How To How To Improve Your Workflow As A Music Producer?

Having a fast workflow is a key trait most successful artists have. Here are some tips to get your fast-workflow started.

1 – Learn your DAW shortcuts

 I can’t stress this enough, but this is an important aspect of improving your workflow. A lot of big artists I know work super fast when they are on their DAW. Learning the shortcuts means being faster while producing, and that means finish more tracks, and that means getting better faster.

 2 – Put your mobile and PC on airplane-mode

 Mobile notifications are powerful triggers to let your mind wander to your phone. Also, social media has really been constructed and thought with an underlying purpose of making it hard for you to leave it while you are scrolling. So if you directly interrupt the first step, and that is to deactivate your notifications by putting your phone or PC on airplane-mode, you’re doing yourself big favor concerning your productivity. Think about that next time you want to have work done.

 3 – Reuse your samples.

Don’t lose time anymore trying to find some perfect samples. What I do, is that every time I finish a project I export a .zip file that contains all the samples I used. Then I’d put that file in my library and I would just scroll there if I want to find any FXs. People won’t notice that you use the same FXs, claps, in every project. Plus, it can help create your style as a music producer, your world, but I will talk about that in another post.

 4 – Use templates that have everything pre-loaded.

 Something I did quite late in my process was to save templates that I would always use in my further projects. Just open up your DAW (I use FL Studio), delete everything unnecessary from the default template, make your own and then “Save as Template”. The template that automatically opens up when I start FL Studio is a project with already a sidechain on the first mixer channel, a Sylenth1, a Serum and a piano plugin with an iZotope 5 on the master.

 5 – Use MIDI files.

 Toxic and debatable subject here. Whenever you deeply feel like making music but you can’t seem to find a correct chord progression, a nice top melody, a MIDI file can be life-saver. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with using MIDI files, as long as you create your own interpretation of it. MIDI files can also be great for learning specific chord progressions. I once heard a MIDI file and was like “why the hell does that sound this good” and that made me study the MIDI file so that my chord progression knowledge improved. I feel like people demonize MIDI files because “you didn’t really write the chord progression”, while its advantages are undervalued.

Do you think I forgot something? 🙂 Let me know!

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