I am not good enough , I wonder will I ever be

HELLBELLSOUNDS

New member
I love music , i love the whole concept , the idea , the concept of creating something new and extraordinary .
i look around me and see thousands of talented producer each one more talented than the other , make you wonder . what is so special about you ?
my kicks are meh , sounds are meh , arrangement is meh , creativity is meh , the overall feel is meh ,
i guess ill just be a meh all my life :c

good luck to you all , you are all killing it !
 
Don't get discouraged! It's all down to learning skills and maturing. I'm 55 and still improving my skills and my musicality. :)

For sounds... a good way to improve kicks and, well, almost anything, is to apply some compression. It can really make sounds come forward in the mix, with more body and strength, without peaking. There are plenty of good, free, musical compressor plugins out there, such as TDR Kotelnikov. Other tools like transient shaping can help with drums. Also, watch some YouTube videos on EQ and train your ears to hear what EQ does and how it can help with sound. For example, if you use compression on too many things, it can get congested in the mix, so you'd use EQ to scoop some frequencies out of some of the sounds to create more space for other sounds in the mix. And an overall multi-band compressor on the mix bus can help your whole mix gel together and have some punch to it.

Arrangements are hard. But I've found that working on transitions can really drive an arrangement forward, such as a drum fill just before a transition point, or a swelling reverse cymbal or even just a single snare hit on beat 4 can work magic going into a section with drums.

As for creativity, in my experience it comes and goes naturally. I'm mostly a hobbyist for music creation, so I'm not required to slave over a DAW, Typically I find that I'll create several cool things, then there may be a whole year when I'm simply not feeling it.

Getting a feel for chords and harmonies is valuable too. There's an awful lot of electronic music around that does nothing more than cycle around 4 chords, or two chords, or even (yuck!) just stays on one chord. IMO, the ear gets tired of too long without harmonic interest.

But, in general, the more of it you do, the better your technical skills will become. And with better technical skills, the creative/expressive/musical flow is less hindered by figuring out how to do stuff.
 
Don't be so hard on yourself HellBellSounds,

The simplest music is celebrated.

I actually just started, but I found this app that helps me pick my scales and guide my creativity.

 
Take pride in the small things dude? Instead of looking at the negatives look at the positives, at least you're working on it?
 
Layer, compression, leave headroom, lp/hp filter EACH sample to cut out freqs you don’t want, leave headroom, leave headroom.
 
And focus on one skill at a time in your learning. The compression aspect as suggested here is a good start point.

I find most bands / artists / DJs are known for that singular thing that's really good. The other stuff fills in the gaps so to speak. Focus on a thick kick that BOOMs and no one will notice (or care) that your hi-hats are a little predictable. Focus your learning on a few things and not feel overwhelmed and you'll get there! You WILL get there if you care which you obviously do.
 
Just keep working on the beats, its not really a race. Look at beat making like a career. I go through the same stuff, like one week I'll feel like my beats are fire and the next I'm like this is trash.

Just keep the grind up fam, keep getting feedback, listen to tons of music, take time off.
 
Take your time, but remember...it's never too early to go to school for music.
Or at the very least, buy an ereader.
 
The title of or your thread really resonated with me. I really get where you are coming from, that is the mindset that dominated me for most of my life and I allowed it to rob me of some pretty significant things…especially when it came to music. I really had no one to tech me about mindset and the power it has to build up or destroy one’s life.
Like you I have loved music my whole life and it has helped me get through some extremely dark times in my life.

All through my 20’s I was in bands, had my music played on the radio, worked with some of the most creative musicians in my area, I have even had people approach me and ask for my autograph. I loved playing and performing the songs I wrote with my band, and at times some of the most intense and sometimes sublime experiences of my life.

Like you, however, I did not think I was good or talented and that I was just “Meh” at best. This negative mindset cost me my band, and the ability to follow through with composing my own music and ultimately, I gave up music altogether for an exceptionally long time.

There are Myths/Lies/Distortions that we tell ourselves or that people tell us that we buy into that are completely wrong.

Talk to anyone who has really achieved anything and you will find that there are years of struggle, work and frustration behind them that had to take place to get to this point. Its not magic…you have to work, you have to experiment and you have to be willing to write allot of really crap material before you can start writing anything good. Most accomplished songwriters will tell you this. It took me a really long time to learn this…and really long time.

I will close with this story on how people can influence our beliefs.

When I was 10 we had tryouts to see if would could take band in my school. I remember the teach coming around asking each student to tap to a metronome. I though I had did just fine, he stopped and looked at me and told me as a 10 year old I had no rhythm and would never play music and move on. I let that dominate me so much that to this day I have a great deal of anxiety when I attempt to write drum beats all because I adopted his bullshit mindset.

Took me years to remember this and realize it and get the courage to dive headlong into making music again and its ok if I suck for a bit and its going to be fun as shit learning again.

I want to encourage to have fun work hard and push through it. One day you will find yourself in the middle of making an insane beat that has your head move and you’ll be thinking holy shit, this is fucking amazing.

 
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It takes time and is frustrating but at the end of the day is worthy. It will help in every sense. Keep it up bro.
 
Hello,
I am new to this forum joined it for the exact same reason. I am good at DJing but not at signing. Feels crazy right the thing that I have learned is I been practicing every other day and I am slowly learning a bit. Dude dont give up trust me never give up, practive every day. Download videos theres tons out there to learn.
 
It gets better, though.

Yeah, especially when doing beat studies and you hear something so sick that you start to question why you are even trying. The best part is, once you learn the techniques that they were using, you start to realize that it wasn't really so large an obstacle.
 
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Some great replies in here already. Just thought I'd let you know, I feel the same 95% of the time. However that remaining 5% is powerful and is the reason I continue to make music.

Have a read of this quote from Ira Glass. It always helps me when I read it.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
 
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