Use your ears not your eyes

“This one is especially important for the YouTube generation of producers and musicians. The amount of information out there on music production is so huge that it’s wise to remember to use your ears instead of studying videos on how to complete specific tasks. Sometimes a tutorial can be a good starting point, but it’s by messing around yourself with plugins and hardware that you learn how to achieve the sounds you want – not by trying to sound like someone else.

“Also, there are so many young ‘theoreticians’ out there with videos on how to achieve a certain sound, but often these are overcomplicated and also very difficult to do in real life.

Sometimes, using your ears is the best thing, and not just whacking a Neve 1073 bass cut filter on a synth channel out of habit, as you’ve seen someone do that on YouTube.”