You're getting pretty good, but production starts to become very difficult and you're hyper aware of your shortcomings. Everything is new and exciting and you're in a prime state for improvement. Tier 2 - Exponential Learning (12-24 months) This is the absolute amateur: you’re brand new to production, and still getting comfortable in your DAW of choice. The estimates represent the amount of time generally spent in that specific tier after the previous tier has been completed or defeated (for you gamer’s out there). Some producers will move through the tiers faster or slower. For this I've used 4 of the 5 tiers> from Sam Matla's 5 Stages of an Electronic Music Producer article on EDMProd.Īnd just to clarify, the lengths below are estimates that I have modified for the purposes of this article. It’s more of the approach I’ve seen work time and time again for developing producers.ĭifferent music, different skill levels.all sorts of differences make this a particularly difficult question, which is why we have to segment this into groups. This post isn’t an all-encompassing list of the perfect plugins. This guide is merely a way to simplify the vast possibilities of what plugins can be used into a simple set of guidelines to lead to success. Instead, as time goes on you’ll find that certain plugins are really good for certain tasks. There’s nothing more wrong than telling you that one plugin is the best for all situations because frankly, in music production that type of ‘one size fits all solution’ doesn’t exist. They just do it with a sense of purpose and reason. And the professionals break them every day. They've taken a few classes, watched a ton of YouTube tutorials, and can't imagine how anyone could ever possibly break the rules of audio production.
If you've ever read any forum about music production, there is always these dismissive assholes who assume they are god's gift to music production.
When is it worth investing in 3rd party stuff? Can you make professional music with JUST your stock DAW's plugins? When, if at all, should you invest in more expensive or advanced gear like the Universal Audio stuff?
And so, let's unpack this conversation: what plugins do we really need?Īnd if you think it “doesn’t matter” you’re ignoring the fact that tons and tons of producers struggle deeply with curating and collecting the right arsenal of plugins on a daily basis. It is far better to know a few tools really well, than to collect and stockpile plugins like an episode of TLC's Hoarders. He thinks his time would've been better spent only reading 1,000 books, but knowing them like the back of his hand.Īnd the same is true with plugins in electronic music. And yes - that's a pretty impressive amount of books. Jack Canfield, one of the best-selling authors of all time (he wrote the ' Chicken Soup for the Soul' books) said that he's read over 10,000 books in his lifetime. To deliver an electronic music production plugin guide, we'll first have to start with an analogy.