Make drum projects

“A lot of times I find myself with projects made of melody arrangements that I could not fully bring into a structured song, but I started tracking the drums from a lot of previous projects to help give reference for these melodies. Often I’ll end up taking the drums from an unfinished beat and reapplying them to a melody that works much better with them.”

Tests things!

“Beats, unfinished or unmixed, will typically sound pretty good no matter what on decent monitors, so it’s good to test on all available forms. I love a car test, but also have developed a superstition for listening to bounces through my phone. After giving it a studio test, and testing the general sound of it being played via laptop through headphones, the sound is always a little crisper through my iPhone, but sometimes the car test rules all.”

Bring gum to the studio

“Everybody likes the guy who brings gum to the studio.”