u/Im_A_Smed

I spend a lot of time coaching electronic music producers and there are a few things I see constantly, particularly with people making house music.

Having far too many projects open at once
Starting new ideas feels productive, but eventually you end up with 40 eight bar loops and no finished music.

I’d rather have someone working seriously on 2 or 3 tracks than constantly starting new ones.

Mixing way too early

Getting the kick and bass sitting nicely is useful, but spending an hour EQing a hi hat before you’ve even arranged the track usually isn’t.

Get the idea working first. Polish it later.

Adding things when the track actually needs removing
This is probably one of the biggest ones.

If a professional reference sounds bigger than your track, the instinct is often to add another synth, percussion loop or layer.

Quite often the professional track sounds bigger because there’s actually more space.

Constantly changing sounds

At some point you have to commit.
If you’re replacing the kick for the 14th time, the kick probably isn’t the real problem anymore.

Waiting until the track feels perfect

It won’t.

Finishing music is part of learning how to make music. You learn considerably more from finishing 10 imperfect tracks than endlessly tweaking one.

I run Super Serious Coaching and we talk about this kind of thing constantly, so I’ve been trying to share more of what we teach publicly too.

If anyone is stuck on a particular Ableton or production problem, chuck it below and I’ll happily give you my thoughts.

Hey everyone,

I run Super Serious Coaching, a music production community focused mainly around house, minimal, garage and underground electronic music.

A big part of what we do is helping producers actually finish better music, rather than endlessly watching tutorials and never getting tracks over the line.

We regularly share free Ableton and production content covering:

Arrangement and finishing tracks
Mixing and getting low end right
Basslines, drums and groove
Sound design and sampling
Plugins and workflow
Track breakdowns from established producers

Simple Ableton tricks that can make a massive difference
We’re putting more and more of this content out for free, so if you’re an Ableton producer and any of that sounds useful, you can check us out here:

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/superseriouscoaching
YouTube:
https://youtube.com/@superseriouscoaching

There’s a full coaching community behind it too if you want more hands on help, track feedback and coaching, but there’s loads of free stuff you can take away without joining anything.

Also happy to answer Ableton or production questions here if anyone is stuck on something. 👊