To sum it up, the path to "good" music is more "bad" music, so fill your vault. Also reminds me of the Ian Kirkpatrick "Make Bad Music" video - th-cam.com/video/p4uPbuTHRtk/w-d-xo.html
God, I would love to hear or know what my favorite producers struggled with that they didn't publish. Sometimes I get so discouraged at the garbage in my DAW that listening to my favorite producers' incredible music just feels like salt on the wound and discourages me even more. That's a dark place...
I totally get that, it's like their music is on an entirely different unattainable level. But everyone had to start somewhere in the beginning, some more advanced, others less. You just gotta keep going no matter what, and the rest will follow.
Your problem is comparing yourself to others and valuing your worth through it. Unless you're aspiring for social acceptance or commercial success, that's going to get you no where. And really if you're just in it for fame or fortune, your creativity is likely to be stifled. You're more likely to be formulaic. Plus what you hear from established artists has likely been mixed and mastered by proper engineers who do that for a living. With lots of experience and gear to make it sound fantastic. OTOH brief checks aren't so bad imo. Sometimes it's helpful to see you're NOT really stretching your abilities and caught in a cycle or rut, and listening to a well put together track from another artist can be resetting to where you are. So there has to be a healthy balance. And I think that balance is largely tuning out of the comparison. Otherwise, yes, you can easily end up in dark places. I speak from experience of doing that myself.
@@BananasananaB I can appreciate your point, but your initial assessment was a bit off. When we produce things, whatever that product may be, we usually have an end state in mind. This can be measured in terms of function, cost, quality, and any number of factors. Everything in life is a trade off where we discriminate between choices before us. So, even while we produce things for our own enjoyment, without any consideration to whether others will appreciate it, we still measure it's value in comparison to other products around us. Even if you solely measure the value in terms of the satisfaction of knowing you made the product with your own hands, the time you spent on that thing is compared to the time you may have spent producing something else. So, in the things we make, we compare the products of our labor to something. It's not a comparison of my value as a person to the value of another person. The people behind the products are incidental. It's me looking at the product of my labor and assessing whether I'm satisfied with it or not compared to a goal. Now, you may argue that I should "enjoy the journey more than the destination," or that the mere process of producing/creation is its own reward. And you may have a point, and most days I'd agree with you, but we all have our bad days. I don't care how zen you are, no one wants to spent hours of their life making a product that they are dissatisfied with. One day, I was hanging out with some family members. Some of the kids wanted us all to color a picture. Whatever we wanted -- single sheet of paper -- crayons. Everyone drew something. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Well, one of the adults was a skilled artist, and when we all shared our drawings with one another, one of the kids saw how bad his picture looked compared to the others (in his own assessment of course), especially the artist's. Now, if that kid could see the terrible drawings from when that artist was younger, it probably would have bucked him up a bit. But here's the thing, I've seen him since, and he still colors and enjoys it. It was just a bad 10 min where he felt crappy comparing the product of his labors to the others -- others that were completed right next to him, in the same time frame, with the same tools in hand. It's just a temporary dark place, and seeing behind the curtain of the other producers' efforts would be really interesting. I don't have any aspirations of being my favorite producers, but I do have goals in mind for what a good product would be that I'd be personally satisfied with. Furthermore, gauging ones progress in music production is pretty nebulous, so it's useful to have a "gold standard" to compare to. But yeah, sometimes those comparisons just reveal how much farther you have to go, and it can go from useful to discouraging. That's all.
This is true!!! I’ve heard this from aphex twin. He basically said the same thing. He finishes songs when he’s tired of them. I wouldn’t personally recommend anyone to delete their songs even they sound bad. They might look back at some point and laugh at themselves, or just use some inspiration from it
I think unless we're talking first 10 projects ever, any project at any time has at least a single cool idea that made you spend hours on it when you first made it.
@@slothcerv I luckily have everything I’ve ever made in my PC. I’ve moved that into my harddrive. I can’t stand the embarrassment while listening to it but yeah i wouldn’t be here without starting with it :D
@@drlostcause4427 Yep, his multiple outputs under different names says he doesn't moderate his output to the same degree as DM. He's gone up in my respect for that. I'd rather have five quality albums, ever, than 30 mediocre ones with a few gems of tracks.
An artists work is never truly finished, it is only abandoned for the sake of consumption by the world. This man feels the same things as a lot of very dedicated and lifelong artists.
This is absolutely true. I recently listened back to old projects with just 'scratchpad' ideas, and i was totally astounded by some of them. Like holy shit thats great. And sometimes the sounds and ideas totally work for whats relevant today, and you can incorporate them and work from there. Its just at the time you wasn't feeling it or it was too far afield from the then current sound. Keeping a pool of old ideas if definitely a good thing to do. They are like incomplete traces of your expression. On a less positive and unrelated note, it also reminded me of my drive to be a unique and successful producer. I was able to bang out great generic tracks like it was nothing. I made 'brostep' era tracks and Retro House (before it was popular) and they all sound great. But to me that was easy. I was aiming much higher. But what i didn't know then is that the production heroes i was aspiring to, weren't doing anything extraodinary, i just didn't have the knowledge back then. So i guess, going back to look at your old work tells you something about your journey aswell.
I have old stuff that ive written years ago that i just need a new mix on. In fact, i just re released a bunch of old songs with a better mixdown. All that was missing was a good mix!
Legit this ! This is why I write my demos on 4 instrumental backbone so if it musically sounds good on them then I know the only thing that would hold back the finished song from being good is solid sound selection and a decent mix. Can get lost in making shit sound sonically good but not musically if you approach it from mix on the go (IMO)
I honestly love your channel. You really know how to extract all the gems and package it together so professionally and with every video being super inspiring. All that to say I appreciate your content.
I can relate to this sentiment. I’ve been doing this seriously for about 4 months now and about to hit the 60s in my “vault”. It’s a great place to revisit immature and underdeveloped ideas so you can improve workflow, mix, mastery, etc. sometimes a tweak, a new track, arrangement trick, then forget about it for another few weeks. I never believed there was a wall to creativity, sometimes I just need to put down a track and start a new one and then come back to it with better ideas. At least that’s my take on it as a newbie.
Yo as your just starting I cannot recommend enough to focus on music first and production after. Take this as someone whose been producing well over a decade. I built up allot of mental habits from being a big sound design and mix guy over music guy and it just meant I could polish many turds lol. Really focus on theory and write everything with basic instruments and if it makes you vibe on basic instruments then any synth or production technique is just going to add annunciation and give it that extra 20%. Production is very easy in comparison to writing a good song. These videos are so good. Back 10 years ago we had dubspot adsr and seamless and the videos out today I wish I had 10 years back so I didn’t develop loads of dumb habits lol. I rabbit on but best of look to you g.
I just need you to know, Sol, that this channel has helped me so much and given me answers where I absolutely needed them. I appreciate you random stranger; you’re good people 🙏🏻
A track I’m working on now is from my vault. Reviving a several-years-old idea is really different than starting a track from scratch. Many of us can relate to listening back to stuff from like seven years ago and being like, “Oh, how quaint, I didn’t know s**#.”
Kinda my perspective on seeing unfinished project, never really deleted, stored in folder, just in case i got stuck or run out of ideas, i can always go back to that project
i literally had too - thats because of blended track on the background fits emotionally. He knows what he doing at this point really well. editing is so on point...
Sol State thank you, that was exactly what I needed right now! Honestly keep up the great work for producer community - your channel is an absolute gem! Thanks!
I started doing this a few years ago - while I agree it’s a good tactic, most tracks end up in the vault now. I am more inclined to vault an idea as opposed to persevering with it
I have Hundreds and hundreds of song ideas in some stage of process.... and when I'm not feeling it, I will just close it out and come back to it. Some of my better releases now have come from revisiting old ideas and taking what I have learned in that time, reapplying it to the old parts and shine them up for a new sound. I did that for my last release. I didn't think it would do much of anything, but it hit %67 on the Hype chart on Beatport... and it was something I started 3 years ago!
Also…I’d like to second what he says from personal experience. I’m actually half responsible for the massive 2010 hit “We No Speak Americano” (I used to be called Dcup). And when we (Yolanda be cool & I) finished it, I didn’t think it was that good! But I have a bunch of platinum records that beg to differ so … the lesson “release it anyway” is SO important!!
@@jackcalow2430 been on a massive break for 4 years. Lived in Portugal for half of it. Haven’t stopped messing with music tho - keep a lookout for Rumbleman (new name)
I follow the same method and have been working on my album for 2 years. The past 6 months have been my breakthrough months and all my breakthrough projects where saved on my macs ssd (thought I was working from an external, ableton re configured it one day to default location). Whilst jamming out excited over my album I knocked vodka onto it and it fried the logic board and I can’t afford a new Mac nor get my files and my whole vault is gone. So guys lesson here is back up your vault and don’t trust your computer to do things automatically. Haven’t slept properly since it happened and don’t know how to recover from it.
Sorry to hear that. As long as you remember the musical ideas you will be able to reconstruct it and it may even come out better. I've had the same thing on a smaller scale a few times myself and you can bounce back.
Liked. Commented. Subscribed. Joel is the reason I got into music production. Initially, I wasn't a fan of his music because it's too long compare to most pop songs. It wasn't until I listened to Strobe (one of my all-time fav music.) Boom. That instantly shifted my perspectives on music in general. Thanks Joel. I wouldn't have this perspective on music if you deleted this track.
I listen to my vault all the time. sometimes I forget about certain ideas and work on them years later. Sometimes it just gets me in the mood to make something else. It's always useful in some way. And every now and then I do a cleanup and delete anything that is just garbage.
I know exactly where he,s coming from on this.finish my new project happy,,,then go away and listen after a couple weeks and its like ,,it could be so better.
I have 3 levels of saving projects: 1) save on pc (probably open 6 months later wondering what drugs I was on to think that's listenable) 2) send em on my music homies whatsapp group (cool ideas but far from finished) 3) upload them on sound cloud set as private (usually 80% of song making is there, needs maybe intro/outro or rearranging or mixing) Step 2 and 3 imply also those before, this way I can easily listen everywhere (and on different devices) to almost finished projects and still have 2 main separate archives for "cool ideas" and "almost finished stuff". It's kinda random and it just happened to be like this but it really works for me.
For the past 7 years or so, he’s got the tendency of not releasing tracks that the fans think are really good and instead releases some commercial poppy trash.
Joel has several variations for some songs I really love, Sleeping Beauty Pills was altered at least twice until it became Sleepless, and Somewhere Up Here has as well. Who knows what wonders are still in his vault?
I started showin up everyday now im able to get into the zone and for the past 4 months i have made over 100 tracks and its bad but i learnt a lot and i have 10 of my fav tracks thanks sol state
Very inspirational video :) I feel like you can be your own worst critic as a producer, I have my own Vault and currently on my 5343rd idea, the vast amount of that is little loops or ideas but they is a lot of tracks I haven't released because I just don't feel like there good enough. After hearing the story with Strobe, I feel like i'll have to have a look through ideas again and try to release more.
The vault is real as a beat horder i know several of my old tracks morphed into pieces i had not imagined. Some times walking a way and coming back later changes everything.
Haha, we all are like that. At some point you just have to stop and say: «I’m done now. It has flaws and so many endless possibilities that I could improve… but this is it. Take it or leave it. I’m on to the next project.» 🥸😎
This is the same as what Rick Rubin says in his book. The seed that doesn't get watered cannot reveal its ability to bear fruit. Collect many seeds and then, over time, look back and see which ones resonate. Sometimes we're too close to them to recognize their true potential, and other times the magical moment that inspired a seed into existence is bigger than the seed itself. It's generally preferable to accumulate several weeks' or months' worth of ideas and then choose which of them to focus on, instead of following an urge or obligation to rush to the finish line with what is in front of us today.
man going back to old projects i got tired of years ago and finding good elements is such a weird nostalgia trip. like, i was trash but ..actually decent as well? 🤣
I'm not a music producer, but a writer, and I have a vault too! All the written pieces I don't like still (maybe) have some use/inspiration to them! Even if it's horrible, I don't throw it out totally cause it could be of some use later on.
An album is truly never done! You just find a level of satisfaction and put it out. Sure you think damn I could have done that or that but hey…you have to make your peace with it at the end of the day and get it out there!
Makes me wonder how many awesome tracks every artist might have that no one has heard and sits in a vault. How was he so wrong about strobe, omg, amazing music. Great vid, summed up nicely, ty.
For me, I envy the pros' complex drum patterns and variety. No matter what I just couldn't make sophisticated drums. I'm in the hip-hop and synthwave camp, so if any producer has any advice, I'd be happy to take notes.
I’d love to see how people approach organising their Vault. How they “scrap” ideas and strip them for parts. I’m huge on the vault. I think of it as my own private Splice
only one can dreamt o be as great at deadmau5 Hell ive been producing for 7 years now im 25. one day my mixes can be as crisp as deadmau5 and as catchy oneday. 2 all you producers out there dont give up!!
4ware, nosedive, imaginary friends are just a few examples of tracks from the vault that used to be completely different because he hadn't figured out what he wanted to do with them yet. This is good advice. Keep your project files even if they suck at the time in your opinion. You just may figure it out one day, as have I plenty of times
To sum it up, the path to "good" music is more "bad" music, so fill your vault.
Also reminds me of the Ian Kirkpatrick "Make Bad Music" video - th-cam.com/video/p4uPbuTHRtk/w-d-xo.html
Good fans just wait for good products to be done ''when they are done'' as well :)
So inspiring mate! Another cracking video! Cheers Sol
@@1pelillos1 I was like "I wonder what Miguel will say" when making this edit 😂👊
@@SolStateMusic we’ll be here rain or storm ! 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼 keep up the good work
Find the good in the bad. Great philosophy!
Also it's a "The Fifth Element" quote. So that has to mean something lol
The only deadmau5 video without swearing lol
i was watching and mau5 felt more polite and more behaved; i couldn't figure whats "wrong" about the vibe. NOW you pointed that out!
That's because it was a livestream on Amazon Music :D He had to control himself haha
@@afaydilek for sure bro i didn't get that part
Hahahah
Amazon probably hit him with the "nah man, can't do that"
The Vault, or as Miyamoto describes it, a drawer of sticky notes with ideas that don't work well now but might later
@5madmoviemakers woah.. where did you learn this?
Seems like all "the best" have something like a vault ;)
@@bugtank here's the quote www.gonintendo.com/stories/144311-miyamoto-never-throw-away-bad-ideas
There’s someone intelligent behind this page.
Just a music producer trying to struggle less, and share the very best ideas - most of which I really needed to hear too.
@@SolStateMusic and here he just proved it again, smooth af
@@parkerstroh6586 I've heard he is really good at sex too.
@@dreamer097 I've heard he is really good at sax.
@@SolStateMusic hands down one of the most useful channels for producers today 🙏
God, I would love to hear or know what my favorite producers struggled with that they didn't publish. Sometimes I get so discouraged at the garbage in my DAW that listening to my favorite producers' incredible music just feels like salt on the wound and discourages me even more. That's a dark place...
I totally get that, it's like their music is on an entirely different unattainable level. But everyone had to start somewhere in the beginning, some more advanced, others less. You just gotta keep going no matter what, and the rest will follow.
Your problem is comparing yourself to others and valuing your worth through it. Unless you're aspiring for social acceptance or commercial success, that's going to get you no where. And really if you're just in it for fame or fortune, your creativity is likely to be stifled. You're more likely to be formulaic.
Plus what you hear from established artists has likely been mixed and mastered by proper engineers who do that for a living. With lots of experience and gear to make it sound fantastic.
OTOH brief checks aren't so bad imo. Sometimes it's helpful to see you're NOT really stretching your abilities and caught in a cycle or rut, and listening to a well put together track from another artist can be resetting to where you are.
So there has to be a healthy balance. And I think that balance is largely tuning out of the comparison. Otherwise, yes, you can easily end up in dark places. I speak from experience of doing that myself.
@@BananasananaB I can appreciate your point, but your initial assessment was a bit off. When we produce things, whatever that product may be, we usually have an end state in mind. This can be measured in terms of function, cost, quality, and any number of factors.
Everything in life is a trade off where we discriminate between choices before us. So, even while we produce things for our own enjoyment, without any consideration to whether others will appreciate it, we still measure it's value in comparison to other products around us. Even if you solely measure the value in terms of the satisfaction of knowing you made the product with your own hands, the time you spent on that thing is compared to the time you may have spent producing something else.
So, in the things we make, we compare the products of our labor to something. It's not a comparison of my value as a person to the value of another person. The people behind the products are incidental. It's me looking at the product of my labor and assessing whether I'm satisfied with it or not compared to a goal.
Now, you may argue that I should "enjoy the journey more than the destination," or that the mere process of producing/creation is its own reward. And you may have a point, and most days I'd agree with you, but we all have our bad days. I don't care how zen you are, no one wants to spent hours of their life making a product that they are dissatisfied with.
One day, I was hanging out with some family members. Some of the kids wanted us all to color a picture. Whatever we wanted -- single sheet of paper -- crayons. Everyone drew something. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Well, one of the adults was a skilled artist, and when we all shared our drawings with one another, one of the kids saw how bad his picture looked compared to the others (in his own assessment of course), especially the artist's. Now, if that kid could see the terrible drawings from when that artist was younger, it probably would have bucked him up a bit. But here's the thing, I've seen him since, and he still colors and enjoys it. It was just a bad 10 min where he felt crappy comparing the product of his labors to the others -- others that were completed right next to him, in the same time frame, with the same tools in hand.
It's just a temporary dark place, and seeing behind the curtain of the other producers' efforts would be really interesting.
I don't have any aspirations of being my favorite producers, but I do have goals in mind for what a good product would be that I'd be personally satisfied with. Furthermore, gauging ones progress in music production is pretty nebulous, so it's useful to have a "gold standard" to compare to. But yeah, sometimes those comparisons just reveal how much farther you have to go, and it can go from useful to discouraging. That's all.
Idk if that feeling ever goes away but you do get more used to it
@@jaym2112 thank you
"No work of art is ever finished, only abandoned." - Paul Valery
good one
This is true!!! I’ve heard this from aphex twin. He basically said the same thing. He finishes songs when he’s tired of them.
I wouldn’t personally recommend anyone to delete their songs even they sound bad. They might look back at some point and laugh at themselves, or just use some inspiration from it
I think unless we're talking first 10 projects ever, any project at any time has at least a single cool idea that made you spend hours on it when you first made it.
If you ever find that that Aphex Twin interview send me a DM on Instagram.
@@SolStateMusic sure! But aphex twin constantly lied lol. That’s a bit funny haha
@@slothcerv I luckily have everything I’ve ever made in my PC. I’ve moved that into my harddrive. I can’t stand the embarrassment while listening to it but yeah i wouldn’t be here without starting with it :D
@@drlostcause4427 Yep, his multiple outputs under different names says he doesn't moderate his output to the same degree as DM. He's gone up in my respect for that. I'd rather have five quality albums, ever, than 30 mediocre ones with a few gems of tracks.
An artists work is never truly finished, it is only abandoned for the sake of consumption by the world. This man feels the same things as a lot of very dedicated and lifelong artists.
This is absolutely true. I recently listened back to old projects with just 'scratchpad' ideas, and i was totally astounded by some of them. Like holy shit thats great. And sometimes the sounds and ideas totally work for whats relevant today, and you can incorporate them and work from there. Its just at the time you wasn't feeling it or it was too far afield from the then current sound.
Keeping a pool of old ideas if definitely a good thing to do. They are like incomplete traces of your expression.
On a less positive and unrelated note, it also reminded me of my drive to be a unique and successful producer. I was able to bang out great generic tracks like it was nothing. I made 'brostep' era tracks and Retro House (before it was popular) and they all sound great. But to me that was easy. I was aiming much higher. But what i didn't know then is that the production heroes i was aspiring to, weren't doing anything extraodinary, i just didn't have the knowledge back then.
So i guess, going back to look at your old work tells you something about your journey aswell.
I have old stuff that ive written years ago that i just need a new mix on. In fact, i just re released a bunch of old songs with a better mixdown. All that was missing was a good mix!
I FEEL YOU on that! Crazy how a good mix can "finish" an idea!
@@SolStateMusic right on!!
Legit this ! This is why I write my demos on 4 instrumental backbone so if it musically sounds good on them then I know the only thing that would hold back the finished song from being good is solid sound selection and a decent mix. Can get lost in making shit sound sonically good but not musically if you approach it from mix on the go (IMO)
@@Ray-lx8le thats a golden advice
I get this!! Was sitting on a song for like a year that was just okay. Re-mixed the whole thing from scratch and it ended up being great
1:15 ! Taking me years to get comfortable sharing my music and I really needed to hear this ❤ Channel is gold honestly
Glad the message and timing was just right!
such a simple, huge pointer that so many miss! sol state, i gotta say, you've got a knack for curating.
Thanks, honestly most of this is stuff I really needed to hear too
I honestly love your channel. You really know how to extract all the gems and package it together so professionally and with every video being super inspiring. All that to say I appreciate your content.
Thank you, appreciate that! Turns out there's tons of gems if you watch long enough ;)
I can relate to this sentiment. I’ve been doing this seriously for about 4 months now and about to hit the 60s in my “vault”. It’s a great place to revisit immature and underdeveloped ideas so you can improve workflow, mix, mastery, etc. sometimes a tweak, a new track, arrangement trick, then forget about it for another few weeks. I never believed there was a wall to creativity, sometimes I just need to put down a track and start a new one and then come back to it with better ideas. At least that’s my take on it as a newbie.
Yo as your just starting I cannot recommend enough to focus on music first and production after. Take this as someone whose been producing well over a decade. I built up allot of mental habits from being a big sound design and mix guy over music guy and it just meant I could polish many turds lol. Really focus on theory and write everything with basic instruments and if it makes you vibe on basic instruments then any synth or production technique is just going to add annunciation and give it that extra 20%. Production is very easy in comparison to writing a good song. These videos are so good. Back 10 years ago we had dubspot adsr and seamless and the videos out today I wish I had 10 years back so I didn’t develop loads of dumb habits lol. I rabbit on but best of look to you g.
@@Ray-lx8le some kinds of music just aren't about following structure that way but mostly ur right
I just need you to know, Sol, that this channel has helped me so much and given me answers where I absolutely needed them. I appreciate you random stranger; you’re good people 🙏🏻
Thanks man! Always appreciate kind notes like this. best of luck w your tunes! 🚀👊
Man your edits are soooo good. Thanks for sharing! ❤️🙏🏻
Deadmau5 looks like he could be Kenny Beats’ older brother or something haha
Oh man, I totally see it 😂😂
....Dad?
I thought that was Kenny beats at first
A track I’m working on now is from my vault. Reviving a several-years-old idea is really different than starting a track from scratch. Many of us can relate to listening back to stuff from like seven years ago and being like, “Oh, how quaint, I didn’t know s**#.”
"So bad is the path to good"
One of the greatest motivational lines ever 👏
Same, I have around 200-300 unfinished songs, from 2006-today. And only 4 songs on my YT 2 of which are covers 😂
Finding out that your workflow matches deadmau5 is a pretty great feeling
Kinda my perspective on seeing unfinished project, never really deleted, stored in folder, just in case i got stuck or run out of ideas, i can always go back to that project
Man - Sol State was such a gold channel. Hope you come back one day. All the best
Thanks. Have some health stuff to take care of. Hope to come back. Good luck with your music!
Sol State is here for our betterment more than anything. Helps me sleep at night knowing people like you exist.
Thanks, there's soooo many good people in the world!
came here after your duke dumont one just released - love it and great reminders. Thanks for putting out these videos
this channel is STILL getting better. kudos sol state
im so early this time and it’s because i love deadmau5 and sol state ❤️❤️❤️
💚
This was actually great. A helpful perspective given where I am with my album.
Right on! Good luck with your album
I just produced 2 songs I wrote 6 years ago and almost tossed them. My ability to produce was what was missing.
"just look through your vault" *cries in analog*
He's the analog poster boy, just means hit record all the time lol
@@WyattWinters Just got my first analog synth, right now, I hit record, then start tweaking knobs. Catch that transitional magic
You can still record analog...
@@Nytra_ that's the joke
Goosebumps on the Sol state comments. Nice content
i literally had too - thats because of blended track on the background fits emotionally. He knows what he doing at this point really well. editing is so on point...
Sol State thank you, that was exactly what I needed right now! Honestly keep up the great work for producer community - your channel is an absolute gem! Thanks!
I have definitely felt like this a lot, this is a great way of thinking about improving and releasing projects
I started doing this a few years ago - while I agree it’s a good tactic, most tracks end up in the vault now. I am more inclined to vault an idea as opposed to persevering with it
this channel is pure gold, thanks man for all the effort putting all this together
Much appreciated, thanks!
Ive been having really bad writers block lately producing and ended up with a bunch of unfinished projects. I needed to hear this.
Happens to all of us. Best of luck ;)
Been going through my vault the last month or so. Polishing the gems and chucking the trash.
This channel is saving my confidence 😂
You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for a video on this. Thanks so much just subbed
Thanks for the sub, welcome to the fam
Love this. I just went through my vault with my band mates and we picked out an entire LPs worth of ideas we want to bring over the line together.
Amazing. Good luck!
helpful vid bro, seen it before but good reminders. thanks for putting this together
I was preparing myself for another cliche motivation video, but this is really simple and inspiring honestly.
Absolutely agree. The vault is full of stuff which may or may not ever see the light of day. But it's still in the vault.
Thank you for this transparency. So necessary. 🤯
I have Hundreds and hundreds of song ideas in some stage of process.... and when I'm not feeling it, I will just close it out and come back to it. Some of my better releases now have come from revisiting old ideas and taking what I have learned in that time, reapplying it to the old parts and shine them up for a new sound. I did that for my last release. I didn't think it would do much of anything, but it hit %67 on the Hype chart on Beatport... and it was something I started 3 years ago!
this is awesome, informative and saves so much time, thank you!
What a good channel brother, I just discovered it and I consider that there is a lot of value here. Keep it up!!
Thanks, will do!
Bro I love this channel. Straight up. Thank you
Really glad I found your channel, this type of content is absolutely great! Concise, informative, well edited. Sticking around for more!
Welcome aboard mate!
ahhh the good hearted vibe in this, I dig
Well I certainly needed to hear this today, cheers for what you do on this channel.
Glad the right message found you at the right time!
Strobe is my favorite song of all time so to think it was almost deleted is insane.
As a producer this hits my brain and my soul. Thank you for the videos man!! Keep them coming!! 🙏🙏
Thanks! You got it!
Love the share, love the soundtrack on the video as well!
These videos are gems! Thanks Sol State!
Thank you!
Great video dude! Couldn't agree more
Thanks! Load up your vault ;)
Love this overview 🦅✨
Also…I’d like to second what he says from personal experience. I’m actually half responsible for the massive 2010 hit “We No Speak Americano” (I used to be called Dcup).
And when we (Yolanda be cool & I) finished it, I didn’t think it was that good!
But I have a bunch of platinum records that beg to differ so … the lesson “release it anyway” is SO important!!
Oh hey dude! This would be a perfect short video. If your down can you shoot me an email or DM on Instagram?
wow that song was huge in aus.
what have you been doing since?
Shoulda cleared that sample tho....
@@jackcalow2430 been on a massive break for 4 years. Lived in Portugal for half of it. Haven’t stopped messing with music tho - keep a lookout for Rumbleman (new name)
@@duncanmaclennan6744 oh awesome.
glad to hear you never stopped writing music. :)
Still waiting on that Dr Dre Detox album :(
It got lost in the vault😂
Word
I follow the same method and have been working on my album for 2 years. The past 6 months have been my breakthrough months and all my breakthrough projects where saved on my macs ssd (thought I was working from an external, ableton re configured it one day to default location). Whilst jamming out excited over my album I knocked vodka onto it and it fried the logic board and I can’t afford a new Mac nor get my files and my whole vault is gone. So guys lesson here is back up your vault and don’t trust your computer to do things automatically. Haven’t slept properly since it happened and don’t know how to recover from it.
Sorry to hear that. As long as you remember the musical ideas you will be able to reconstruct it and it may even come out better.
I've had the same thing on a smaller scale a few times myself and you can bounce back.
All I took from this is new mau5 this year guaranteed FUCK YEA
Deadmau5 the GOAT
yeah if you like boring pap that sounds exactly the same as the shit he put out ten years ago
@@vvvictoriav5958 if i had a dime for every "wish deadmau5 would go back to his old style!" Lmao
Liked. Commented. Subscribed.
Joel is the reason I got into music production. Initially, I wasn't a fan of his music because it's too long compare to most pop songs. It wasn't until I listened to Strobe (one of my all-time fav music.) Boom. That instantly shifted my perspectives on music in general. Thanks Joel. I wouldn't have this perspective on music if you deleted this track.
Thank you! Great to hear we could shift your perspective!
I listen to my vault all the time. sometimes I forget about certain ideas and work on them years later. Sometimes it just gets me in the mood to make something else. It's always useful in some way. And every now and then I do a cleanup and delete anything that is just garbage.
the editing on these videos is very nice
this channel is helps me sleep at night
I know exactly where he,s coming from on this.finish my new project happy,,,then go away and listen after a couple weeks and its like ,,it could be so better.
Amazing! Thank you for this!
I have 3 levels of saving projects:
1) save on pc (probably open 6 months later wondering what drugs I was on to think that's listenable)
2) send em on my music homies whatsapp group (cool ideas but far from finished)
3) upload them on sound cloud set as private (usually 80% of song making is there, needs maybe intro/outro or rearranging or mixing)
Step 2 and 3 imply also those before, this way I can easily listen everywhere (and on different devices) to almost finished projects and still have 2 main separate archives for "cool ideas" and "almost finished stuff".
It's kinda random and it just happened to be like this but it really works for me.
Strobe almost never existed because he dodnt think this incredible song was good enough... holy shit thats wild
For the past 7 years or so, he’s got the tendency of not releasing tracks that the fans think are really good and instead releases some commercial poppy trash.
@@Edgar.rad_ makes me wonder if some corporate cuck is whispering in his ear, joels best shit is his unique stuff.
Nooooooo waaaaaaayyyyyy.... You're music is perfect!!!! Literally... I can dream of something more perfect than your music
Joel has several variations for some songs I really love, Sleeping Beauty Pills was altered at least twice until it became Sleepless, and Somewhere Up Here has as well. Who knows what wonders are still in his vault?
Lol, I'm the guy who sent him the 1st question. Still waiting for that spicy 6th album 😩
I started showin up everyday now im able to get into the zone and for the past 4 months i have made over 100 tracks and its bad but i learnt a lot and i have 10 of my fav tracks thanks sol state
Congrats! Keep it up
@@SolStateMusic ❤️
Beautiful advice!
Very inspirational video :) I feel like you can be your own worst critic as a producer, I have my own Vault and currently on my 5343rd idea, the vast amount of that is little loops or ideas but they is a lot of tracks I haven't released because I just don't feel like there good enough. After hearing the story with Strobe, I feel like i'll have to have a look through ideas again and try to release more.
This applies to any creative work, not just music
loved the video, what's the track at 1:37. very groovy
I made all video music, it's all still "in the vault". You can follow my music on Spotify/Soundcloud
The vault is real as a beat horder i know several of my old tracks morphed into pieces i had not imagined.
Some times walking a way and coming back later changes everything.
Haha, we all are like that. At some point you just have to stop and say: «I’m done now. It has flaws and so many endless possibilities that I could improve… but this is it. Take it or leave it. I’m on to the next project.» 🥸😎
This is the same as what Rick Rubin says in his book.
The seed that doesn't get watered cannot reveal its ability to bear fruit.
Collect many seeds and then, over time, look back and see which ones resonate.
Sometimes we're too close to them to recognize their true potential, and other times the magical moment that inspired a seed into existence is bigger than the seed itself.
It's generally preferable to accumulate several weeks' or months' worth of ideas and then choose which of them to focus on, instead of following an urge or obligation to rush to the finish line with what is in front of us today.
Great perspectives 🙂
man going back to old projects i got tired of years ago and finding good elements is such a weird nostalgia trip. like, i was trash but ..actually decent as well? 🤣
I just put an album and one of the songs was "on & then off" of my previous EP's and LP's until now, where I finally released it
This helped me A LOT!!
Wonderful!
Sage wisdom, thank you!
Hey Sol State, addsome animation to the background picture, the breaks with text between footage will look much more captivating!
Thanks, I'll try that if I have extra time
@@SolStateMusic just hire somebody to do that, its not expensive and your time is precious
Really great advice
When i get bored of a song, i stop working on it knowing ill come back to it months later with better and better ideas
I'm not a music producer, but a writer, and I have a vault too! All the written pieces I don't like still (maybe) have some use/inspiration to them! Even if it's horrible, I don't throw it out totally cause it could be of some use later on.
An album is truly never done! You just find a level of satisfaction and put it out. Sure you think damn I could have done that or that but hey…you have to make your peace with it at the end of the day and get it out there!
Exactly - art is never done!
Makes me wonder how many awesome tracks every artist might have that no one has heard and sits in a vault. How was he so wrong about strobe, omg, amazing music. Great vid, summed up nicely, ty.
Me too! So much unreleased magic!
For me, I envy the pros' complex drum patterns and variety. No matter what I just couldn't make sophisticated drums. I'm in the hip-hop and synthwave camp, so if any producer has any advice, I'd be happy to take notes.
I’d love to see how people approach organising their Vault. How they “scrap” ideas and strip them for parts. I’m huge on the vault. I think of it as my own private Splice
Good idea, thanks
this is very relatable
YOU got so GOOD with edits BRO it not even funny - SO PPROOO!!
haha thanks, I have a "video-vault"
What and inspiring video!
Not a huge fan of his music or the genre, but goddamn does the man have some wisdom and great takes.
only one can dreamt o be as great at deadmau5 Hell ive been producing for 7 years now im 25. one day my mixes can be as crisp as deadmau5 and as catchy oneday. 2 all you producers out there dont give up!!
Exactly, just done give up
4ware, nosedive, imaginary friends are just a few examples of tracks from the vault that used to be completely different because he hadn't figured out what he wanted to do with them yet. This is good advice. Keep your project files even if they suck at the time in your opinion. You just may figure it out one day, as have I plenty of times
Interesting. Would be cool to hear those first-versions