End-of-year thoughts and tips for creatives (music, art, creativity, plugins, socials, etc)

(I was struggling to find a good opening for this post, so here we go…)

Hi! I’m Fanu.

I care about making music, making it sound good, helping people make music, being out there as a creative person, and that sort of stuff…it’s pretty much what’s my life 24/7 and it also pays for my living (and keeps me happy).

That’s why I wanted to lash out some related thoughts that have been brewing in my brain recently. It'll be a bit of a mixed bag.

It can often feel good to look back on the past year and chew on how it went, what you learned (if anything) in the past year, and so on. This type of post could easily become really long, so I’ll at least try and keep all points bite-sized. These are somewhat random, as I may be struggling to find the connecting leading thought, but hey, I hope some of these are useful and thought-provoking.

BTW, I’d love to hear about ANY input of yours! Well, you have some reading ahead, so I’ll just start.

• Have a goal

This is still important, after all these years.

For example, this year I wrapped up my 3rd Headz EP (I did work on a lot other music, too): not to say it’d be easy or that I'd ever assume per se that any label wants my material, but I did take it as my goal to try and do my absolute best to make music that'd fit the label to form my third release for them, and I succeeded in that. When I do that, it can of course take weeks and months, but I don’t let go of that goal.

Same goes for anything: at one point I wanted to play live and get bookings for that, and sure enough it took some serious time and devotion, but it worked out.

I've often felt that 1) without a goal I kind of "lock up" or lose my drive, but 2) once I have an idea/concept/goal, that alone drives my inspiration A LOT.

If anyone ever asks me "How do you keep going?" this'll be one of my standard answers. Of course, in this regard, you have to…

• Have faith in your music

I can’t stress this enough, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, but let’s just revisit this. I still keep reminding myself of this constantly. I feel I’ve maybe got slightly more impatient with things, and maybe it’s the culture we live as well as socials / internet, but I’ll remind myself as well as others that especially any sort of musical career hardly gets to enjoy instant gratification ever: it’s a bit of a slow burner. So it takes faith. Don’t get discouraged. Any artist that has got any attention has already been grinding for a long time – even when you hear from them for the first time.

Those who get anywhere are those that are patient and have a decent amount of that good old blind faith in what they do.

• No need to post on socials all the time

What I’ll say here mostly relates to artists, i.e., people that create art and take that seriously.

This kind of relates to the earlier point/mention about socials, but you don’t have to post about things all the time. Sure enough these days you “have to” post about things, but you probably get my point.

We all have probably seen “tips” like “post content regularly to keep your socials audience engaged” and to “grow your fanbase” and so on. Ewwww, no. Let’s just not do that, unless you’re trying to be an “influencer” or whatever (just don’t).

This leads in a lot of ppl actually posting all the time, as they take heed of that advice, but

1) it’s not necessarily helping and

2) it’ll take away from the important stuff you might want to post about, which is your art and

3) ppl who post shit all the time are actually kind of annoying, artist or not an artist.

Do ppl really need to see that meme you just reposted or that you’re now on the subway? Did the IG story about your cup of coffee reinforce the notion that music is your thing? No.

This is something I’ve discussed with students of mine and some music-makers, and I’ve always said that while there’s of course a balance between your meaningful content and some whatever-type of funny stuff, post about the stuff that underlines you and what you are and do, because people are drawn to things that matter to them. So, if you want the attention of people that are into what you want to represent as an artist, mostly post about that. Simples.

• Try collaborating

I'll be honest, I've never collaborated much, and I've fully enjoyed being a musical hermit.

This year, I collaborated on an EP with a "collabro" (it will be a Lightless Recordings release in 2022), and it was much lighter, easier, and more fun than I thought (the only time-consuming part was to learn to use Bitwig comfily enough, as that became our collabo DAW, as we didn't want to go for ping-ponging audio tracks…but learning a new DAW was actually quite refreshing).

Collabing can be fun and also help you in finishing tunes, so do try it!

• You can't fully concentrate on and be amazing at everything

My most loved hobbies are my music, riding my bike, skateboarding, and this year I also started hitting an outdoor gym I discovered quite close to me regularly. And I have this full-time engineer career to rock and Patreon too :-)

Trying to do all this reinforced the notion that you can't fully do it all (esp. if you work full-time like I do), so a lot of times you have leave something out, at least for a while, if/when you want to progress well enough with something else.

This year, I "had to" skateboard much less than some other years, as, after all, all those things take energy and time, and you'll have limited resources.

Ask yourself what it is that you want the most and what you want to see progress with, and keep rocking that. If you do too many things, you’re either going to burn yourself out or just not progress enough with any of them. While you may have a knack for things, you may end up feeling you suck at something (just because you cannot give it enough time).

Sometimes I have "music periods" when I give it more time, but it does feel good to take time off of music, too, because…

• …it's OK if you're not making music all the time

I think it's almost detrimental to your music if you try to stay TOO active with making music. Taking time off of music is essential to your creativity.

I'm writing this at the end of holiday week 2 of my 3-week holiday, and it hasn't been until this weekend I've felt I can fully approach making music again (needed a reset, because after all, ALL my life/work/hobbies/etc are about music).

I feel that if I can put out 3-4 meaningful EPs a year, that's enough.

“Value in art is largely determined by scarcity”.

Also, when you’re not making music, make sure to…

• Listen to music

Due to the nature of my work, silence is luxury, and often right after the workday, I can’t stand music.

However, I’ve found that listening to music is to inspiration what water is to flowers.

On my holiday, for the first two weeks, I’ve mostly been nourishing and recharging myself with music and that’s made me AMPED to make a lot of new stuff.

Things I’ve been listening that I feel have been fueling me: Boards Of Canada, old Amon Tobin, Herbaliser, DJ Krush, Breezewax, old MoWax stuff, Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin…for example.

• Keep your creative brain fuelled by any means (books, games, etc)

I’ve never been that much of a reader, but this year I’ve started reading. Been getting heavily into Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and also several books by horror-ish author Paul Tremblay.

I feel reading (as opposed to movies, for example) makes you do a lot of imagining things in your mind (that’s why I feel books are great), which I think activates the creative side of your brain.

Oh by the way, as for non-fiction, I great music book I’d highly recommend is Bedroom Beats & B-Sides…so good…check it out!

As for games: the last two games I’ve played are Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero, and while they’re quite different, both gave me very creative vibes and thoughts through their great music and overall vibes. The creative brain absorbs this stuff!

Also, after the workday, I feel it’s an absolute must that I have a quick reset to switch my brain from work mode to a more free mode, and to me, riding my bike or hitting the gym is often the one…besides, a healthy body = a healthy mind. And that healthy mind can get that sh*t done!

• Keep art separate from anything else

This may be a bit abstract and hard to explain, but over the years and especially since I started my company and got hecking busy with things, I’ve found that music is that one thing that easily takes the hit when you’re busy/tired/stressed/worried/etc., and I wish it wasn’t that way, and I’ve been trying to tweak my mind to realize that it shouldn’t be that way: creativity/music should live in its own place that shouldn’t get touched by any of the mundane stuff.

Hippy-ish or not, I feel music – if you have that gift, that is – is this one flower you should be watering no matter what. Don’t let it get shadowed by things that shouldn’t be shadowing it, because it doesn’t deserve that.

The moments of making music/art are precious and fragile…so protect them! (…and note to self: do not check those work emails all the time, esp. when making music!)

• Find new drums!

Let's face it: esp. in DNB/jungle, there's TOO much of the old stuff still circulating! Finding fresh drums is invigorating for your productions – and the genre.

By far, the best sample packs for drums all year for me were the ones by Barry Beats.

• Weird is good

If you find yourself thinking that your music is weird…congratulations! That's a good thing.

You don't have to adhere to the norm, because TBH often the predictable norm music can be quite boring.

• Go by the gut feeling

This applies to labels, collabo stuff, song ideas…weird or not, your gut feeling is right most of the time.

• Idea-making and music-making sessions should be separate

There are moments for making music and making sounds.

The latter often leads to former. Don’t always expect yourself to get music done – that often takes ideas/sounds. Both are equally valuable.

• Revisiting old gear or plugins

I’ll be honest, this is quite often a source of inspiration to me. I already have too much gear and too many plugins, and sure enough I don’t know them all to the fullest extent. Sometimes I just pull out something I realize I don’t know well enough and I start learning it, and hey, once again that’ll lead into some new sounds and inspiration.

Quite often it’s a synth; the latest old new synth I’ve been getting into is Aalto synth by Madrona Labs…it’s wonderful! Will be looking into their Kaivo, which sounds amazing.

The latest processing plugin I re-discovered is Boz Digital Lab’s Transgressor 2, which lets you EQ and level the transient and sustain parts of a sound (great for mixing drums).

• It’s ok to own a lot of gear and plugins

There’s been times when I’ve kind of been against this and felt that a minimal approach would be best, but my bottom line is that as long as it all inspires you and makes you make more music, it’s absolutely fine.

Once in my past there was a moment when I sold all my gear and only kept a laptop, but what do you know, from there I started slowly buying it all back. I guess I just love having a lot of stuff, as you get to kind of re-visit it all, and having a lot (while it’s not necessary!) can be a source of inspiration as switching between gear etc avoids boredom (which the human mind is super prone to).

This week, I’ll be acquiring another sampler thingy, the Polyend Tracker.

• So yeah, trying out new stuff is great (and you don’t always have to buy it)

The best “free” thing all year to me was ZebraCM synth by u-He. While you cannot buy it, you can get it if you buy any new issue of Computer Music or subscribe to it. We used this in our collabo project, and I feel the wavetables sound really good for my bass needs especially.

•  …so do stuff like try convolution reverb on drums

This may be a bit unorthodox, but I’ve been trying a convolution reverb on some drums, and it can add an interesting tone/space for bland drums and just make it sound much juicier (just keep it short). While I’ve been using Melda’s paid multiband convolution for it, it seems they have a free version, so try that out!

• Reading about music stuff does get the creative juices flowing

I love the aforementioned Computer Music mag, and if you’ve never read it, I’d highly suggest it!

• Do you need that high-frequency exciter?

Ever since I’ve started using a really steep high shelf with ProQ3, doing it from around 7K and up, I’ve been using less and less high-frequency exciters. Try it!

• Keep in touch with similar-minded musical friends

I’ll be honest: most people in my circle have to do with music somehow. While I’m a bit of a hermit to an extent, I’ve recently sort of reunited with some friends of mine that I hadn’t seen for a while, and it can definitely be a creativity boost to hear from them and just stay in touch with people that you resonate with.

A lot of us are studio hermits, haha, and synergy, just like in collaborations, shouldn’t be underestimated.

Well, that’s it!

I don’t have an amazing sentence to wrap this all up, so I’ll just say, thanks for reading and I hope you had a great 2021 and that your 2022 will be full of success and productive vibes.

Keep on trucking :-)