Top 5 Things Producers Need To Do To Make It

Top 5 Things Producers Need To Do To Make It! It’s 2017, and much like being an up-and-coming rapper, being a little-known producer is harder than ever. While the digital era has resulted in an unprecedented amount of competition, it also created a tremendous amount of opportunity for those willing to go the extra mile while honing their craft.

1. Build genuine relationships

Social media is king. As Sarah explains, the biggest element is creating a relationship with your audience that keeps them engaged.

“Every producer should have a YouTube channel,” Sarah says. “It’s a free platform and one of the biggest search engines where artists and labels and everybody look for beats and producers. Also, a SoundCloud page with fresh tracks that you update all the time.”

She also stresses how important it is not to be stagnant.

“Don’t have the same stuff on your page all the time,” Sarah says. “You need to be constantly updating your sounds and your tracks on your page to keep customers coming back. Also, have a SoundClick page. I know a lot of people think that it’s oversaturated for the producer market, but it’s one of the biggest beat sites still, and it has crazy traffic, so I recommend it.”

2. Travel and network

It doesn’t pay to spend all day and night in the lab.

“Travel to network and get to these produce events, music conferences, open mics, meet with labels and artists managers, book studio session in other cities,” Sarah notes. “Anyway to meet people face to face goes a long way.

3. Brand yourself

Making yourself stand out is everything.

“Brand yourself with a logo,” Sarah says. “Does your production company have shirts made? Maybe flash drives with your beats loaded up on them when you’re meeting people? When I’m traveling around to these music conferences, I appreciate when producers give me flash drives as opposed to CDs that are outdated. So if you just have a bunch of beats loaded up on flash drives, me and the other A&Rs, we like that … we listen to stuff on flash drives.”

4. Come with a new sound

Right up there with beat spam is the monotony of the same old sound over and over.

“I always tell producers to come with a new sound … don’t copy,” Sarah advises. “Also, make your tracks sound as universal as possible … come with full concepts and full reference records. Labels want to hear full songs. It’s easier to play stuff like that too. If you’re going to shop instrumentals around, like I said, just come up with a new sound — something that somebody wants to fuck with that doesn’t sound like your ordinary shit that everybody hears every single day.

5. Study all you can about the business

The music business is just that — a business — so it’s important to arm yourself accordingly.

“There’s tons of information online; there are books about the business,” Sarah says. “Learn about what publishing is, how to register your songs, how streaming works … find a good entertainment lawyer and just really do a lot of research is all I can say.”