Larry Ohh is a rising star in the music industry, known for his dynamic sound and unique approach to creating catchy tracks. With years of experience under his belt, Larry has successfully navigated the ever-changing landscape of the music business, building a loyal fanbase and earning a reputation as a savvy entrepreneur.
In this podcast, we’ll be delving into Larry’s career trajectory, exploring how he got started in the industry, and sharing his insights on how to make money in music. Whether you’re an aspiring artist looking to break into the scene or a seasoned pro looking for fresh ideas, you won’t want to miss this engaging and informative conversation with Larry Ohh.
LISTEN:
Video Transcript: How to Sell Beats Online w/ Larry Ohh
Fabio
Welcome to Boomcast, the official podcast from Boombox.io.
Lukas
I’m MusicbyLukas
Fabio
And I’m Noize_London
Lukas
Store, collaborate and connect like never before. Boobox.io is the new home of collaboration.
Fabio
Also, don’t forget that every month Boombox is giving away $500 worth of studio equipment.
Lukas
So if you want to win a $500 gift card for your studio, today’s question is which hip-hop artist is your favorite? If you like hip-hop, if you have any favorite rappers comment them down below, or if you don’t like hip hop, comment that as well.
Fabio
Today we have a very special guest producer, content creator, everything, a bit of everything: Larry Ohh
Now, you’ve been around since… I did a little bit of digging here, and I checked when you started your Instagram, which was in 2011.
00;00;49;05 – 00;01;07;22
Lukas
We did a background check on you. Fabio knows some people. [laughs]
Larry Ohh
Pull up some dirt?
Lukas
Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s on your Instagram too, though. Eighteen years of working in FL Studio.
Larry Ohh
Yeah. Yeah. I started out on FL 4. Fruity Loops 4 for it wasn’t FL yet. It was just Fruity Loops
00;01;07;22 – 00;01;30;22
Lukas
The biggest question then right off the bat is what is the biggest difference that has happened in music production from when you very first started to now? Like, what would you say if you could think of any one thing or maybe two things? But what do you think?
Larry Ohh
I mean, on the topic of FL, I think the biggest thing that’s happened is the awareness and the hate has slowly gone away about FL. When I started on FL, back then, I had every friend, every producer that I knew, every engineer that I knew was like, “Yo, you need to get off of Fruity Loops and you need to be pro you. You ain’t going to be a pro with Fruity Loops.” Now it’s like running the industry. It’s the biggest in hip hop right now, in rap music. It’s the biggest DAW, and it’s right up there with EDM as well. It’s between that and Ableton with EDM, and some other genres. That has slowly shifted and it has gone away. There’s still some of that based around vocal production, but I try to put that to rest too on my page. I try to make it a point to talk about that as well. It’s great for vocal production too. It’s gotten a lot better over the years.
Lukas
100%. I mean, whenever I do polls with our audience, to which door do you use and Logic Pro, Ableton, Apple Studio, it’s always Apple Studio’s like 60, 70% like it really is a big time DAW.
Yeah, but I don’t think many people remember, at least not my audience, that it used to be called Fruity Loops, for the most part. Yep.
Fabio
Hold on. Hold on a second. Is it the most used DAW because it’s also the easiest to crack? Let’s be real here.
Larry Ohh
It could be because it’s the easiest to learn and the most User-Friendly.
00;02;51;24 – 00;03;09;03
Lukas
Yes, that’s true.
Fabio
And it’s PC and Mac
Larry Ohh
And is the easiest to get.
Lukas
Yeah, we should have people comment below what kind of DAW they use because that is a good question because there was a point though. It’s really funny. So back before I was like more of a skilled producer when I was still trying to figure out like, how the pros make their mixes sound so good?
00;03;09;09 – 00;03;25;12
Lukas
I would watch people on YouTube and I’d see them using FL studio, and I just had this thing. You know how you kind of, like, trick yourself into thinking that there’s, like, this secret? And I’m like, it’s Apple Studio. Like, that’s how they do it. So I go and I and I partition my Mac back in the day because, you know, you couldn’t have FL studio on Macs.
So I got Windows on my Mac. I added it in there, and then I realized quickly, Oh, it’s not the DAW. And it was actually really hard for me to use Apple Studio as a Logic Pro native user because it’s a completely different experience.
Larry Ohh
Oh, yeah. Coming over from Logic, It’s night and day. I did the opposite. I started out on FL and then I got hired as an engineer in a studio and all he used was Logic. He was like, “Yo, if you’re going to engineer here, I gotta keep it with Logic. So then I can go and I can mix afterwards.” Because he was a videographer as well. So he was getting so much work. He’s like, “I need help in my studio. So you come in, engineer and record, do a little bit of mixing, and, I’ll finish off the mixes.” So I had to learn Logic pretty much, you know, front to back quickly, In order to start working there. So I did the opposite. I love using Logic though. It was great because, at that time, FL wasn’t that great with vocal production. Yeah. So I did a combination.
Fabio
How did you find the switch from FL to Logic? Did it make sense? Because obviously I always find the main thing, switching from one DAW to the other, going between Logic and Ableton, is just remembering the shortcuts.
00;04;33;21 – 00;04;51;18
Lukas
Well, you’re all about the shortcuts, right? You can mix mouse pads and you got all the stuff that helps you with productivity and the workflow?
Larry Ohh
Yeah, yeah. I started these mouse pads a couple of years ago. And I have all the shortcuts for all the DAWs. So that honestly, it helps me once in a while because there’s so many of them that I’ll forget them. But I have my core that I’ve learned and just kind of burned into my memory over the years. But yeah, having that switch going into Logic wasn’t wasn’t too bad, or wasn’t too crazy, because I think like once, you know, a DAW, it’s just a workflow and like you said, Fabio, the shortcuts, that’s really what it’s about.
And the track system, the way everything’s tracked out and Logic is more like ProTools where those tracks actually make sense, where in FL studio, when you go into the playlist, they don’t necessarily correspond. I mean, now you can link them into the mixer, but they don’t necessarily correspond with the mixer wherein in Logic or ProTools, all those tracks on the left hand side going up and down, they correspond.
00;05;35;10 – 00;05;54;28
Fabio
Do you ever think that you’re going to commit fully to one DAW or are you happy sort of bouncing between the two?
Larry Ohh
Right now I’m just committed to FL, but I had to be kind of split then. I think I was just in like such a learning phase then, where I just wanted to touch everything.
And I was working in studios, I was working with different producers, and I was kind of forced into learning a little bit here and there. But FL Studio has always been my main thing. And from then, I started using… what else did this guy use? He used Nuendo, which is Cubase. Right?
00;06;12;15 – 00;06;45;13
So I learned that as well for vocal production because he was between Mac and Windows. So in Mac, in his studio, he was using Logic. And then when he switched to Windows, we were using Nuendo and Cubase, and I got to learn that. And then I started using Cubase in my studio as well. When I was doing vocal production and I was booking clients, I started using Cubase, and then slowly I would like to bounce those vocals out into FL, because I could mix better info personally.
I could get a cleaner mix in FL, but the recording process just wasn’t flowing correctly for me. It wasn’t flowing as nice as those other DAWs.
Lukas
So if you guys don’t know Larry. Larry has this catchphrase, like in all of his posts on all of his marketing, it’s always, “You get me.” So that’s what I wanted to know: where did that come from?
Larry Ohh
So it was started as an inside joke. I don’t know if you’ve seen my bro Peter, and I’ve done a ton of music with him, and we’ve put out countless projects and we would be hanging out in the studio together a lot, watching videos and off time doing music, and we stumbled across, you know, the guy, the “man’s not hot” guy. Oh, you might know he’s from the UK. He has his own variety show, right? Yeah. It’s like yeah, it’s like a big, big variety show where he does all these different characters and he would say it all the time. With this one specific character. It was like an Uber driver character.
And we just latched on to it and it went from him saying it kind of like more proper, like, “you get me you, get me” into us just going back and forth with “you get me.” And then it just started popping up in everyday conversations, inside joke. From there I started like just sprinkling it in my social media, like not even saying it in my content, just putting it in the description.
I would go to shows and people would start saying it to me. I’m like, this is like so random but hilarious at the same time. So I just started putting in all my content in some way, just trying to be funny with it.
Lukas
Yeah. And that’s what I think that’s like, naturally. Yeah. And it’s really something good for branding.I mean, it’s something people think about when they think about you. Also, just all the stuff that you do, the mouse pads, those are things I think of. Like, you with FL Studio, there’s certain things that I think of when I think of Larry Ohh. I think that’s really important for producers to have or if they, if that’s something they want to do, which is to build a fan base, which so many do, and especially to be more of like an influencer, it’s very important to be able to have your key elements that that stand out.
Were those things that you thought of? Because “you get me” you said it was kind of just it kind of just happened and flew into the content. Has that always been something for you where things just kind of happened as they happened? Or did you have anything where you kind of planned out like, this is going to be my brand?
Larry Ohh
Yeah. There were some things that were definitely calculated. I think it’s a combination of things that happen naturally. Also having that in the back of my mind: the power of branding. So I would always look out for certain things that would catch on naturally, that I could use in branding like that. And then my logo that I’ve used forever. I recently just kind of switched it up, especially my default was the same default for like like six years straight.
Right? So that just happened naturally too. That came from a real photoshoot where a friend of mine turned it into a cartoonish looking thing. And then I just used it. It wasn’t even supposed to be a logo. Happened to be my logo. I would always have it spinning in at the beginning of videos. It was inspired by Gary V, he was putting out these videos around that time where he was putting those like different logos in the very beginning mixed with the sound.
So from there I started thinking, Oh, I can mix this logo and have it be its own like I don’t know, what do you call it? Like a stinger almost. Is that what it’s called?
Lukas
Yeah. Like how Netflix, you know, has the [bong noise]
Larry Ohh
Exactly. Like NBC, how NBC has the [theme jingle] and then the logo pops up: a visual with an audio branding. So it happened naturally. But at the same time, it was calculated in a way where I knew I could use this for branding and it would work.
00;10;20;14 – 00;10;41;13
Fabio
I want to know what was going on at the beginning of your journey. How you set off and you’re still here. Well, okay, I know you started earlier than 2011, but you started Instagram in 2011. That’s 12 years in the game and you’ve got real dedication and you’ve shown how much success you can have from that.
00;10;41;13 – 00;10;45;07
Fabio
So how did you start off? What were your intentions?
00;10;45;11 – 00;11;05;24
Larry Ohh
I, you know, I always wanted to be a music producer. In high school I would listen to beats. I would drown out the vocals for the first ten times I listened to a song. I wouldn’t even wouldn’t even hear the vocals for a while. I would just hone in on the beats. I would just like highly focused on the bass and the music behind everything.
00;11;06;03 – 00;11;21;11
Larry Ohh
And then I would always try to, think like, oh, damn. I think I can make this. I think I want to learn how to make this. I got a reverse engineer on how they’re doing this. I got to find out because I’m getting such a crazy feeling from this music that I’ve been listening to lately.
00;11;21;11 – 00;11;44;10
Larry Ohh
You know, around that time in high school that I just became obsessed with learning how to do it. From there, I went on the Internet, searched on how to make beats, and I think, you know, one of like you said earlier, probably one of the first things that popped up was Fruity Loops, FL Studio. And I got it and I was determined to just figure out how to do it.
00;11;44;17 – 00;12;03;23
Larry Ohh
And from there, I guess the overall goal, the goal at that time was to get placements to, you know, to make it big at that time. There weren’t really any content creators at that time. It was early on, even for YouTube. It was kind of early on, right? So there wasn’t even that much information on YouTube about FL Studio.
00;12;03;23 – 00;12;23;23
Larry Ohh
So this is how I know that I was obsessed with it because I hated school. Normally, if it’s stuff like book stuff at school, I can’t sit there and read it. My brain will go off in a million different directions. But for some reason with music production, I sat there for hours and I would read these forums on how to do certain things in FL studio and I just became obsessed with it.
00;12;23;26 – 00;12;44;18
Fabio
I feel the same way about music production, but I feel like I also have some sort of ADHD. I do find it hard to read. I’ll force myself to do it, but when you’re sitting there and you’re making a record, there are so many things to think about and there’s so many new moments of inspiration when you’re in that flow state that your mind is able to bounce between all these ideas and somehow bring them together.
And I would say the same as you. I went into production full time, about ten years ago, and I remember it was the first time I was ever dedicating hours a day to reading and researching and downloading, and prior to seeing whether it was mixing synthesizers or editing vocals. And I was like, Man, if if I had this when I was like 12 years old, maybe I’d be like a virtuoso.
00;13;11;29 – 00;13;32;15
Larry Ohh
Now it’s wild. And you just realize things about yourself, about how like, I don’t know. I think the same thing with my son, too, right now. I can see that already in him. He’s seven and I can already see that. I could see that he has that type of personality where if it doesn’t fully lock him in and interest him, he’s like, I don’t want to, I don’t want to deal with it.
But if it’s something that he’s interested in, like he knows it from the back side to side. He knows everything about it. It took a while for me to find something like that. You know, I found that kind of later in life. And a lot of people start music at a very, very young age: six, seven, eight, ten. Me I started when I was like 17 or 18.
00;13;52;11 – 00;14;06;19
Lukas
What do you think helped you business-wise? Because obviously you learn how to make music. You got better at music, you perfected your music, like, what were the next steps that helped you be able to do it full time? And what kind of helps you still do it today?
00;14;06;22 – 00;14;29;06
Larry Ohh
First thing that started me with making it full time and actually paying some bills with it was engineering and running my own studio. So yeah, I wanted to be just like a music producer. I wanted to make beats, but I would always try to find… You know, reality hit me where I was like, all right, I’m not going to be able to sell enough beats to make a full living.
00;14;29;06 – 00;14;49;10
Larry Ohh
So is there something in music that I also love to do that I could make money with and still be happy? Because me and a normal job never mixed, I hated it. I worked a decent amount of jobs. I have worked since I was 14 years old. But I got to a point where I was like, “This ain’t it.” For my whole life, I’m not doing this.
I can’t do it. I have to do something with this music to make money. There’s got to be a way that I can make money with it. So early on, it was running my own studio and booking clients, going to shows, getting clients and networking. Word of mouth spread around. And then that made it full time for me.
And from there, I could also sell beats because I had artists coming in that were rapping and singing on other beats, and I could pitch my beats to them while they were in the studio. I created great relationships, sold a lot of beats locally, and had a fully booked clientele. A lot of my studio was full as I wanted it to be because I didn’t like having tons of random people in.
But I was full time enough to where I was paying bills with music, and that’s how it really started. From there, it shifted more when I started, and then around that time I started doing more social media stuff because I was like, “All right, how can I expand this so I can only cap my price?” It’s so much with local artists where, all right, I’ll hit a ceiling moneywise and yeah, I’m paying bills, but like I want more freedom and I want to do more of what I love to do.
I love engineering, I love this stuff. But then from there, I kind of found my passion with teaching and teaching music producers that kind of about the whole thing kind of shifted from me wanting placements and studio clients as my audience, and it started being music producers.
00;16;15;29 – 00;16;35;29
Fabio
It’s interesting you say that. I think we had a very similar past. I also was working a few jobs and I was just like, “This is not very productive. How can I be in the studio all the time?” And then, I think if you produce, then a byproduct of production is engineering, because you kind of have to do it. But some people just can’t be bothered, right?
So you take that out of their hands, you engineer, you start charging money for it and then go, “Oh, not only am I making money from mixing and mastering, now I’m also recording. I’m also getting better at it because I’m doing it every day.” And then as a result, your own music gets better and you’re in this like awesome productivity too.
And just the same as you. There I mean, I was doing that for a while and then I was like, How can I… Right now I’m only reaching an area of London, right? Or part of London. How can I globalize my business? And then started Noize.I never set out to be a content creator, though I don’t know if you felt the same, but I never set out to be. I don’t like the word influencer.
I like the word content creator because influencer has a bad rap these days.
00;17;19;06 – 00;17;20;17
Larry Ohh
It does. Yeah.
00;17;22;20 – 00;17;35;19
Fabio
And it’s funny how now I’m still able to do the things I love. I am a music engineer, but content creation definitely takes up most of my time. Do you find it’s the same with your day today?
00;17;35;26 – 00;17;54;27
Larry Ohh
Yeah, 100%. Because I think everybody has to be a content creator now. So even I know that our main thing is content creation. But in order to run the business and hold that attention. Yeah, like, content creation is always up there on the list.
00;17;55;07 – 00;18;16;11
Lukas
Yeah. And that’s why it’s so important that it’s you’re doing content that you actually enjoy and, and like to do and not just, you know, doing stuff you think you have to do or whatever you get. But it takes a while, obviously, to find your thing and the thing that works for you. And I know we all have a little bit of different content styles, which is cool because they all work and we all have success from doing different things, which is really fun.
And I know there are some, there are some big questions I actually want to get into, Fabio probably wants to get into with you, like how to sell your beats, things that could help producers be able to have a career in music because you’ve just been doing it for such a long time.
00;18;29;03 – 00;18;42;12
Fabio
We just want to take a moment to thank Boombox for this collaboration. Don’t forget to check out Boombox.io in the show notes or the link in the description below, but now is our time for the out the box question. Lucas, what have you got for us?
00;18;42;19 – 00;18;58;23
Lukas
Yes, the out of the box question for today, for you guys and for you guys who are watching or listening to the podcast is: which music genre would you produce if you weren’t producing the one that’s your main genre now? So, Larry, if you weren’t producing hip hop, what would be the genre that you think you would go for?
00;18;58;25 – 00;18;59;25
Larry Ohh
I’ll say EDM.
00;19;00;09 – 00;19;04;03
Lukas
Okay. Any particular style of EDM? House music?
00;19;04;03 – 00;19;11;26
Larry Ohh
I mean, I like this. Yeah, I like the EDM stuff that’s the most similar to hip hop. A lot of heavy bass, like future bass stuff.
00;19;13;16 – 00;19;20;14
Larry Ohh
Yeah. Anything trap related. I love it. I just love it the way its just like the heart beats.
00;19;20;14 – 00;19;27;10
Lukas
There’s some stuff when I hear it and I’m like, how the hell did they do that? Like, it’s just like, wild. Yeah, it’s wild. What about you?
00;19;27;12 – 00;19;37;23
Fabio
I would love to do some cinematic Hans Zimmer style music, but only because I think it would be so cool to conduct an orchestra and a live recording session.
00;19;37;27 – 00;19;55;01
Lukas
Sick! Yeah. When you see those producers who can, like, literally, like, just play any instrument by ear and can conduct in just like, just everywhere all over the place. You’re just, like, “Ahhh,”
For me, mine’s different. Mine would be I think I would actually like to produce Lo-Fi. I find it to be really chill. I like to listen to it while I work.
I don’t know if you guys ever listen to it just to, like, chill out. Like, there’s no lyrics. It’s really easy to just not, like because sometimes when there’s lyrics and music, I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes I’ll find myself. Well, Larry, you said you don’t even listen to the lyrics, but I find myself getting caught up. So I do like Lo-Fi.
00;20;11;29 – 00;20;12;10
Larry Ohh
Awesome.
00;20;12;15 – 00;20;33;01
Lukas
So let’s get into the big question that we have for you, which is basically to anyone out there who wants to know how to sell beats, because I think that’s a good topic to talk about because we haven’t covered that with anyone else before. What are some strategies that you would have for someone, especially someone maybe who doesn’t really have a social media following yet?
00;20;33;02 – 00;20;48;15
Larry Ohh
Yeah, I guess. I guess it’s like anything else. Like how people sell products right now, You’ve got to be, and we just mentioned this a few minutes ago, you have to be a content creator. You just have to be. That’s the world we’re living in now. You’re not going to sell beats unless you’re creating some sort of content.
And the days of putting up a piece of art visualizer are done, right?. I think we all can agree on that. Those days are over. So it has to be interesting. It has to gain some sort of attention. I think you have to make sure that you’re on all platforms. Pick one that’s like your main and then kind of spread and repurpose content across the other ones.
Pick one that you’re really comfortable with everybody. A lot of people think that they have to be 100% on every single platform. You can just pick one, but pick one that’s really relevant. You know, like don’t pick one that is dying out like that. Snapchat is going to be my new platform to gain some attention.
So pick a decent one that has a lot of attention on it and run with it.
00;21;42;25 – 00;21;55;21
Lukas
What do you think about producers… because I hear this one all the time and I have my own opinions on it, but a lot of producers are scared to put their music out there. Because they think people are going to steal it. And that’s like a common one. And I’m just curious what you think about that.
00;21;55;28 – 00;22;14;27
Larry Ohh
Don’t worry about it, right? I know it’s hard to think like if I mean, if people are stealing your music, that’s a good thing. That means that some people want it. So if you should thrive to get anywhere, you should push towards getting your music stolen. If it’s not getting stolen, that means nobody wants it.
So if your music’s getting stolen, if your beats are getting ripped off of YouTube, that means people want it. That means there’s a product there for you to sell. I’m pretty sure you could triple down on that and plug it.
00;22;27;14 – 00;22;52;10
Fabio
Companies have the same approach not where they factor in people cracking their software into their price point, because if loads of people are cracking a software means loads those people are using, it means it’s good. Eventually people are going to buy because they’re going to get fed up with, you know, the serial keys. But yeah, 100%. And there was a story recently of this producer who just put out a J Cole type beat.
And then J Cole posted about this, and he was a guy that did a whole record. And then just gave it to him as a present. So you just never know what opportunities you’re going to create. We can’t live in a time now where we have where we feel protective about.
And it’s the same in the dance music scene, right? You can create a banger, send it to a DJ. That DJ might play it for six months and then not sign it right. Right. And if you’re hanging on to that one, hoping it going to sign, it’s going to sign Keep playing it, and you’re focusing on that rather than making another banger and supply right.
You know, then don’t be protective of your art, have fun with it, and just realize that if it’s getting attention, if it’s getting played, that’s the best position you could be in.
00;23;37;10 – 00;23;51;03
Lukas
And that’s one of the coolest things about reels and TikTok and stuff too, though, is they’re so short. Like, I’ve really been pushing artists to like, yeah, if you want to remix a track, do a ten second remix to a 15 second remix, put it out there, see what happens if people like it? Then you can release it, you know?
00;23;51;03 – 00;24;01;10
Lukas
And you know, if someone’s going to steal like a five second beat, that’s not really a thing you need to be worried about anyway. But yeah, that’s a really good point. Fabio and Larry, that’s.
00;24;01;10 – 00;24;13;28
Larry Ohh
The world we’re living in, right? Everybody wants everything for free, so you just got to give it to them for free. Until you can, until you figure out that you have a product. Yeah, that’s worth selling.
00;24;14;08 – 00;24;30;08
Lukas
That’s what people wanted. Really. Good point. And that’s another question I want to ask you actually, is how can artists negotiate for the price that they’re worth? How do they know what they’re worth? How can they, you know, if they’ve never sold a beat before, what should they do for their first time?
00;24;30;15 – 00;24;46;09
Larry Ohh
That’s a tough one because, I mean, everybody thinks, you know, that they everybody wants to sell it for more than what they think it’s worth at the beginning anyways. That’s always been tough for me to like when I was like because right now I’m not really out there trying to sell beats on a day to day basis. Right.
00;24;46;10 – 00;25;04;06
Larry Ohh
But when I was, I, oh, you know, I had beatstars to count. I had beat up on YouTube. I had some beats on MySpace. And that’s like where the first place I was starting to post my beats was MySpace.
So like the only place they were was on MySpace. I wish I could find them.
00;25;08;20 – 00;25;11;11
Lukas
MySpace music was the best. Yeah. I loved it.
00;25;11;25 – 00;25;20;09
Fabio
Everything about MySpace was good. I might get onto chat after this. And ask it to code me MySpace so I can relaunch it earlier.
00;25;20;09 – 00;25;39;27
Lukas
Actually, this is a fun fact and I have no way to prove this because this was back in the day when you weren’t taking like screenshots and there, you know, like, it just it was just like a long time ago, but I was in the top 100 most popular MySpace music pages on the trending charts for hip hop beats back a long time ago.
00;25;40;07 – 00;26;02;13
Lukas
And actually my account got hacked back in the day and someone deleted it and that and I tried to restart it and it was like a whole thing. But that was back in the day when there was no two-factor authentication. When I had my password it was probably something like ‘password’. But the cool thing was because it was on because it made it to those charts, I actually was able to sell my beats.
00;26;02;13 – 00;26;24;12
Lukas
And I remember my dad had his own small business and basically they took the contract from their Microsoft Word for his business and just changed it out to like my DBA, my small business name. And then I would like literally I would mail out contracts and have them send back a mailed signed cashier’s check back to me for the beat.
And then I would send them the beat by email so that those are just some old school methods right there before I Beatstars. But maybe it was around back then but that’s how I was hustlin.
00;26;36;28 – 00;26;54;14
Larry Ohh
Back then it was around click. Back then it was soundclick. I think that was like one of the only ones around. I remember there were a couple of producers that were big that are still around now, I think Superstar. Oh, he was big on SoundCloud. It’s crazy to see how like some of those guys, a couple of them are still around.
00;26;54;19 – 00;27;09;25
Lukas
It’s funny though, because I was selling beats and I didn’t even like it. They were good beats melodically and stuff, but I didn’t know what chain compression was. I was just in Logic and I was just using the stock plugins and I was just making melodies, throwing in some drums in there and it worked. You know.
00;27;10;00 – 00;27;27;03
Fabio
When you’re starting out and actually like you’re way more naive about your approach and you don’t get into a lot of detail, you do have a lot more fun with it and you are more productive as a result. And the deeper you get and the more you realize that there is to learn, you spend less time actually just enjoying the music making process.
00;27;27;09 – 00;27;42;15
Fabio
But then there’s also part of you that gets bored of that, right? And you kind of have this desire to learn more and that’s why you do. But then you realize, oh, this is a steep learning curve. It’s going to be a while. Did you feel that way, Larry, when you started?
00;27;42;16 – 00;28;05;17
Larry Ohh
Yeah. Yeah, it just sparked something like when you guys both mentioned that, because of very specifically the project that I did with Peter Pippin, I think it was 2016, the best project I ever put out musically and the best that was ever received publicly. I mean, we’ve gotten like something like 20 million on, maybe on Spotify across other platforms.
00;28;05;17 – 00;28;23;13
Larry Ohh
I mean, if you include YouTube, it’s probably like up to 50 million streams across everything and it all started from SoundCloud. But then to be specific to your point, to go back on that and listen, sometimes I’ll go back and I’ll listen every once in a while to the most popular song. And I’m like this mix is not good.
Like this mix is just not good. I’m like, how like why did I like, I didn’t do, I didn’t do side chain then I didn’t do like certain things. I feel like the kick is just like not in the right key. Like, like I feel like I did it to the kick drum, like just a little things I’m picking out and I’m like, I wasn’t aware of those and I was just focused on just the music at that point, you know.
I was focused and it just felt good, which is why it did well, that’s the reason it got a little bit of a boost on SoundCloud, and from there, it took off completely organically. We never ran an ad, we never paid for anything, did anything like that. The music just hit well with people, and it just took off.
I wasn’t worried about the logistics of things and yeah, specifics.
00;29;15;14 – 00;29;37;17
Lukas
That’s another good point to which I think another question that I get from a lot of producers is like, oh, you got to have money to pay for ads or should I just promote my post or should I buy followers? They think money essentially is the answer. And of course, money is a great thing to have in life, but you can only do so much and all these accounts and all of us all grew with like $0 in ads.
00;29;37;17 – 00;29;54;11
Lukas
It’s not about that. It’s about finding that organic content and making stuff that people are actually going to watch because you can put – and I don’t know what your opinions are on this, Larry – but it’s like you can put money behind your post and it’s not really going to help you grow, like unless maybe it’s a post that’s made for that.
But it’s not the answer, you know what I mean?
00;29;57;23 – 00;30;15;25
Larry Ohh
Yeah, I agree. 100%. There’s so many organic ways. Like I said, we have to be content creators. We have to get really good with creating content that gains attention quickly in the, especially in the short form world that we live in. Of course, there’s ways to do it with YouTube and longform and like just music in general.
I’ve seen people that are just like nonstop releasing music and they’re not even posting too much content, but somehow through Spotify. But then there’s also a ceiling with what I’ve seen happen, and that happened with us at the beginning because in 2016. I wasn’t posting that much content, especially the way I do now. So the way we gained all that attention was directly from SoundCloud, pushed into Spotify, did really well, and the whole Spotify world has a lot of monthly listeners.
But then you come to the realization that if we tried to do a show somewhere, nobody would know. So how do you get those fans from Spotify because there’s a ton of producers and artists right now that have legit plays and legit like millions of streams are right on Spotify, and no one will come to a show.
00;31;05;04 – 00;31;37;00
Larry Ohh
But nobody knows them. So it’s like that’s where their content creation comes in. Like you have to learn how to pull those fans from Spotify. If that’s the way that you gain that attention, how do we pull those fans over? And to go back to the point of paying for things, yeah, you can pay for things. Say if you have a, you know, you got $2,000 to put on something, to pay for some sort of promotion, make sure that you’re putting it in the right spots, but also be real with the fact that if you paid for that and if it did go to the right places and the attention just wasn’t there
Like maybe the music just wouldn’t go good on its own anyway. The music wasn’t that great. It just didn’t hit. Right. So, I mean, there’s different ways to go about it. You can gain that attention by paying for it, or you can gain that attention by being really good at content creation. Right. With organic content.
00;31;51;19 – 00;31;58;01
Fabio
Sounds like there’s a piece of software missing in the industry that converts your Spotify followers to Instagram followers
00;31;58;13 – 00;32;13;06
Lukas
Right. That’s an app that needs to happen. Right. What excites you because you’ve been in it for 18 years. What excites you for the future? What’s keeping you going and what do you think the future looks like? Like for just in general, for the music industry. I’d be curious to know your thoughts on that.
00;32;13;18 – 00;32;31;25
Larry Ohh
I think the big thing right now everybody’s talking about is A.I., right? Right. Everybody’s talking about A.I. I’m excited about it. Some people are nervous, some people are scared. Some people haven’t started a career and they’re already scared. You know, some people haven’t started making money with music and they’re already petrified of AI, and they’re like, “I’m trying to get into this. And now it’s already going to take my job.” I don’t think it’s going to take people’s jobs. I think what it’s going to do is it’s going to be another tool if we figure out how to use that tool to our fullest potential and to benefit our business in our careers, I think it’s going to be great. I think it’s just going to be another faster way of doing things, another faster way of pushing content out, a faster way of pushing music out more efficiently, just like samples and loops or a plugin that comes along and it’s like, oh, this is a cord generating plug in.
Yeah, “This is going to ruin the music industry.” No, it’s not. It’s a tool, you know what I’m saying? It’s just another tool that you can have in your producer tool belt. That’s what AI is going to be. So I’m excited about that, to be honest. I mean, I’m really excited where that’s going to go.
00;33;17;06 – 00;33;30;26
Fabio
I don’t have a question, but just on the note of what you’re saying about the track that you released and you didn’t like the mix, there’s a track that I really like and I suggest everyone go listen to it. It’s called Trust Nobody by Hippie Sabotage. Do you know that track, Larry?
00;33;31;11 – 00;33;31;22
Larry Ohh
No.
00;33;32;08 – 00;33;44;12
Fabio
And it’s a banger. It’s an absolute banger. But the mix is not that good. Like, it’s kind of distorted and crunchy and is a bit muddy. But man, I vibe so hard to that.
00;33;44;18 – 00;33;45;29
Larry Ohh
Doesn’t matter, right? It’s good money.
00;33;46;11 – 00;34;03;26
Fabio
It’s just a great record. And I think this is something that I always tell my clients is: a great mix, is still a bad song, but a great song can have a bad mix. You know, like that. And it’s just like people are very focused on the engineering side of things, which is important, no doubt.
I’m an engineer, so I support the fact that it is important, but it’s not as important as making a great record. So go listen to that record, guys. See what you think and listen out for how bad the mix is, how vibey the mix was.
Baby, let’s go with that.
00;34;18;12 – 00;34;33;02
Lukas
I like it. Well, thank you so much, Larry, for taking the time to be here today and answering some of those big questions. I think it’s super helpful and I always loving seeing your content and I’m excited to continue to chat and see where you’re going and everything that you’re doing in the future.
00;34;33;13 – 00;34;35;14
Larry Ohh
Thanks, man. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it.
00;34;35;28 – 00;34;47;18
Fabio
Thank you for talking, Larry. Don’t forget that if you want a chance to win $500 worth of studio equipment, all you have to do is comment down below with what your favorite hip hop artist is and why yeah.
00;34;47;18 – 00;34;59;15
Lukas
Or if you want to comment like we asked a bunch of questions in this video, so comment answers to any of those questions. But also go check out Larry. Larry, is it just @LarryOhh on all platforms?
00;34;59;19 – 00;35;03;05
Larry Ohh
O with two h’s. Yep.
00;35;03;18 – 00;35;12;14
Lukas
There you go. And give this video a thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe if you want more of this type of content and you can find me @MusicbyLukas
00;35;12;23 – 00;35;19;17
Fabio
And myself @Noize_London, everything and all the details on the link in the description below. So don’t worry if you missed it.
00;35;19;28 – 00;35;26;17
Lukas
And of course, Boombox is @Boombox.io
We’ll see you guys next time. Bye, everybody.
00;35;26;26 – 00;35;28;11
Fabio
Peace