.
For example, a common comment could be for someone to say that a vocal isn’t cutting through the mix well enough.
If an experienced mix engineer says this, there’s probably an issue with your vocal’s clarity. They might mention that there’s another element in the mix competing for the same frequency space as the vocal, or that some element is too loud and masking it.
If the vocalist on the track says this, keep in mind they’re likely paying more attention to their own part than the surrounding production. They could absolutely be right in their critique (you might have paid more attention to the surrounding production and undermixed the vocal), but it’s worth keeping in mind what their focus is.
If a non-engineer says this, keep in mind that a loud vocal is currently super common in popular music (as the vocal is the most important part of many commercial tracks). Make sure that the vocal cuts through the mix, but know that a non-engineer is also likely to focus on the vocal too.
By keeping context in mind, you’re able to use this feedback in the most beneficial way or to choose not to use it at all.
Also, if the critic is knowledgeable of music and mixing, stay mindful of their musical background. An engineer who mixes mostly dubstep is going to have a different view of your compression choices than one who mixes mostly acoustic music.
As nice as it is to hear compliments on your work, constructive criticism will more likely help you improve your abilities. If somebody is giving you feedback, ask them to be completely honest and bring up anything that comes to mind. The less they sugar-coat, the more you learn and grow.
Don’t get defensive, though. The critic is giving you their opinion on the track and the best ways to improve it. YOU ARE NOT THE TRACK. By addressing the critique objectively, you’re able to simply focus on improving your work.
If you’re looking for feedback on specific aspects of the track, say so. If all you want is advice on structure and flow, it’s fine to tell the listener this is a “rough mix”, or something along those lines.
But if you’re trying to improve your mix, don’t avoid hearing criticism by preemptively downplaying your work as “just a rough mix”, that you “haven’t spent much time on it”, etc. The more you discredit the track before hitting play, the less helpful feedback you’ll be able to get, and the longer it’ll take to actually improve as a producer or engineer.
As simple as it seems, taking note of the comments you receive is crucial. When receiving feedback, it’s often not the place nor time to implement it. If this is the case, jot down some important points to address later. Better this than waiting until it’s time to work, forgetting, and finding yourself still at square one.
Now that someone has given you honest and substantial feedback, it’s time to address their points in your project. This can become difficult. The nature of audio makes it tough to describe without using general descriptive words.
Experienced producers and engineers can mention specific issues, such as saying that your mix has too much high-frequency content. However, someone is much more likely to say the mix is “bright”, “harsh”, etc. in this scenario (including experienced professionals).
Unfortunately, descriptors like these are thrown around so much that they can start to lose their meaning and sound vague. One engineer may describe something as sounding “nasal”, while another may disagree and call it “honky”.
Sifting through these terms can be a pain. But never fear! Especially for you, our fellow producers and mix engineers, we’ve put together our cheat sheet for dealing with vague-sounding feedback! Just a few notes first:
And now…ladies and gentlemen…children of all ages…without further ado…the moment you’ve all been waiting for…etc…our audio terms cheat sheet:
Of course, we couldn’t go into a ton of detail in just one table! So we’ve made a walkthrough guide on how to effectively address each of these issues, bringing your mix up a couple notches in the process. Click here to download it for free:
Let’s go through some step-by-step solutions for the most common ones that you’re likely to hear:
“The ______ sounds too bright to me.”
This critic thinks an element in your track has too much high frequency content, specifically above around 5 kHz. Since the problem frequencies are somewhere between 5 kHz and 20 kHz, we need to locate where in the frequency spectrum we should treat.
Add an EQ to the channel. Using a bell filter with a high Q value, boost the gain by about 10 dB or so. With this narrow bell filter, sweep the area from 5-20 kHz. Do this slowly and listen carefully. The frequencies that are bothering your critic should jump out when drastically boosted.
If the problem frequencies are specific resonant peaks, a bell filter can be used to attenuate them. If the problem simply lies in all audio above a certain frequency, a high shelf filter should be used. The same concept applies to low frequencies and a low shelf filter.
(Keep in mind that too much distortion or saturation could also be causing this issue. If so, decrease drive parameters on your distortion/saturation plugins.)
In the example below, an overly bright synth has generally too much high frequency content above about 6 kHz. A high shelf filter is positioned around 6 kHz, and set to -3.13 dB. This should get those high frequencies under control.
Someone may also say that the track in general sounds too “bright”. If so, try to find if one element in particular is causing this issue. If none specifically is the problem, all the elements summing together could be causing some overloading of the high frequencies.
To solve this, be sure that you don’t have too many elements occupying the same high frequency space and try to cut down on distortion in your project. Also, filter out some high frequencies in your reverbs and make sure that the cutoff frequencies of any high pass filters are not set too high (which will eliminate lower frequencies that balance the high ones out).
“The ______ sounds muffled to me.”
This critic thinks an element in your track is missing some high frequency content, specifically above around 7 kHz. An element that lacks level in the highs can sound less present in the overall mix.
To solve this issue with an EQ, use a high shelf filter and boost frequencies in this area of the spectrum. Keep in mind that each EQ has its own subtle sound, and may color things differently. Analog EQs or their digital emulations tend to boost frequencies niceley.
(In these examples, I’m using FabFilter’s Pro-Q 2 for the sake of visual clarity. It’s also a great EQ, but feel free to use any EQ you like.)
Another way to add some high frequency content (some upper harmonics) is with distortion or saturation. As distortion introduces higher frequencies in a more organic way than the surgical boosting of an EQ, it can be a more natural-sounding way to fix a “muffled” sound.
In the example below, a muffled vocal is treated with an EQ to boost high frequency content, specifically above 9 kHz. A high shelf filter is positioned around 9 kHz, and set to +4.87 dB. The vocal will now cut through the mix better than before.
You may get the comment that the whole mix sounds muffled as well. This could be due to a lack of high-frequency elements, or high-frequency elements being “muffled” themselves.
Try adding distortion or saturation where needed, and make sure that the cutoff frequencies of low-pass filters are not set too low. This is especially important on elements that should maintain some air (vocals, lead instruments, percussion, etc.)
Be careful when addressing this issue by boosting the highs on your master channel. While this can be done, it’s better to fix individual elements in their channels as it provides you more flexibility. Any EQing done on the master channel should generally be VERY SUBTLE and reserved for when the mix is done, or in mastering.
“The ______ sounds too nasal to me.”
This critic thinks an element in your track has some overly strong frequencies in the mids, specifically between around 500 Hz – 3 kHz. Certain frequency ranges may be too strong, or there may be resonant peaks emphasized here in the element’s frequency spectrum.
This is unavoidable, as the timbres of all sounds are caused by such resonances. However, careful EQing can control these peaks while maintaining the overall character of the sound.
To find the problematic frequencies, scan the spectrum with a boosted narrow bell filter as before. You may find very specific frequencies that need attenuating, or a relatively narrow range of frequencies that could be brought down.
NOTE: Keep in mind that, as an element plays different notes, these resonant frequencies move. Either automate the movement of any filters you use or set the Q values of filters low enough to cover the range you need.
“Nasal” is a comment most attributed to vocals, and in the example below an overly nasal vocal is treated with an EQ. After scanning with a bell filter, it’s determined that around 600-700 Hz is causing some issues. A bell filter is used to attenuate that area, controlling the resonant frequencies. The vocal will now be less abrasive and sound more balanced.
If you receive feedback that the overall mix is sounding “nasal”, there may simply be too many elements with strong mid-range frequencies summing. Cutting down on these elements, using EQs to eliminate conflicting frequencies on different channels, decreasing distortion and saturation, and avoiding very mid-heavy reverbs can all help.
“The ______ sounds too muddy to me.”
This critic thinks an element in your track has some overly strong frequencies in the lows and low-mids, specifically under around 500 Hz. Overloaded signal in this frequency range can sound overbearing and dominate a mix.
As before, find the specific range that needs treatment with a bell filter, and attenuate as is necessary. For frequencies down here, feel free to use a bell, low shelf, or high pass filter, depending on what you want to achieve. If you need a refresher on these and other filters, check out our previous article on the topic here:
In the example below, a muddy bass is treated with an EQ to attenuate some rumbling frequencies around 190 Hz. A bell filter is positioned here and set to -4.88 dB. The bass should now be more balanced and sit better in the mix.
More often than not, “muddy” is used to describe the character of an entire mix. There may be too many elements in this frequency range that are conflicting, or elements down here may be undefined.
Having only 1-2 elements in this area of the spectrum, high-passing anything that doesn’t need much lows/low-mid signal (i.e. guitars, snares, etc.), and avoiding low and low-mid-heavy reverbs are all ways of cleaning up some of the mud.
“The ______ sounds crushed to me.”
This critic thinks an element in your track has is getting compressed too hard. High compression, though it can bring an element out in a mix, can suck the life out of it too. With low dynamics, things can start to sound flat and emotionless. This is especially an issue with any preformed parts that you want to be dynamic.
The fix for this is pretty simple. Just decrease the compression on this element by decreasing the compression ratio and/or raising the threshold. Also, if you’re told that the transients of an element are getting crushed, increase the attack time on the compressor to allow more of the transient through before compression begins.
In the example below, an overly crushed bass is getting compressed too hard. See how the ratio is set to almost 8:1? This is is a bit too high, as the feel of the performance is being compromised for loudness.
With the ratio decreased to around 3:1, the performance feels more dynamic and has more life. The attack time is also increased to preserve more of the transient created by the bassist.
If you get feedback that the overall mix is sounding “crushed”, there may be too much compression happening on individual elements or, more likely, on the master channel. Limiting on the master channel is useful to bring the track up to level, and to bring out subtle elements in the mix.
However, over-limiting on the master channel can totally destroy the timbre and dynamics of a mix. Generally, don’t add so compression that this happens.
With the ability to effectively digest the comments you receive (and the vocabulary to apply them), all that’s left is to go out and get people to listen to your tracks! Professionals, peers, your mom, anybody’s comments can help.
There are also plenty of resources (such as some subreddits and forums) to get objective critiques of your work. Make use of these, as you can reach more people than in person.
We hope you enjoyed the article and have some luck getting useful comments on your tracks. See you next time for a look at the ins and outs of reverb. Later!
https://heroic.academy/audio-lingo-101-dealing-with-feedback/