Ask a guy who is trying to become an electronic music producer and DJ anything!

[shoobey]

Been doing this for over four years now. I have almost 8K plays and over 300 downloads on my Soundcloud (largely thanks to the Misc!), and threw my first house party DJ'ed by me a few weekends ago. It went awesome and I decided I want to get serious and do this stuff as much as I can now.

My DJ Moniker is RoboDrop.

Yes I am 29 and have a job.

Ask away!

[MiscOnCocaine]

good luck brah.


btw i love all music, i like electronic music to, was hoping to make some of my own though, maybe not with electronic though, i like mine to be a bit more personal.

btw if you don't mind me saying, do you find *******s who've recently gone onto the electronic music hype annoying?
what programmes do you use?
who's your favourite dj?

is making electronic music hard?

[shoobey]

good luck brah.


btw i love all music, i like electronic music to, was hoping to make some of my own though, maybe not with electronic though, i like mine to be a bit more personal.


btw if you don't mind me saying, do you find *******s who've recently gone onto the electronic music hype annoying?
what programmes do you use?
who's your favourite dj?

is making electronic music hard?

Thanks man!

I think anyone that is in the scene contributing something is doing something great, doesn't matter to me if it's a more underground genre or pop genre, I can listen to whatever I want. The same guys who are making "pop" EDM now are the same ones who brought it to mainstream levels in the late 2000's and started the EDM explosion, so it's hard to hate.

I use Ableton, and it's not hard to get started but very hard to make something sound good. I don't find mixing/dj'ing nearly as hard as producing.

Favorite DJ is Laidback Luke, favorite producer is Deadmau5

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIl]

best of luck op, its a hard gig to break into the scene

[shoobey]

best of luck op, its a hard gig to break into the scene

yea, it is! For now I am focusing on throwing house parties for my friends and getting a very small, personal following. I live in Miami and have been for many years, and hoping someone I know may have a connection at some point to get me into a bar/club.

[MiscOnCocaine]

Thanks man!

I think anyone that is in the scene contributing something is doing something great, doesn't matter to me if it's a more underground genre or pop genre, I can listen to whatever I want. The same guys who are making "pop" EDM now are the same ones who brought it to mainstream levels in the late 2000's and started the EDM explosion, so it's hard to hate.

I use Ableton, and it's not hard to get started but very hard to make something sound good. I don't find mixing/dj'ing nearly as hard as producing.

Favorite DJ is Laidback Luke, favorite producer is Deadmau5

oh **** thanks op srs.



btw aware me whats difference between producer and dj, do dj just burn cds and play them at parties all night lol?

[AirWar]

How does it feel to be trying to break through in a market that is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY saturated?
This is what de-motivates me, and I end up producing just for fun. Which in its own way is a better way to go about it.

One of my friends is about to get signed to OWSLA and I know a lot about the industry.

will check out your soundcloud.

[shoobey]

oh **** thanks op srs.



btw aware me whats difference between producer and dj, do dj just burn cds and play them at parties all night lol?

Producers make the music, the DJ's play it. Without a DJ, a producer has no audience to show their music to. Without a producer, a DJ has no music to play for their audience.

Almost all big name "DJ's" like Calvin Harris/Deadmau5/Kaskade, etc, are all producers first, then DJs.

[shoobey]

How does it feel to be trying to break through in a market that is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY saturated?
This is what de-motivates me, and I end up producing just for fun. Which in its own way is a better way to go about it.

One of my friends is about to get signed to OWSLA and I know a lot about the industry.

will check out your soundcloud.

edit- Just realized you only just started.

You have a long way to go brah.

The feelings are all good, I'm very established into my career and only started doing this as a side project for fun. It's still just a fun project for me, but I am willing to dream crazy and see what happens. If nothing happens then it will just continue being a fun hobby for me and my friends.

Like any entrepreneurial venture, the core motivation should be a passion to change the world for the better and make people happy with your thing, or your service. If that's your only motivation then there is nothing that could possibly disappoint you.

Congrats to your friend, that is quite the accomplishment. It's easy to put a lot of pressure on yourself with this stuff but just need to remember why you started doing it in the first place and what made you continue wanting to do it. Guarantee it's not just the thought of a potential big payday down the road.

[AirWar]

The feelings are all good, I'm very established into my career and only started doing this as a side project for fun. It's still just a fun project for me, but I am willing to dream crazy and see what happens. If nothing happens then it will just continue being a fun hobby for me and my friends.

Just doing this stuff is enough for me and gives me all the enjoyment I need whether or not I ever make a cent from it or expand beyond my friends.

Cool, that is a good attitute to have.

So have you started producing yet? What do you use?

I am pretty competent with Ableton, and a few of the maisntream synthesizers like massive, fm8 etc.

[SpiderManSRS]

Favorite plugins?

Been using Sylenth1, buying Nexus2 soon. I have the same dream bro, don't want to DJ though.

[AirWar]

Favorite plugins?

Been using Sylenth1, buying Nexus2 soon. I have the same dream bro, don't want to DJ though.

Sylenth is awesome. !! I just started using serum and its pretty awesome, you can draw your own wavetables etc.

What sort of genres you guys producing?

[xmeandix]

when you DJ'd at your own party did everyone tell you stfu and play some hip hop or some rock

[SpiderManSRS]

Sylenth is awesome. !! I just started using serum and its pretty awesome, you can draw your own wavetables etc.

What sort of genres you guys producing?

Nice will have to check out Serum too.

Similar to Flume (apart from him being insanely talented lol) I have my own weird style so I guess it'd be labelled electronica or experimental.

My plan is to release nothing until I think I've created a winner track, so my debut song on YouTube will be top notch and will submit it to lots of competitions for hopeful exposure.

[sff4]

tip for anyone looking to get into this industry - do not promote your music and try to make something out of nothing. if your music is mediocre you will fail. it was hard enough to be successful a few years ago, now there's literally millions of kids thinking they'll be the next skrillex if they torrent a DAW and start making crappy electronic music. you have to be ****ING talented and dedicated to making absolutely elite tier music.

not trying to **** on anybodies parade but there are far too many kids doing this for the wrong reasons these days and they end up polluting all social media and other music outlets with music that sucks because all they care about is being a famous DJ.

if your music is really good then you MIGHT have a chance at turning this into a career, that's if your music is good. do not promote anything until you are 100% confident that your music is legit. and I don't mind being satisfied, I mean you're literally ****ting your pants because of how awesome the song you made is. if you don't feel that excited about it, there's a 99.9% chance it sucks

[SpiderManSRS]

tip for anyone looking to get into this industry - do not promote your music and try to make something out of nothing. if your music is mediocre you will fail. it was hard enough to be successful a few years ago, now there's literally millions of kids thinking they'll be the next skrillex if they torrent a DAW and start making crappy electronic music. you have to be ****ING talented and dedicated to making absolutely elite tier music.

not trying to **** on anybodies parade but there are far too many kids doing this for the wrong reasons these days and they end up polluting all social media and other music outlets with music that sucks because all they care about is being a famous DJ.

if your music is really good then you MIGHT have a chance at turning this into a career, that's if your music is good. do not promote anything until you are 100% confident that your music is legit. and I don't mind being satisfied, I mean you're literally ****ting your pants because of how awesome the song you made is. if you don't feel that excited about it, there's a 99.9% chance it sucks

This is my exact attitude. Not putting anything out that I know is even the slightest bit amateurish.

I wrote a melody that I'm saving until I can create godly mixes, which I think has the potential to be a hit once I stop being a n00b.

[AirWar]

Sidechained my face to my azzhole last night

[SpiderManSRS]

Sidechained my face to my azzhole last night

Lol. Recommend this plugin

[CCCXII]

Been doing this for over four years now. I have almost 8K plays and over 300 downloads on my Soundcloud (largely thanks to the Misc!), and threw my first house party DJ'ed by me a few weekends ago. It went awesome and I decided I want to get serious and do this stuff as much as I can now.

My DJ Moniker is RoboDrop.

Yes I am 29 and have a job.

Ask away!

What type of genre do you typically produce?

Just a tip:

Make your OWN sound can't stress this enough. Since last year pretty much every producer sounds the same, build-up/drop. Also, it's quality over quantity. Good luck brah!

[shoobey]

Cool, that is a good attitute to have.

So have you started producing yet? What do you use?

I am pretty competent with Ableton, and a few of the maisntream synthesizers like massive, fm8 etc.

I've been producing for around 4 years, I'm using Ableton and just picked up a push (see below).

[shoobey]

Favorite plugins?

Been using Sylenth1, buying Nexus2 soon. I have the same dream bro, don't want to DJ though.

I love using Sylenth1 and Massive.

[shoobey]

when you DJ'd at your own party did everyone tell you stfu and play some hip hop or some rock

I picked the people I invited pretty carefully and made sure all of them would like an electronic music show. A few years ago though man, you would have been right!

[shoobey]

What type of genre do you typically produce?

Just a tip:

Make your OWN sound can't stress this enough. Since last year pretty much every producer sounds the same, build-up/drop. Also, it's quality over quantity. Good luck brah!

I'm doing mainly electro house with some dubstep/trap/trance/experimental peppered in.

Completely agree on the quality vs. quantity. My goal is to make songs good enough to put in my own DJ mixes so I can stop using only other people's.

[alixxandar]

^^Can't go wrong with the ableton push, produced a (albeit rudimentary) 4 minute track in 20 minutes when demo'ing one at a local store.

OP, I see where you are coming from with wanting to hold back on releasing anything until you have a winner, but, I do have a suggestion: finish something that you're fairly happy with, but wouldn't want to submit to a record label and throw that up as a 'self release' or even just on YouTube. My reasoning behind this, is you want to have something up that can begin to generate a following but at the same time not be your best work. That way, once you have a line of communication open with the A&R team at a label, you can blow them away with your best stuff.

No label wants to release material that is already out there, as it generates less cash flow for themselves.

Another tip: try and land yourself a residency at one of your local clubs. I'm a resident at the biggest club in my area, it only has a capacity of 600 but it's a way to get your name out there. It actually feels good when people approach you all night, introduce themselves to you and refer to you as your DJ name rather than your own name. It also gives you the opportunity to play your own music to a decent crowd on a regular basis, along with your new found following coming in to see you each week, in turn paying the cover charge and buying drinks which makes the management happy.

Edit: remember though, playing a club is not like playing a party. If you have an hour long set it's fine to go hard, but, if you're playing for a few hours or an entire night, you have to modulate the energy that you're putting out through the music in order to give people a breather and let them buy drinks. You'll find that if you follow that, when you want everyone on the dance floor going hard once you bring up the energy then they actually will, instead of all being tired and just wanting to chill.

Another thing: once you start to invest so much time in to organising and planning, along with booking shows + parties etc then it's time to get yourself a manager. It's at that point, when you can lose your passion for it and it starts to feel more like a job. It should never feel that way, as you lose touch with your creative influences and end up making pop radio music like an EDM Trend Machine

[shoobey]

tip for anyone looking to get into this industry - do not promote your music and try to make something out of nothing. if your music is mediocre you will fail. it was hard enough to be successful a few years ago, now there's literally millions of kids thinking they'll be the next skrillex if they torrent a DAW and start making crappy electronic music. you have to be ****ING talented and dedicated to making absolutely elite tier music.

not trying to **** on anybodies parade but there are far too many kids doing this for the wrong reasons these days and they end up polluting all social media and other music outlets with music that sucks because all they care about is being a famous DJ.

if your music is really good then you MIGHT have a chance at turning this into a career, that's if your music is good. do not promote anything until you are 100% confident that your music is legit. and I don't mind being satisfied, I mean you're literally ****ting your pants because of how awesome the song you made is. if you don't feel that excited about it, there's a 99.9% chance it sucks

The day that I feel one of my own songs is good enough to make it into one of my DJ mixes is the day I promote my songs in a serious way. Even most professional songs I listen to don't excite me enough to put into a DJ mix, probably 1 out of every 30 do.

[shoobey]

^^Can't go wrong with the ableton push, produced a (albeit rudimentary) 4 minute track in 20 minutes when demo'ing one at a local store.

OP, I see where you are coming from with wanting to hold back on releasing anything until you have a winner, but, I do have a suggestion: finish something that you're fairly happy with, but wouldn't want to submit to a record label and throw that up as a 'self release' or even just on YouTube. My reasoning behind this, is you want to have something up that can begin to generate a following but at the same time not be your best work. That way, once you have a line of communication open with the A&R team at a label, you can blow them away with your best stuff.

No label wants to release material that is already out there, as it generates less cash flow for themselves.

Another tip: try and land yourself a residency at one of your local clubs. I'm a resident at the biggest club in my area, it only has a capacity of 600 but it's a way to get your name out there. It actually feels good when people approach you all night, introduce themselves to you and refer to you as your DJ name rather than your own name. It also gives you the opportunity to play your own music to a decent crowd on a regular basis, along with your new found following coming in to see you each week, in turn paying the cover charge and buying drinks which makes the management happy.

Edit: remember though, playing a club is not like playing a party. If you have an hour long set it's fine to go hard, but, if you're playing for a few hours or an entire night, you have to modulate the energy that you're putting out through the music in order to give people a breather and let them buy drinks. You'll find that if you follow that, when you want everyone on the dance floor going hard once you bring up the energy then they actually will, instead of all being tired and just wanting to chill.

Another thing: once you start to invest so much time in to organising and planning, along with booking shows + parties etc then it's time to get yourself a manager. It's at that point, when you can lose your passion for it and it starts to feel more like a job. It should never feel that way, as you lose touch with your creative influences and end up making pop radio music like an EDM Trend Machine

Thanks for the advice man, much appreciated! It's really inspiring to hear of others like yourself making it happen. What kind of music do you play at your shows?

/Did you slip in a Knife Party reference at the end?

[alixxandar]

Thanks for the advice man, much appreciated! It's really inspiring to hear of others like yourself making it happen. What kind of music do you play at your shows?

/Did you slip in a Knife Party reference at the end?

Varies man, resident club sets are normally electro house, anything else I play whatever I'm in the mood for, but it's usually DnB.

Sure was - couldn't help it

[RealAesthetic]

robodrop is actually not a bad name haha

but everyone and their children want to be a dj / producer these days

[shoobey]

Varies man, resident club sets are normally electro house, anything else I play whatever I'm in the mood for, but it's usually DnB.

Sure was - couldn't help it

Have you ever tried using Ableton for making a mix?

[shoobey]

robodrop is actually not a bad name haha

but everyone and their children want to be a dj / producer these days

Thanks man, I like it too!

You are absolutely right with the second part. I remember the same thing going on when hip-hop exploded back in the day.