There’s some new marketing messages doing the rounds in the world of music production. They are being used to encourage a new generation of music makers to buy all sorts of stuff they don’t need and to subscribe to plans they can’t afford. We expose them and tell you why it’s a scam.

Spend any time on social media and you’ll start seeing adverts aimed at those wanting to get into music production. Futhermore, irrespective of the product they all use similar ways to get people to buy or sign up.

The Secret Scam

The first message is based around a secret, or should we say ‘the secret.’ How do top engineers do this? How do top producers get that sound? It’s an obvious way to market to people who want to make great music. They spend a lot of time and money trying to make great tracks, and for some sounding like the music they listen to is hard. There’s something missing, what are they doing wrong? Is there a holy grail of music production?

And so the secret line is played out in marketing. There’s some secrets that only the top people know, they say. The claim gets even more outrageous; “What we are about to tell you top audio engineers don’t want you to know.” As if there’s some cabal of top producers and engineers who are charged with protecting these secrets. If one stops to think about it for one minute, it’s laughable.

They offer to give you those secrets for a “one off” or in many cases “small monthly” payment.

Bottom line, there’s not a single top producer or engineer we know (and we know a lot of them) who is keeping any secrets. They have plenty of knowledge inside their heads, but for these women and men it’s been acquired over many years of hard work.

Even more, many of them give up their time freely to share their knowledge with the next generation. If someone is taking your money to share with you recording secrets, it’s a scam, there’s plenty of places to find that stuff for free… this blog is one of them.

So if you want to know the secret, it’s talent, persistence and hard work.

The Elite Scam

The second message is based around a suggestion that there is some kind of elite in the industry and you’re not one of them. Furthermore, you don’t need to be one of them, because in these marketing messages they have the easy way to do what the elite do, or a short cut, or a hack.

Who are the elite? They are people who read music, or have ear training. They are people who have spent years in a university, or college, or doing a course online over several years. They’ve spent time understanding the nature of sound, they may have a degree in sound or acoustics.

But you don’t need any of this, the marketing says. You don’t need to be able to read music, you don’t even need to know what the notes are. Just download a chord pack and you can have chords, but not any old chords, these are PRO LEVEL chords to help you create your next hit. After all, it’s those pro level chords that are getting people to the top of the charts.

Perhaps someone should have told Lewis Capaldi to use pro level chords on his song Pointless, which by the way has enjoyed the number one slot. The only problem is, that the song doesn’t use any pro level chords, they are just bog standard chords, and there’s not many of them either. By the way, if you really want MIDI chords you can download them for free on the internet, you don’t have to pay a penny for them.

Another elite group are those who have spent time understanding how to record and mix music. They’ve spent time learning every piece of hardware and software, reading the user manuals (how odd) and also understanding the theory behind the sound too.

But this new marketing says that learning is for losers. Take no notice of the elite, you can do it without any of their silly learning, just press a button on this magic plugin and you’ll have a hit.

Again, there’s not one smart person we know making a sucess of music in this industry that’s elite. Quite the opposite. It takes humility to want to understand new things, it means admitting we don’t know everything and we still have a lot to learn. Only a fool thinks they have nothing left to learn.

Making Music Is Hard

Bottom line, making music is hard. If you’re doing it to try and make a career of it then it’s harder than ever, partly because this kind of marketing is encouraging even more people to do it. The haystack is getting bigger and the cake is getting smaller.

We don’t think it should be as hard as it sometimes is, some of this gear is poorly designed and needs a rethink. A lot of the popular DAWs are sometimes bloated with features and not very easy to use, so it’s not surprising some give up after battling with buffer sizes, output routing and other stuff. Thankfully some companies, who thankfully don’t use either of the above scams, are doing some great things to make music making easier. We’re not suggesting things couldn’t be easier, but that’s not the same as thinking it’s easy.

And even before the tech is turned on writing a song is hard. Ask any sucessful songwriter and they will tell you that for every hit (which took blood, sweat and tears) there’s 50 more that are unfinished or never made the cut. One writer once described the song writing process as 1% inspiration and 99% persperation.

It’s an unpopular message, coming up with great songs and making great sounding music is hard. Although it’s a lot easier and cheaper to produce music than it used to be. However, those who want to take your money by selling you so-called shortcuts don’t want you to hear or believe this message.

The majority of those who are finding success in making music have worked incredibly hard to be there, there are few shortcuts… don’t believe the hype.