A goal alone won’t get you where you want to go with your music career. So what else does it take? Here are 5 tips to make sure you absolutely crush your music goals in 2023.
Watch if you’re ready to take your music career in your own hands 2023!
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Audio Transcript: Secrets to Success for Producers in 2023
Lukas
Welcome to Boomcast, the official podcast from Boom Box.io. I’m @MusicbyLukas.
Fabio
And I’m Fabio from Noize. Hi. Boom Box is a collaboration tool to provide a connection point for musicians, producers and engineers to share, store and synergize creativity.
Lukas
And to enter for your chance to win $500 in studio gear, plug ins, whatever you want for your studio. All you have to do is subscribe and comment below. What are your three New Year’s resolutions? We are talking about how to reach your New Year’s goals, and how to make 2023 the year that you actually reach them. And you actually make a big change in your career because this happens all the time where you get that little bit of burnout or you’re inspired and you lose that inspiration. And yeah, I’m excited to dove into this with you about how you can really make this year impactful.
Fabio
I mean, what do you think the things that people should be doing or starting to do this year, in this new year, in this technological revolution, social media revolution? Qhat do you think it is that people should be doing? You’re the expert.
Lukas
Right? I think the biggest thing is to not just double down on what you’re already doing, because I think that’s what most artists are going to do. They’re just going to kind of be like, “I need to work harder, I need to go harder” etc., etc. But they’re going to do the same inputs, so they’re going to get the same output.
You have to do different inputs to get a different output. And so, I think we have to kind of push ourselves out of our comfort zone a little bit and maybe do things like, for example, if you haven’t collaborated before, maybe it’s time to try a collab. If you’re doing everything yourself, and you’re, you know, you’re burning out, maybe it’s time to find a community or some help or something like this.
If you’re kind of closing yourself off and you’re just working on your own. You know you’re doing it again. You know, the problem is, I think a lot of times people don’t have that supportive community. I hear a lot of times from people they’re saying things like, you know, they don’t have friends that like their style of music or no one in their country likes it, their parents are hard on them, they’re in school. Basically. It’s like them against the world almost. And I think this year to make things different, like finding that supportive community would be really important. And then also, like, I think we should break down as well: What’s some ways that you can really reach more of your goals?
I know we were talking before the podcast and you were talking about how people have so many goals and how to break those down maybe into like a few or like the most important ones. Why is that so important?
Fabio
So I think we do this as humans, right? We reach January and we think to ourselves, I’m going to go to the gym. I’m not going to drink. I’m going to, you know, and then the music will be like, I’m going to make 17 songs a week, you know? And it’s the same thing.
And we give ourselves too much at once; too much on our plate. And the problem is you’re setting yourself up for failure entirely, right? And not that failure was a bad thing, because we learn from our mistakes. But if it happens too soon, that’s why most New Year’s resolutions end by February, something like that. I’m pretty sure that’s the actual data on that. So take it step by step. I love what you were saying before. Make it maybe make a list about things that you haven’t done that are uncomfortable for you. And you say to yourself, “I’m going to tackle three of those things that I can.” Because once you achieve the three things that are potentially easiest for you to achieve as well, it’s still uncomfortable. You build momentum and then you do another three and then you do another thing before you know you’ve done so much. And you need to have fun with it, too. Just there’s times where it’s going to be hard work, of course, but ultimately you’ve got to be patient too.
Lukas
And I think if you, let’s say, you have three goals (you obviously you can have more). So let’s say you can have 20, 50, whatever you want, but like you’re saying, you want to break down which ones are my tackling first and which ones make sense to go after first. So I think what’s also really important is to break down those goals into subgoals.
So like let’s say your goal is that you want to start posting three times a week on Instagram in 2023. Well, you’re going to need some subgoals like: what kind of what kind of stuff you can post. Yeah, what, how are you going to film it? Who are your references, your inspiration? What time are you going to film?
What are captions going to look like? Are you going to do thumbnails? And it sounds like a lot, but it’s more like having that main goal up on top and then having little questions you need to answer having little checkboxes with little items.
And then also, like I said, having that supportive community because you need a place where you can go because you’re not going to have all the answers and you can’t expect just to watch a bunch of tutorials and get all the answers. You need people you can go to and ask and communicate with who are also doing what you’re doing to get ideas and to bounce things off of.
Fabio
You’re planning the plan, which I really like. I think sometimes we dive in headfirst, and I like to use the gym as an analogy quite a lot because, you know, you set up these goals, you go to the gym and “I’m going to train for a marathon”. You push yourself so, so, so, so hard, but you don’t necessarily have the education, the planning, or the strategy behind you.
And strategy is a scary word. Strategy makes everything sound corporate and be like, “Oh, no, I’m in the creative industry, man. I’m just with that. I just go with the ebb and flow, right?” Yeah. Fortunately, those people who are going with the ebb and flow who are very successful, there’s a lot of strategy behind what’s going on, right?
They might just might not be sharing it. Right. So plan the plan, have the strategy. And it doesn’t have to be a mind map on your wall with a thousand Post-it notes, right? Get the notes app on your phone. Do what you said. I love that. Break it down to three. How often are you going to post? What are you going to post about and who you are your references?
00:05:27:02 – 00:05:46:06
Lukas
Go from there. Right. And I think another thing that would be really important, too, is also to balance the different types of focuses for your goals, because let’s say I said come up with three goals out of your 20 that you’re going to really focus on. They might have all three of those goals be music production related.
And the only thing about this is let’s say you work on those three goals for the first quarter of 2023. Well, you and you completely neglect, let’s say, social media. The problem with that is you could just make this amazing couple tracks up until March, but then you’re going to have no one there to listen to them.
An you cannot – contrary to what a lot of people believe – you cannot depend on a label or someone else to all of a sudden market you and for all these people to find your music. And you can’t, you can’t even necessarily just throw money behind it, like, “Oh, I’m going to put all this money behind an ad and I’m going to post on Instagram.” It doesn’t work like that. So I feel like what’s also really important is to have a balance of what those goals are. So maybe you have one that’s music production related and you have one that is social media related, and you have one that’s maybe organization related or like even mental health. And that’s another really important one that we should touch on too, is talking about how important mental health is to have. And you were talking about it too, with regards to, you know, not going overboard with having like all these goals on your plate: that is mental health related. It’s like really not putting yourself in that burnout situation.
Fabio
Absolutely. I think people see social media as a very 2D construct where it’s like, well, “I just have to post my video, I have to post my photo of myself and write a caption.” It’s just it, it’s so much deeper than that. It’s people commenting on your material. It’s you commenting on these messages going back and forth.
I think people still think of it as like a poster, as a billboard, and to a degree, yeah, sure it is. But there’s a deeper level to it. And this is the way that we socialize. Right. And don’t don’t try and find that because you’re just going to lose out. It doesn’t mean that face to face connection isn’t important. And I do think that’s where the magic happens. Right? But face to face connections like this would never happen if it wasn’t for our work in social media. Don’t be scared of it. And also, I think the other thing is, and I think this is a really important point and I think some people assume, “Oh, thi is so easy for you and Lukas to say, you guys, I know you’re so good at it.” Just like we’ve been doing this a long, long, long time. And when I look back at some of my first videos with me, I’m like, oh, wow. But it’s so nice to go back and be like, you know what? I was once a beginner.
00:08:09:10 – 00:08:26:12
Lukas
One of the funniest moments is – Lauren showed this to me because she was clearing out like an old hard drive. And in one of my first videos, I forgot my own name. So introducing myself and I’m like, Hey, it’s blank. Like, that’s how that’s the level of how far I think when I looked at that, I went, Wow, have I come a long way? Because now things just click like this and I’m still learning. But I mean, like the difference in between. Now I can sit in front of a camera and just go, but definitely all my first videos were scripted out point by point. So if that’s what it takes and again, you don’t have to do scripted, you don’t have to talk in videos. You can do videos where it’s just a video of you at your studio. You can do all sorts of different types of videos. You don’t have to speak, or dance or do any of the types of things that you see maybe us or other people do. But you know, it’s okay to start easy. It’s okay to, to have like if you are talking in videos, to have a very scripted out bullet point thing and get yourself there before you can go off script.
Fabio
Absolutely. Yeah. Just set yourself up, plan the plan, strategize. I think another issue that I come across with a lot of people who I tell to start a social media is, “I’m too old.” There’s two things here. They seem too old. It’s easier for these kids to learn, right? So I’m going to go to the second one first, which is that “I’m too old.” And I think sometimes when people are saying that, they’re like, why? Because they’re thinking to themselves, well, why? Let’s say they’re 30, 40. “Why would a 20 year old who uses social media be into what I’m into?” You don’t think of the 30 and 40 year olds who use social media, just 20 year olds and just Gen Z, but that’s not the case.
The other theory I have is people would say, “Oh, but younger people are just better at these things.”
Lukas
Sure.
Fabio
Nah, they just got more time on their hands. Remember when you were 18, you had more time when you had less responsibilities, so you would play around with an app and yeah, ultimately you would connect with the media too. But there were so many people who are so successful of all ages from people backgrounds in all industries and stuff.
Lukas
I see Grandma and Grandpa accounts, just totally crushing it, doing different sorts of things: comedy therapy, whether they’re playing guitar, poetry, etc., etc..
Fabio
Real estate.
Lukas
Yeah, luckily that’s not in my feed too much. But yeah, it’s like, I think that that is definitely regardless of your age, you only have one life. And so if it’s something you’re passionate about and you want to do it, you should do it. And the thing is, people will connect with you on an emotional level. This is so cool that we don’t live – and this is off topic – but we don’t live in an era anymore where you – and maybe some people disagree with me – but we don’t live in an era anymore where your looks are dependent on your success. Like I think back in the day it was just so much more like: oh, you have to look like this. You have to follow this mold. And now we’re seeing so much more creativity and people creating these niche audiences that lead to them being able to make this their career. But I do have one point that I wanted to bring up, which was a little hack, which was how to kind of get everything in motion for your music.
And I think this is a good way to do your goals, which is: I think for the beginning of the year that producers in 2023 should take an audit of all their current tracks and organize them into a few different categories. You can have one that is going to be ones you basically take all the tracks that you’re not sure how to finish, but they’re good, and put them in a clump and say those are going to be sent out for collabs.
That’s number one. The ones that you know how to finish. And you’re like, “I definitely want to finish that. I’m feeling inspired to do it.” Put those in a clump, in a folder where it’s like,”Those are the ones I want to try to finish myself.” The ones that are finished, get those sent off, get them sent off to labels or who or whatever else you’re trying to do with them. Mastering engineer, whatever you’re doing. And then the ones that aren’t that great, put them on the shelf or later, or even take pieces of them away. Like, for example, if there’s a good melody, but everything else sucks yeah. Take that melody, export as many files, but basically audit all your tracks and put yourself in this mode where you start getting things done.
You start putting things out. So that’s one hack I have. Do you have a hack?
Fabio
I do have a hack. And I got your hack inspired. Something that I always preach, which is two sides to this coin. If you’re a producer who’s found themselves maybe working on a small number of tracks, let’s say a total of five tracks over one year, the issue is that you’re not making enough tracks. Right? And that means you’re stuck on these five tracks. And therefore what you need to be doing is making a lot of tracks as quickly as possible. To rediscover new sounds, to increase the speed of your workflow as well.
And then also look at it from the other side. If you’re someone who’s got 50 tracks sitting there and they’re all unfinished. You’ve got to go the other way round. You’re going to be like, “I need to think about finishing some of these tracks.” Because that’s just another discipline that you’re adding. So you’re either adding the discipline where you like, “I’m not going to hang on to the past and I need to discover new things so I can make more mistakes and learn more from the production process”.
And the other one is, “I need to be disciplined in actually finishing some tracks rather than getting bored.” Because you do get bored quite quickly. The magic happens in the first 2 hours. The longer you work on – every track I’ve released, and this is going to sound cynical, but every track I released, I hate it, and that’s how I know it is a good track, and how I know I’ve put my heart and soul into it. And then after releasing it, I wait about a month and I fall back in love with it.
Lukas
I guess that’s a sign, is it? You haven’t heard it in months and you play it again. You’re like, DAMN.
Fabio
Yeah.
Lukas
Like, wow.
Fabio
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just want to thank BoomBox.io for making this collaboration possible and sponsoring this podcast, The BoomCast, and Bringing myself @noize_London and @MusicbyLukas together.
Lukas
And don’t forget to go to Boombox.io if you want to start collabing and making some music. It’s time for the Out-of-the-box question, something completely off topic. So Fabio, what’s your dream destination to travel to and why?
Fabio
I mean, it would be really cool to go to Mount Everest. It would be really, really, really cool.
Lukas
Is that a personal challenge for yourself, to try to get up there?
Fabio
It probably will happen. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
Lukas
Have you ever climbed a mountain?
Fabio
No, no. Never.
Lukas
And you just choose Everest immediately. This is so Fabio.
Fabio
Yeah, I’m going. Tomorrow.
Lukas
Like, you’re on the hike. And people are like, “Wow, what mountains have you climbed so far?” And you’re like, “None.”
Fabio
I walked up the hill down the road a couple of times. It wasn’t that hard. And I think this is you know, this goes hand-in-hand with my hypocrisy. And what I was saying earlier about “don’t set too many goals that are too difficult to achieve”. Here I am. Yeah.
Lukas
Mine – never been there before – but I want to go to New Zealand and I want to go see all of the Lord of the Rings stuff. Yes.
Fabio
That’s a good one. Oh, that’s cool.
Lukas
I’ve got a lot of holes and like, duck, like, really low to the ground.
Fabio
It’s fine for me. I just walk straight in.
Lukas
So what I want to get into then is what are some of your goals for 2023? What are some of mine and how do we plan to reach them? Like, what’s our process? I think that’s a really cool thing for people to know more about.
Fabio
I imagine they’re somewhat similar, but I think it’s about and this sounds ambiguous, but I think it’s about trying to create a deeper connection with the audience and figuring out what that medium is. I think, you know, Instagram is definitely providing us both with a lot of a lot of communication, but how can we actually be with those people face to face?
Fabio
More of Lukas, as you know, or maybe you don’t know through and Lauren through an amazing event. ADE Team MBL and it was amazing to see so many of your followers there and being able to connect also with the deejays and the producers in 2023. And so, you know, I think for me like I’m almost imagining: how could I do something similar? Because that’s something that they’re going to remember forever.
Lukas
What do you see? It’s true. And what do you see that event looking like? Would it be similar to ours where they would be deejaying and demo drops and stuff like that, or would it be different?
Fabio
I think it would probably be because I’m an engineer, you know, I think it would probably be more studio based. Yeah. Walking through mixes, maybe getting other engineers and rather than deejays or producers who are known to engineer. So I think it would be less of a sort of a live show, but more of a live event with sort of mixing mastering and sound design going on.
Lukas
I guess the question then is how do you plan to reach that? So let’s say you set that goal, you say, I’m just going to do this hypothetically. Let’s say you say Summer of next year or maybe ADE. I don’t know if you’re going to plan that event, you’re going to make it happen. What would be some of the ways would you tackle that? Would you write it down on a piece of paper? What’s your goal? How to break it down would you go to Google Docs or would you go to Asana? Like a planning app and break it down the steps?
Fabio
I’m a really big fan of Notion. Got it. So anyone who’s into content creation being creative, why did you just wasn’t, like, organize that life a little bit? Notion is amazing. Has so many free templates not sponsored by Notion or anything, by the way. I’m just obsessed. I think it’s a great tool and it makes you want to be organized because it’s so easy to use.
I think my initial thought of my first actions would be researching other events that I like that have been successful and maybe discovering who the event organizers were behind them. Yeah. And I’ve never thrown an event, so I don’t know the logistics behind it.
I would reach out to some people who have, who have who either want to help me, you know, this is what I mean, right? This is by opening this conversation. Yeah, I know that. You know, hopefully you’re going to I know hopefully you’ll provide me with a bit of insight, but I think it’s just about talking to people who’ve already done it and discovering, you know, the difficulties that I might, might encounter, but also that starts to give me an idea of, you know, how many people realistically, what size, where do I ask if I can sponsor the team and be able to than what’s they going to cost me?
So I think, yeah, but what about you, man? What are your thoughts on it?
Lukas
This year is really impactful for us because we want to launch a record label. Now, this is something similar to what you’re saying or it’s like, well, I’ve never done that before, right? So it is a situation and actually which you said is kind of similar to what I do, which is diving into that research, reaching out to the right people, but also having a lot of fun and brainstorming.
I think that one of the most exciting things about goals is to just kind of brainstorm like crazy, even if you don’t think you’re at that point yet. Like, for example, with the label, like early on I started thinking like, what’s the cover artwork? Going to look like? I don’t know the logistics of the label, and I’m already talking about the cover work, I’m talking about the logo, I’m already talking about color scheme, I’m already talking about music styles, all these kinds of things that are maybe things that you would do later.
Yeah, but in my mind, I need a little bit of that to be able to keep me inspired and keep me excited. And so I think that’s kind of it’s, it’s almost like what you were saying earlier. Maybe you’re working on a bunch of maybe like five tracks that, you know, you need to finish, but you should still if you get an inspiring idea in your head, you should still open a new track and get that out there because you can’t just work on logistics and, and work on those kind of technical things nonstop without letting your creativity out. Otherwise you start to feel like it’s a job and you start to feel a little bit… So that doesn’t become… how I do it is I balance those kinds of things together. Also this year, we’re going to be doing more work with expanding our team with regards to the people that work with us. And that’s going to be a really exciting new experience.
And I’m really hyped about that because we have had a team over the last few years. We’ve been slowly building it, but we still mainly have been doing a lot of the day to day work ourselves, me and Lauren, and now with expanding the team will be able to spend more time doing some of this stuff that we’re really excited about big picture stuff because of the fact that this is a big picture year. I’m feeling very hyped about 2023. I think that it is going to be a year where a lot of people are going to be able to independently create their own living, their own business in music or any kind of creative outlet if they want to.
It’s already been happening – you’ve already seen a lot of people building businesses online on social media or whatever with new niche audiences, but now you’re going to see that even more, I think, because there’s becoming more income sources, more social media platforms are competing to make it better for the creator and getting more bonuses and more people are getting used to, for example, buying products online, buying products on social media, supporting artists online.
And I think that’s just going to continue. And so I’m really hyped for this year.
Fabio
And I also feel that the music industry is getting back on its feet. I think we’ve had a tough past two years and I think everyone should be feeling hopeful about the future and their careers and hopefully use some of this advice. We hope you find it useful to some degree and implement it into your strategy.
Don’t put yourselves under too much pressure. Yeah, enjoy the process and have fun with it. But you know, little discipline goes a long way.
Lukas
I agree. Yeah. And we’re going to be creating more and more videos to help you get there and bringing on like we should maybe say this to, but we’re bringing on a lot of really exciting guests. To be able to help you out there, be able to reach the goals that you want to reach, whether that’s just making music and doing that maybe even as a hobby, or if you’re want to make music your career or you want to like really grow your music business, we’re going to bring it on the people and we tips ourselves to help you get there.
Lukas
With Boombox.io
Fabio
What do people want from their music careers? They want sustainability. They want to be able to make money, they want financial freedom, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So if those are part of your goals, keep watching this podcast because ultimately we’re going to be bringing you all the secrets to help you live your dream.
Lukas
So make sure to comment below what your three New Year’s resolutions are. And don’t forget to subscribe for your chance to win $500 towards your studio.
Fabio
If you want to get in contact with either of us or check out our work, there is a link in the description below. I am at @Noize_London on Instagram.
Lukas
And I’m @MusicbyLukas – and don’t forget to check out at Boombox.io – the Home of collaboration.
Fabio
It’s been a pleasure as always. Peace!