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be able to “hear” the inner workings in the mix, more on that later. Long story short, crush through this phase and

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10 Battles

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Contents -Intro/Current Rundown of the Competitive Landscape of EDM and the Music Industry

Battle One: Dealing with the “Harsh” Reality of the Industry No One Can Find You …............................................5

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Battle Two: “Pro” Level Music Takes Years, Not Months......................7 Battle Three: Will a Label “Make You”? Doubtful.................................9

Battle Four: Are Remix Contests Worth the Time?........................12 Battle Five: Dirty Truth, the EDM Scene (Production Side) is Full of Haters................................................16 Battle Six: Mix Quality MATTERS, Not the “Musicality” in the Way Most Producers Assume ….......................18 Battle Seven: Your Tracks MUST Compete in Both Loudness and Levels - DJ’s WON’T Touch “Weak Tracks” …..................................................................20 Battle Eight: DJ/ Production Skill Does Not = Gigs........................23 Battle Nine: The Dirty Truth, Music Marketing is Everything.................................................................26

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Battle 10: Dirty Truth, You’re Going to Fail a LOT......28 Conclusion/ More Info Links

Welcome to 10 Battles, -Producer's Guide / Insider Secrets of the EDM Industry If you're new to nyonyxx.com, glad you could join us. If you know my work, feel free to skip this brief intro, if you're new, a little back story. I go by the alias Nyonyxx, I am a music producer/sound engineer and overall sound fanatic. My goal is to help people output the BEST sonic quality possible. I have hundreds of “how to make that sound” videos on YouTube, exclusive “easy to mix” presets and offer many services. One of the most popular is my mastering service, I have mastered 1,000’s of EDM tracks to date. (And 1,000’s of non-dance tracks.) Along with working on the sound side of the industry, I also have deep roots in the marketing of music.

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I started off marketing pop music many years back, I’ve run campaigns for a number of successful artists. Over the years, I shifted my focus to the dance music side (which was always my main love). I have run a number of marketing campaigns for EDM acts and helped 1,000’s of independent artists gain more fans via my book “EDM INCSocial Media Hacks for Limitless Fans”. I feel this combination of producing, sound design, engineering and marketing dance music is rare in the industry so I like to share all that I can. On Nyonyxx.com you will find blog posts covering all aspects of the industry. I truly hope I can help take your music and career to the next level. If you ever need anything, shoot me a message at [email protected], either myself or a team member will be happy to help. Without further ado, here are The 10 Battles. These range from, how labels really work, how the industry really works, what labels and DJ’s really look for, what club owners really look for, etc. If you want to crush it in this industry, knowing all these topics inside and out will help push you along. Without knowing this info, you may spend years doing the wrong thing, assuming you will end up where you want to be. I hope this guide steers your path in the right direction and allows you to reach your dreams. with_love _nyon

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Battle One: Dealing with the “Harsh” Reality of the Industry No One Can Find You Believe it or not, making it in music is one of the hardest things anyone can attempt to do. The reasons are fairly simple The industry has no barriers to entry (anyone can DL a DAW and start “producing” in a short amount of time)  Anyone can upload anything (regardless of quality) online for free.  There are tens of millions of producers, yes, most of them are not “serious” but by the amount of emails I get on a daily basis, let me tell you, there are a ton of seasoned vets in the game too.  Lastly, music sales continue to drop year after year, with streaming, YouTube, SoundCloud etc., people just don’t buy music anymore. Long gone are the days when people HAVE to buy music, in order to have it whenever they want to listen to it, now music is often just a click away and it’s free. Why does this matter to you the EDM producer? Pretty much, most producers, myself included, entered the arena without a clue as to what laid ahead. Most producers simply don’t understand the massive, massive scale of the industry, when you don’t understand the scale of the industry, you're going to have a hell of a time digging your heels in and gaining ground.

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You may upload a remix here, a remix there, new track here, new track there and wonder...why is NO ONE checking out my tunes? This question is asked 1,000’s of times a day across the world. It isn’t that your music is bad (though it may be, if I’m being honest) it’s that no one can find you. Let me put this bluntly, no one will ever magically “find” your music. Labels, the big ones, don’t stalk the 250,000+ tracks uploaded to SoundCloud daily (yes I’m serious). Just think about that number for a minute... With all these factors against you, you MUST come prepared with proper knowledge of both the industry and what it takes to win, assuming that’s your end goal. Too many times, producers will really want to make a go at this, but just dabble here and dabble there. Hopefully, simply knowing what it’s going to take will allow you to push to a new level of hard work and ass kicking. Let me hammer this point home and be logical for a minute. OK, say you’ve been producing for a few years, you have 20 + original tracks online but no one is checking them out...why? Simply, they aren’t searching for you. No one will ever search for your name, why would they? When you search for music, you most likely already know the artist you’re searching for, the only way you find new music is through other sources.

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A few examples -

You You You You

want a new remix, you search for remixes and find a new artist follow a channel on YouTube and always check out what they post hear a track in a mix show follow a blog or channel’s website and/or SoundCloud

You get the gist, new music is rarely found via your own networks. When you are new, your own networks will never gain ground until you get exposed via a source that already has traffic, this is just how the internet works. Sadly, if you really think about it, it makes perfect sense, why would anyone “randomly” stumble on an unknown artist's original track? Long story short, they won’t. Yes, getting on a Beatport chart will expose you, and SOME labels will expose you, (but the truth about labels will be talked about later). In the end, I know this sounds negative, BUT 99% of producers will never grasp the above concept, once you nail the above concept and figure out how new music is found the world will open up to you. Add some killer EDM Music Marketing to the mix and you will be well on your way to gaining new fans and building-up your name.

Battle Two: “Pro” Level Music Takes Years, Not Months Here is how this goes down. Person enters the EDM production scene, they think, hell I’ll be Tiesto in a year or less! They work really, really hard for a few months, but quickly get burnt out when they realize their music still isn’t any good.

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Again, this skill set is going to take MANY, MANY years to learn. I’d say, on average, it takes 5-8 years to get a pro level mix (and that’s assuming you work at it fairly often). It’s very, very rare that you will get a top level track in, let’s say 2 years (though I have heard a few). With that being said, you need to keep this in mind so you don’t beat yourself up. Most producers I know, got to the 1-2 year mark, realized how far they still had to go and bailed. If you truly want to bail, go for it, but if you still want it, just realize this “sucky” period is 100% normal. In fact it usually goes down like this 1-2 years - You know you suck, and you can’t “hear” the track that well.  2-3 years - You start to think you’re awesome, and still can’t “hear” the track details well.  3-4 years - You REALLY think your music is amazing, and can’t understand why labels don’t want you.  Year 4+ - You finally start to realize that you had a shit ton of errors in your old tracks, the low end was boomy, the sub-range had no density, the track was hollow etc. It simply took you 4 years to even be able to hear these issues and fix them. The reason I’m spelling all this out is because it’s common for you to wonder why producers say “your mix needs work” when you think it’s awesome, I went through this period and hundreds of clients I’ve talked to about it have gone through this as well. Truly no big deal, just realize it will most likely happen to you as well.

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Things that seem simple (kick drums and sub bass for example) will take YEARS to be heard cleanly. It’s weird, because I can now make a clean sub bass + kick in about 10 minutes, when I couldn’t do it for 4 years previously. Simply put, my ears weren’t trained enough to be able to “hear” the inner workings in the mix, more on that later. Long story short, crush through this phase and embrace the suck, I promise it will pass and you will kill it. Truly, it is just going to take a long ass time for your ears to really “hear” the mix. When you start out, it just all sounds “there”. 5 Years down the road? You have left, right, center, front, back, mid, sides etc. The entire mix has turned into a room and you are placing things perfectly inside this room. The first few years, you simply won’t be able to hear how the room works, give it time, it will happen.

Battle Three: Will a Label “Make You”? Doubtful. For the longest time I had this stigma, the stigma was simple I will get on a HUGE record label (if I just make good music).  Getting on a record label will change my life (as long as I am on Beatport I will sell tracks!). Again, sadly, this just isn’t true.

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Unless you have 1. A decent size fan base 2. Land a decent size label 3. Land a killer placement (big YouTube channel etc.). You simply won’t sell many tracks (if any). There is this weird vibe that all you need to do is get on Beatport! Everyone will then find your track and buy it! Sadly, even if you make amazing music, this just does not happen. Period. You need a large audience prior to selling large volumes (or even any volumes) of music. So you may be saying, “I’m going to land a huge label!” “That will do it!” Yes, yes it would, but, huge labels DO NOT work the way you think they would. Yes, they take demos, but they trash 99.9% of them. Why? They are getting HUNDREDS of “ok tracks” a day, maybe a few good ones, and maybe one “great one” a week. Even that great one will have a hard time “making it” due to the nature of labels. Big labels are giant marketing machines, they will only push music when-

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1. The artist has a large, pervious fan base (i.e. the label knows they will sell a lot of copies). 2. The artist has a connection with that label, maybe he has a friend on the label, maybe he has a proven track record writing songs for the label (i.e. he’s a ghost producer for other artists on the label). 3. The track is GROUND BREAKING and causing a lot of buzz, sadly, no one can tell if the track is groundbreaking (unless it has a proven/view/fan/like/download count etc.) so even if your track is utterly amazing, unless you have stats to back it up, it’s hard to land these labels. Not impossible, but bloody near it. Listen, I know this sounds kinda shitty, and it is, but this is just how the industry works. The industry is NOT about “the music quality “, the industry isn’t about being creative, the industry is about selling more units (at the top levels). Why else does one song get uber popular, then EVERYONE ELSE copies it? They want to jump in on the cash cow of that new style. This isn’t the way I wish it was, but this is the way it is (again at the top levels here). I am talking about the BIG NAME labels, not a label that sells 100 tracks a year. So, should you not try to get on the big labels? NO, always try, just don’t give up when and if you fail (you will fail, 100’s of times, I do every day in all areas of my life, keep pushing though my friend). Also, regarding smaller labels, you need to realize they may not have ANY BRAND power in pushing your track. Just because you got on XYZ small label, it doesn’t mean you're going to sell 250 units/ tracks, hell, it doesn’t even mean you're going to sell 5 units.

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All I am saying with this is don’t fret about landing on labels, try for it, but realize unless it’s a decent sized one, it’s not going to be a massive career boost or anything. Small labels can be awesome as well! I just hear a lot of times guys thinking a small label with 500 Facebook likes and 400 Twitter followers is going to end up helping them sell 250 + tracks, usually this just isn’t the case. In your quest for landing on big labels make SURE you build up your brand. If you have an AWESOME HUGE fan base and brand, big labels will easily take your tracks (seriously) because they know you will sell them to your fans (they make money) and it will help expose the label to more people etc., etc. When you’re dealing with a label, the best way to land on one is think, “if the label takes my track, what will THEY GET out of it”? Shit way to think, but sadly this is how businesses are thinking, especially when it comes to this industry. The more the label “gets out of it”, i.e. better chance for exposure via your fans and sell more copies, the better chance of a label picking you up. In the end, build your brand to an epic level via music marketing methods. It’s your brand that’s going to land the best labels. Yes, your music MUST be awesome as well, but awesome music is the default, there is a TON of killer music. A lot of this killer music has no brand built behind it, so when you swoop in with 50k fans on your pages, people will take notice.

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Battle Four: Are Remix Contests Worth the Time? With the birth of the remix contest, comes the notion that winning a contest will MASSIVELY boost your career. Will this help? Some of them, yes, some of them will TRULY HELP. Most of them however will do almost nothing except waste a bunch of your time. Let’s backtrack a bit about what remix contests are REALLY FOR. Most companies or artists will say the remix contest is to “give back” to other artists, and while this is somewhat true, the bottom line is remix contests are designed to spread the ORGINAL SONG around the web. Ever notice with some contests, you need to like this, do this, give an email, share on your page etc.? Hell, most contests that have open voting are DESIGNED so you share your remix (and thus promote the original track). The more shares you have, the more likes/up votes you have the higher “rated you are”. In reality, these contest sites are paying you, or giving you a release on a label, for you to share the original track, nothing more. Now, this sounds almost “negative” and I can see that, but remember I come from a music marketing background, I have worked behind the scenes on a few remix contests (pushing them for the artist I was working with, i.e. I was the one who was trying to spread the original).

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Often times, behind the scenes, they really just want to sell more copies of the original track (while giving you a few prizes of value). The reason I bring this is up is as follows, a fellow producer friend of mine has entered over 50 remix contests. 90% of the time these contests were songs he didn’t even really like, but he wanted the “release” or the exposure from the win. He spent almost ALL his time working on songs for these contests thinking it would be a big break moment. He finally won, what did he gain from a “decent size contest” win? -

$500 Bucks Release on a small label (which never amounted to much) About 50 new Facebook likes A few followers elsewhere etc. In the end, it sure as hell was NOT worth the many, many years of entering contests for that small amount of exposure. If he would have just marketed and hustled his music, he would have gotten MORE weekly exposure than he got from the contest alone, however, he didn’t realize this at the time. This my friends is the only reason I bring contests up, yes the HUGE Beatport play ones can land you on big labels which is awesome, but there aren’t “big contests” all the time (and 1,000’s of people enter those). If you truly want to enter the contest because you like the song/challenge/want to work on it, go for it! Just don’t enter contests ONLY for the slim chance of “exposure” because often times it won’t be

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worth it and you’d be much better off grinding away at other areas of media exposure. If you are going to enter these contests, here’s a few behind the scenes tips Sites will say that they “check all songs, listen to everyone”. I’ve heard from a direct employee (I shall not name company), this is never the case, if they are getting 5k songs, they aren’t carefully listening to every song, in fact, they most likely listen to 10 seconds of the drop IF THAT. With that being said, if you plan to enter these contests, do your best to get upvoted! Try to aim for at least the top 100-300 if a huge contest and top 25 if small, this way you KNOW your song will get heard. If you are building your brand on the side, it will be EASY to get high ranking votes for these contests, in fact look at it this way Get exposure ON YOUR OWN, build your name on your own, THEN when you enter the contests, a simple tweet or post will net you enough upvotes to place high enough to be heard. Trying to “spam message” your song to everyone, voting for everyone hoping for a vote back, or other such nonsense people do (I did it for years, no judgment) is a poor man’s game i.e. a huge waste of time for little long term upside. Instead, market your ENTIRE self-daily, so then when votes are needed, you dip into your fan pool and BAM, no spam messages or like for likes needed.

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Last word on contests, if you are ever in the position to HOST these contests, go for it! From the few contests I’ve run for others, the upside for the host artist was LARGE! Compared to the upside for the people in the contest, if you have a decent level of music, start working on a way to get your fans involved in your OWN contest. If you ever have any questions on building your own contest, good ways to go about it, or how to implement “marketing via your contest” hit me up at [email protected] P.S., if you ever need a vote, send me a quick email, I am ALWAYS happy to drop a quick vote for anyone (assuming I don’t need to sign up for a bunch of shit). Otherwise, stoked to help you out!

Battle Five: Dirty Truth, the EDM Scene (Production Side) is Full of Haters The internet in general, is full of a bunch of haters. People that have NOTHING better to do with their lives than put down others. Every video I’ve posted, every post I’ve made, every track, everything always ends up having haters, this is common across the board and it’s common for the clients I work with as well. Why am I telling you this?  Because you slave away on your tracks and people email you to tell you that you fucking suck.  Because you post a new song and people tell you your mix sucks.

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 Because you post a new photo only for people to tell you, you look like XYZ. If you do not have control of your emotions you’re going to be effected- period. I think it’s safe to say the main killers of an EDM artists’ dream are 1. Realizing how much hustling it takes to get heard 2. Haters This may not have happened to you yet, but I get messages WEEKLY“Hey Nyonyxx, I read your post on haters, thank you so much, I have to deal with this bullshit/that bullshit/ people calling me out etc.” It can really take a toll on you, especially when you are younger and more attached to your tracks. (I personally feel, as you get older (or make over 100 or whatever tracks), you get less attached due to volume). Above all else, when the time comes and you get your first hater, be HAPPY that someone called you out, it means you are MAKING it somewhere. Anyone that has NO HATERS hasn’t made it anywhere. Hell, look at the TOP guys, Zedd, Skrillex, Mau5...more haters than most people will ever have fans, this is the nature of the music world for better or worse. This may seem like an odd topic for an EDM Battle, but if you are in this industry long enough, your day will come.

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When it does, smile and laugh and move on. Next/ Done. Don’t respond to these people, it’s a waste of your time and just adds fuel to the fire. If anything, feel bad for them, typically people get upset about things they WISH they could do (but won’t put in the time). Grind on my friend, NEXXXT!

Battle Six: Mix Quality MATTERS, Not the “Musicality” in the Way Most Producers Assume One huge issue anyone in the EDM realm will face is the classic “how much does mix quality matter”? I can safely say A LOT. In fact until you get past a certain level of “mix quality” it will be everything. Let me explainThe general public can’t tell the difference between a “bad mix” and a “good mix” in those terms, however1. A bad mix will NOT make sense on the dance floor, people will stop dancing because the elements don’t bounce and play nicely together. They won’t be able to say it’s because it’s a bad mix, but this will be one of the reasons 2. The general public will have a hard time connecting with a bad mix, it just won’t make sense to them. A great mix will have a CLEAR message, clear main topline lead, clear rhythm, clear vibe. A bad mix will be all blended together (in a bad way). 3. A bad mix will simply not have the power of a great mix. I remember many, many years back, worrying SO much that my songs had no power, no volume, no density compared to the best songs, the general

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public will notice this to, but it will be more on the level of “they don’t like it”. As for the general public (aka most of your fans) this is the difference between a bad mix and a good mix, as you can see you want to make sure you focus on mix quality. From a producer's standpoint1. DJ’s that have been in the game awhile and can “hear well” WILL NOT play bad mixes, they know they will sound weak, not hit right in the club and overall be a let down to the dance floor, they will avoid these at all costs. 2. Labels DO NOT want badly mixed tracks, it makes them look bad, they will sell less tracks, and it will not bring the right kind of attention to their label. 3. Producers that can “hear” will NOT DL even free tracks that are poorly mixed, they are simply painful to listen to and useless in the club. It won’t be a large group (takes a while to learn to “hear”) but the people that have been in the scene longer will know and often times it’s these people's attention you want to grab. There are many other reasons to make sure you up your mix ability to the highest level possible but these are the main ones. People assume the “musicality” of their tracks will be AWESOME and thus labels will want them even if they have bad mixes, this is far from the truth. Let’s be real, in EDM the tracks aren’t hyper “musical”, there usually isn’t any breakthrough arrangements, tempos or designs. The real deal that makes an EDM track awesome is-

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- New, unique sound design (which is going to require a great mix by default, poor sound design = poor mix). - Loud/Pumping/Clean Dynamics across the board (great mix down). - Arrangements that work well together (again, this is more from a mix standpoint compared to music as well). - Textures that sit well together (the right mixture of smooth, rough and various timbres that color the song. Everything from the texture of the drum’s hardness to the knock of a saws’ attack. All of these need to be ideal to make a track awesome.) - Having ideal ADSR settings on the sounds and effects in the mix. - Knowing the 1,000’s of other small “tricks” that help make a track shine (small example, using a tiny bit of distortion on a sine sub bass to make it pop out more in the mix). There are tons of tiny tricks producers learn that make the tracks sound AWESOME as a whole. In the end, labels, other DJ’s and even fans will want tracks that sound sonically awesome, they (i.e. most fans) may not all know this but they still require it. Always push for the BEST mix you can get, remember it’s going to take many, many years to get to a pro level mix, and this only happens if you strive for it. I will talk more about mastering later, but for now, realize the mix down is the king, the master will help make it shine, but fix issues in the mixdown the best you can.

Battle Seven: Your Tracks MUST Compete in Both Loudness and Levels - DJ’s WON’T Touch “Weak Tracks” A common issue producers soon face is-

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Do I HAVE to master my tracks? What is mastering and how do I do it? The down and dirty answer, no, you don’t “have” to master your tracks, but you WILL need to get them to the standard industry loudness and have standard industry levels across the board. In theory, you can make the mix the best you can, slap a limiter on your track, and crank the volume to a certain RMS level and BAM “Mastered”. Will this give you the best sonic quality? Hell no, most likely you won’t even be able to get it up to “pro loudness” without causing distortion in the mix. However, it can give you a super rough “mastered track”. You can of course learn mastering yourself, which I urge you to do. But sadly, learning how to master yourself has some limits. The real reason you master your track is to fix any mix issues, get the track to pro loud and make sure the dynamic swing is awesome. In mastering you can enhance the stereo field (mid/side processing), you can increase and decrease certain ranges (EQ/Mid/Side EQ to enhance sides or decrease mid or side only etc.). Mastering will fix any level issues, make sure your sub bass is spot on (especially important if you're working without a sub) and just make your track sound “better”. Here’s the rub…

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For the most part all of these can be fixed IN THE MIX DOWN. So, if you're mastering your own track, just adjust these in the mix down, there isn’t much point in trying to “fix shit” in the master per say. So the real beauty of mastering is having someone else do it for you. The reasons are as follows1. You get another set of ears (hopefully better ears than yours). 2. You get someone to listen to it in a hi-fi studio/hi-fi system/sub/ monitors and high end audio card. When you’re new you most likely don’t have 5k of audio gear to check your mix on. 3. You get proper levels, proper width, proper use of tools. For example, if you have no idea what mid side compression or EQ is, you may not use it while mastering (it’s not “needed”) but mid/side processing can massively enhance the pro quality of your track (they are all using it). 4. You can get mix feedback, when needed, to then adjust in the mix prior to mastering. These are just a few reasons why it’s nice to have someone else master your tracks and most pro’s DO NOT master their own tracks! So you may be saying, cool, but why can’t I just upload my “mix” as is?  In today’s music market, you MUST, MUST, MUST upload competitively loud tracks, there is no way to avoid the famous loudness wars sadly.  If you upload low volume mixes, DJ’s will overlook them, labels won’t listen to them, people won’t vote for them in contests, the list goes on and on.

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So while you don’t need the track to be mastered, unless you are AMAZING at mixing (and can most likely do your own mastering) it’s ideal to let someone else do the mastering for you. They will fix any major issues, make your track loud and most likely widen/fatten the stereo field (after mastering 1,000’s of tracks, most producers are lacking in “side” volume , which makes the track sound thin and weak). Mid/side processing, via mastering and harmonics can address this issue. If you don’t want to have someone else master your track, just worry about getting it to “pro level RMS” the best you can and as clean as you can. As I said, try to fix ALL issues in the track itself, so when you master your own track there won’t be a lot of “fixing”. You won’t hear the issues (or you’d have already fixed them in the mix) compared to when someone else does the mastering, they may hear a lot of issues that you don’t and they can address them via the master. [Insert- Shameless plug here, I have been mastering EDM tracks for many years, you can check out the info page here. Prior to learning mastering I would send my tracks off to someone else, its common place in the industry. I always give a 100% FREE sample of the track prior to payment, so if you want to hear what mastering can do to your track, check it out today! Looking forward to hearing from you _nyon End Shameless Plug] Battle Eight: DJ/ Production Skill Does Not = Gigs

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Another common issue producers face (assuming they want them) is getting gigs. Here is how the normal thought process goes down“If I become awesome at DJ mixing and producing, I will easily get gigs!” Reality – DJ mix skill doesn’t matter much nowadays ( easy to learn ) and production skill doesn’t matter much either (there are millions of producers). What matters to land club gigs is this1. Who you know 2. Who you can bring into the club 3. How much money you can make for the club If you can bring 5k people to any big city club around the world, you're going to be rich. Period. Often producers assume that talent and skill will win over money and “marketing” when in fact, marketing is 90% of the equation with who you know being the rest. The BASE level is how good you DJ mix or produce. What I mean is, at a bare minimum you MUST be good at those, but those alone will get you nowhere. The problem is this, most people are only exposed to the big name artists (which have great music, or at least well produced music) when you do randomly find a “no name” artist, their mix / music quality usually isn’t up to par.

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The logical assumption that most people jump to is that great music/great mix = big name artist. This makes sense because most of the artists you hear that are small don’t have great music quality. I assumed this for years as well, but after working in this industry for a while I realized this is simply not true. I am sent tracks every day, every week, that are 100% Beatport top 10 quality, these tunes could easily be on the charts by any big name and you’d assume they produced it. These artists make amazing top level tunes, but can’t break through the sea of other artists. The reason you rarely hear “great mixes” from small artists is there aren’t a “lot of them” compared to the millions of new producers, but there are 100,000’s of producers that make great tracks, you just never find them because of the sea of music on the web. Therefore the idea that great music = making it and landing gigs is sadly far from the truth. I truly wish we lived in a world where the creative person could simply make music, make great music, and make a living doing so. It 100% does not work like this. So you now may be saying, “Well if great music doesn’t land club gigs and making it, what does”? More on that later, but for now, a few words about club gigs. To land club gigs, you need to bring people to the club (to land the big gigs, or go on tour etc. I am not talking about your local town gigs)

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the more people you can bring to the club, the more money you make the club owners from ticket and drink sales, the bigger gigs you get. There is a reason Calvin Harris gets 250k per gig in Vegas, he sells out the top clubs and sells them out to people that HAVE MONEY. Calvin crosses all genres and thus can bring in everyone from the club kids to guys in their 30’s that pay 15k for a table at the club. Truthfully, the ONLY difference between you and Calvin Harris is you can’t bring in those numbers to the club and he can. You could make BETTER music than him, be the best “DJ Wiz” in the world and he’d still land the big gigs. What does all this mean? Look at the next battle for more.

Battle Nine: The Dirty Truth, Music Marketing is Everything Marketing, the dreaded word to some in this industry, selling out is one of the first things that comes to mind. Let me be blunt, I’ve marketed tons of EDM (and pop acts) along with helping 1,000’s of people directly via my books. Here are the factsThere are too many people in this industry to make it without aggressively focusing on marketing. Most producers upload their music, post a video (with a photo) and send their track to a few huge labels hoping for the best. After they get a few hundred views and a dozen downloads they move to the next track, assuming “this isn’t the

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one”. They then do this for years on end with the same never ending results. The problem isn’t with your music it’s that your music isn’t reaching enough people. Every day it gets harder and harder to “make it” in this industry, as new producers get online and upload tracks daily, the amount of new music has almost no limits. I remember 6 years back, uploading a remix to YouTube and usually being one of the ONLY people that did it, back then people just didn’t upload “random remixes” especially bootleg remixes. It was easy to get views, easy to get fans, everything was no big deal, it happened with little effort. Now, there are hundreds of bootleg remixes and getting on the first page is tough. People are gaming the system (buying views/ likes/ comments, etc.,) it just became 100 times harder to break through the noise. While this sounds like a bad thing, the good news is almost NO ONE actually tries to market their music.  People rely on luck  People rely on “being found”  People rely on “someone pushing their music for them” It’s rare that people push their own music, hustle in the industry is only done by a small few. What that means is that if YOU hustle, if you market, if you make a REAL MARKETING PLAN you will be ahead of 99.9% of the wishers and dreamers out there.

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If you truly want to make it in this industry, if you're tired of relying on luck or hoping a big label will finally take you (remember, they usually only take big branded artists, regardless of music quality) then I urge you to check this out. EDM INC: Social Media Hacks for Limitless Fans I took all I learned marketing dance music for the last 7 years and made it into an easy to read and follow book. Not only does it tell you the inside scoop, it gives you a plan of attack and how to set up your marketing networks. Even if you don’t grab the book today, take these words to heartThe internet is FULL of amazing music, in order to stand out you must aggressively hustle and SMARTLY build up your brand. Make sure you are growing your fan base WEEKLY, if your stats aren’t going up every day (hopefully by a decent amount) something is wrong.

Battle Ten: Dirty Truth, You’re Going to Fail a LOT The number one thing I wasn’t ready for when I started in this industry was simple I had NO idea how much I was going to fail. Let me hammer this point home, you are going to royally fail at everything.

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You're going to fail at making good mixes, for a number of years. You're going to fail at having stuff in ideal rhythms, for a number of years. You're going to fail at having vocals in perfect key, for a number of years. You're going to fail at sound design, for a number of years. You're going to fail at getting fans, likes and plays for a number of years (or worse, never, if you don’t actively learn how to find and attract these people). You're going to get rejected by 100’s of big labels, for a number of years. You're going to honestly, just keep failing, Over and Over. Why does this matter? Because so many people in this industry will fail a few times and give up. Even the ones that hustle and never normally give up in life may bail when they haven’t had a victory in a while. The main reason I am spelling all this out for you is when something bad happens, when you don’t win, when a label rejects you, when a song doesn’t “take off” like you hoped just keep pushing, just hustle a bit harder.

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The music industry is an awesome place to work and grind, truly one of the most rewarding out there. If you’ve made it to this part in the book, you obviously love this industry and want to make a home in it. I urge you to keep your head up and keep fighting the good fight, above all else, keep making awesome music and trying to get it heard. In the end, put in the time marketing and brand building that the “other guys” were too lazy to do, this is what will push you over the top and into the spotlight. Best of luck and wishes _nyon PS : If you ever need anything, hit me up at [email protected] PPS: If you want to CRUSH it in building your brand and gaining fans, check this out.

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PPPS : Free Music Mastering Samples are just a Click Away.

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