What All My Best Students Have In Common (And Why Their Recordings Are Improving)

When you receive the number of emails and comments I do on a daily basis you start to see patterns emerge.

A clear line is drawn between those people who are seeing massive improvement in their recordings and mixes, and those who aren’t.

All my best students (whether of my free or paid material) despite their vast differences in skill level, gear choice, or musical style – have this one thing in common: they take action.

Via Taco Ekkel Flickr

The Dumbest Most Ridiculous Thing I Ever Heard

Not everyone is going to agree with what I have to say – I’m OK with that. Take this guy on Facebook for example:

Click here to see this charming Facebook comment.

And even if you DO agree with what I say, that doesn’t make me the final authority on all things recording and mixing. I’m just a guy who likes making music – much like you.

But what I have to say has tremendous value – if you choose to apply it and take action.

Just take one of my readers named Dan H. who recently emailed me to share his initial skepticism of my recent $300 Studio Challenge series, but how that quickly turned into immense growth in his craft.

When I received the first e-mail message about the challenge, I thought it was the dumbest, most ridiculous thing I ever heard.  It was more morbid curiosity that made me watch the first video than any feeling that it would contain anything informative, let alone useful.  It was that same curiosity that inspired me to try some of the tips and tricks contained within.

Bahaha. I love his brutal honesty. But what I love more was that he didn’t just point the finger and laugh at my insanity.

Instead he actually watched one or two of the videos and then did something even more amazing – he tried some of my suggestions on his own material. Read on.

To my amazement and utter enjoyment, your tips proved to be based on realities that are so simple that even this low budget home studio enthusiast could replicate the intended results!

I have been recording in my home studio for about 18 years.  In those 18 years of self-experimentation (and lots of love/hate relationships with tons of plug-ins), my craft didn’t improve a whole lot.  In the several weeks that have passed since my first encounter with your videos, my recordings have improved drastically.

So much so that I have had people listen to my newly recorded material ask me if I decided to record in a big-budget studio, this time around.  With a gleeful chuckle, I reply (with pride) that my new recordings were made with the same crappy equipment I have made all of my recordings with… just with a more logical approach. – Dan H.

Dan is a classic success story in my book.

He had the curiosity and humility to try something that he thought was “dumb” and “ridiculous” and took action. Guess who’s laughing now? He is!

Try It – What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

Listen, I really want you to succeed.

I want you to make better sounding recordings and mixes – with the gear you already have.

I want you to achieve your musical goals and dreams, you know the ones that you’ve been putting off for years and years because this thing called “life” got in the way.

But you have to believe me when I say that nothing will change, nothing will improve until you start to be a person who takes action.

Until you stop reading about or criticizing, or even just dismissing something as being silly, and instead start actually putting this stuff to the test – you’ll never get to where you want to be.

Just try some of the stuff I’m teaching here – it might just work!

And what’s the worst that could happen? It doesn’t do anything for you? Then you’ve lost nothing but a little bit of time. And you’ve actually gained more experience! And experience (even bad experience) pays off long term.

So to start the habit of taking action, here’s what I want you to do this week:

1. Find one technique, tip, trick, or suggestion on The Recording Revolution that you haven’t tried and implement it in your next mix or recording.

2. Leave a comment below and tell us what it is you’re trying out (it might get someone else thinking about what to try themselves!).