The BEST Possible Advice For Music Producers (step by step masterclass)

Here's part of the course for free if you're interested: www.completeproducerpro.com/r...
After over a decade of producing professionally I thought, "what is the best piece of advice I could give people struggling to get to the next level?" This whole video is my personal opinion of what I think is the best possible advice I could as a music producer. I hope you internalize this simple concept and think about it as you're trying to bring your ideas to life.
I'd also love to hear what your best pieces of advice are in the comments, we can all learn from each other!
I try to read all the comments and respond when I can.
I hope this video inspires you to take action and make some music for yourself.
Thanks for stopping by, stay a while (:
Cheers,
Ethan

[@briancase6180]

All I can say is "yes, this is correct." It's not that there aren't times for complex arrangements, but that's only when a simple one won't work, in my experience. It takes a while to learn this on your own, but you will eventually learn this. 😏 The easiest thing to do is listen to a lot of EDM tracks very carefully and realize just how simple they really are.

[@brAckAttak]

Ethan, I discovered you today when looking up ableton tips. I just want you to know how much of an impact you’re making with your testimony. I just read your bio on Spotify about your three albums. As someone who has struggled with shame myself, it’s so refreshing to hear your honesty about where you were at in life and how you now want to do things WITH God instead of on your own. Just listened to “No time for shame” and had to get the tissues. All I can say is I relate with you on where you were, and how you have already helped me to grow closer to God now. I don’t want to continue this life without God. I have to trust that He sees my heart and loves me unconditionally, and doesn’t want me to live in shame.. thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice. You have encouraged many through your openness and humility. Thanks brother.

[@shareyourheartworship2544]

Hi, Ethan. I am following you and have thoroughly learned each step that you have explained. Your channel is a blessing to me. God bless you ❤

[@Buchmayerr]

I like your choice of words!! Very intelligent!! I appreciate what you're doing!

[@m3lito504]

Im a half year into ableton production with splice and i have been exactly in these thoughts of minimizing my tracks numbers! This video felt right on the spot on what i have to think about in my next track! Ty!

[@lilyw1771]

I'm extremely impressed with your whole production and vocals omg!

[@LegendaryHER]

stellar ... im in awe. this has been a wonderful discovery. i'm glad i clicked on ya Ethan!

[@newtpowersmusic]

Awesome! Thanks for showing the power of simplicity and good sound selection. I’ll try it out!

[@JonDoeDontchaKnow]

These videos are exactly what I needed. Thanks bud

[@thereturnofthemac]

I just found you channel today and have been watching your vids all day and then this new one just dropped! awesome man thank you

[@CompleteProducer]

Awesome! Thank you for watching!

[@craigdrummer13204]

ally great information Ethan thank you for posting I'm working on it just tring to make the time to do the actual work!

[@melodicprogressivehousemph6429]

Ethan, your approach is quite specific and simplified. Impressive and you have got a sub.

[@sfg206]

Love your videos Ethan, blessings to you brother

[@julesester2480]

Now Ethan is probably one of my favorite names 🤗 Thank you for great stuff and thank you for getting back to You Tube videos. We really need it. I couldn't find a link to your course though.

[@GusVisuals]

Great video! I always start following these masterclasses and end up going my way. Really inspiring!

[@danielwiktor1439]

Thank you Ethan - one love from toronto!!

[@Jvssvl]

LOVED it Ethan. Arrangement step by step masterclass next please!

[@hanses5]

best way to start the weekend with your video man!

[@CompleteProducer]

have a great weekend!

[@arothu6968]

Thank you, this was so easy to understand ❤

[@danacox3737]

incredible dude. loved this one

[@goldfishy]

This is so awesome and useful. Thanks!

[@macfisto77]

Subbed and liked. Quick, clean and dope!

[@vivektyagi6848]

🎉 Feels complete with necessary limited elements. 🎉 Many Thanks

[@andreasaru4477]

holy smokes batman. this is effin' golden! thank you

[@MarkFreedmanNY]

Agree 100%. Keep it simple. You can still make it sound full. Don’t need dozens of tracks.

[@dereksimke9117]

Oooo, that pause effect! 16:59-17:15 was 🔥

[@CAMMEDIAPRO]

Would you be able to add in your course, how to perform a live show and what equipment we need for that.

[@pochoto31]

Awesome! Please masterclass on vocals (Not how to sing, but how to mix them that good), Thanks for sharing!

[@ErreGamer]

OK now I need that song finished!

[@CrisCozy]

You helped me understand chords in Cmaj now I’m learning inversions. Appreciate you 🙏🏽

[@CompleteProducer]

woah nice job!

[@shubham-itachi]

Hey how can we compose song or make melody.

[@Ennuae]

The most streamlined explanation of radio quality production I’ve ever seen

[@antoniomere]

You ate this video!!

[@djtank201]

i kid you not bruh you leveled me up like a mario mushroom 🍄 very much appreciated!!! not many ableton videos out there on the youtube might even consider your classes as well so i can stop with all the youtube fl tutorials lol 😅

[@minifridgey]

DDAAAAANNNNGGG!! That was actually SO good!!!! 😮

[@OfflineLion]

Don't know If you'll ever see this... but, big shoutout to what you're doing with all your videos. I'm by no means a good producer yet (haven't even finished a full song, that is my next goal) but I'm having fun while trying out stuff in ableton and getting better bit by bit. When I played some of my snippets to my friends they even liked it :D Which is a great feeling. Thanks for the great and easys to follow tutorials. Would love more EDM Tutorials, as this is what I'm trying to do right now :)

[@grayoOooOo]

bro you got heavenly vocals

[@hosseinhashemi9899]

Keep going bro you’re amaziiiiiing asf🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@akiratheproducer]

Hi dude. I recently found ur channel and it's flames🎉❤. I'm loving it all the way till now. Can you post some tutorials on edm production including dubstep too ❤❤❤

[@djkon10th26]

Thank you Ethan

[@thaddeusford]

really good tutorial. thank you.

[@veronicabrasil]

you're the best! 💍

[@CompleteProducer]

[@officialnxtgnrtion]

Thank you so much for inspiring! been able to get farther with music in 3 months than i did in 6 years!

[@CompleteProducer]

wow, IM inspired reading this comment! haha

[@GuruxMusic4eva]

Fantastic, thanks

[@xasco0]

I'm switching from FlStudio to Ableton and I have to say thanks for the vid man, I didn't knew which plugins to use for compression or eq haha.

[@CompleteProducer]

Glad I could help!

[@davidcox8838]

Wow. brilliant!

[@Lezdmusic]

I loved the video Ethan, I was wondering if you could make a default set for us so we have something to start with. greetings

[@SWAMHAVIN.]

beautiful!

[@RV_beat]

love you ethan postive energy from iran :)

[@CompleteProducer]

thank you!!

[@ThienThanSaNga487]

Sir🔥

[@LegendaryHER]

I could sing on this all day...This was such a happy accident! I'm in awe right now.

[@spacehacker1999]

brilliant vid, inspires me to try and do better

[@CompleteProducer]

i love that, you got this!

[@shashankmish]

this is greatt! your tutorials are really useful tbh. btw I would love to see you produce something in a bit 'love is not dying' by jeremy zucker way😭(if you don't wanna listen to the whole album you can go with 'full stop' or 'lakehouse' by him to notice his production style)

[@srj8687]

It is justtt woowwww❤❤

[@davidcarter3976]

So anybody that doesn't understand music theory one of the key fundamentals that you want to understand, is there is a 7 step method for you to understand it. The way it works is any key that you start out with, if you just do this 7 step pattern you will be completely in key all the time. So the way it works is imagine you are on the guitar is really the easiest way to get it you're on the first fret of the neck of the guitar right. So starting from that first note 7 bar pattern would be skipping one fret I'm going to the next so starting on the 1st and then going to the third. That's called a whole step. A half step is where you just go to the next fret. Very simple right? So the pattern is whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. The easiest way to think about it is just count the whole steps and remember there's a half step every two and then three, kind of like a five part pattern is the easiest way to think. You know two whole steps half step 3-hole steps half step. It's very very simple there's nothing that is intimidating about it, some people just make it more complicated than it needs to be. Now your goal is to memorize all the keys and all the names of the different scales. But the most important thing is for you to go all the way up and down any instrument, really the guitar is the easiest and if you have never picked up a guitar is probably the smartest thing you can do that will help your music production, using that pattern I told you, and slowly map out all the scales. If you want to make sure you don't miss something, pull up a pattern on the internet that shows you all the scales where it is on the frets but, you're just going to be using that same pattern that I showed you, over and over again all the way up and down the neck of the guitar.

[@davidcarter3976]

This man is a good example, of why it's good to be relatively drug-free. Maybe a little weed and MDMA but you get the point... You don't age like everybody else does. Another key is to not eat but you know this part too much junk, but at the same time not just junk, you want a strictly avoid sugar. Sugar is you wake up you eat a ton of it you feel sleepy you never get no work done. If you stay away from sugar, even avoid food all together while you're working, save eating till afterwards, you will get a s*** ton done!!!

[@cmay205]

Awesome 👏

[@coinzilla9398]

That song deserves release bro

[@brtlee1922]

oh god how do you write that vocal line?? is is soooo sick!!! pls teach us how to come up with lead rithym line in the future videos.

[@mmckmusic]

really nice vocal!

[@donnydarko7624]

I have found that writing in C that I almost always run into the issue of the kick and the bass ending up occupying the same frequency range, also bass/sub bass really seems to work the best between E and A so say you only know the scale of C, just go into your plugin and transpose melodic elements down like 5 semitones and you should have less issues with your bass and kick fighting which may make it where you don't have to sidechain your bass to duck the kick and also should feel more presence from your bass for two reasons, 1 because you didn't have to make the compromise of sidechaining, and your bass will be more optimally placed in the frequency spectrum for better resulting bass in your music

[@Nebvla]

"sidechain the bass to duck the kick" I'm confused as to watch this means

[@donnydarko7624]

@@Nebvla Sidechain compression. you use a compressor as a gate trigger basically. you run your bass through a compressor, but use the signal from your kick drum as the signal that triggers the compression rather than the compressor being triggered by the bass like you would normally when using a compressor so that when your kik drum plays it limits the volume of the bass allowing room in the frequency range when the kick drum plays because if your kick and bass play at the same time and lets say that the decibel level your basslne is playing at playing reads -10db, and your and your kick level reads-10db. when both signals hit the master bus at the same time together they will use all of the headroom and adding stuff on other tracks since there isn't any more head room the audio signal is hitting the volume limit of your DAW aka running into the red. your audio will sound distorted, or muddy, or its common also that then all you will end up hearing is your bass drowning out every other element in the track, so sidechain compression is one option you can use to make sure the other machines aren't taking up too much space in the frequency spectrum where your track sounds bad.

[@Nebvla]

@@donnydarko7624 i know how to sidechain, I do it in every song cos copl ducking but just the way was said

[@donnydarko7624]

@@Nebvla I try and avoid having to do it. I find that kicks seem to work the best around C/65hz so if you write between D and F you still are good for being in the sweet spot for sub bass below that and can roll of higher frequencies so your sub and kick aren't fighting for space.

[@sanjaybaraily626]

You sing awesome bro🔥 Sing more please

[@screendrem]

This is essentially what mastery sounds/looks like...much like Rick Rubin calling himself a Reducer instead of producer except you can play and DIY everything. 🤯

[@writeaindysong1877]

❤thanks

[@ftrxotic5642]

using this as we speak

[@CompleteProducer]

love that!

[@chozen_666]

Ethan I love that so much you gotta drop that song for real 🫨🔥🔥

[@stephaam_music]

You rock!!!

[@CompleteProducer]

rock on!

[@Papadarce]

Wow bro wow bravo

[@uzaysametaydin]

thank you

[@thewyattact]

dope vid

[@iLoudwing]

amazing video, as always. Just wondering: why aren’t you on live 12 already?

[@CompleteProducer]

i filmed this before 12 was out! also, im still getting used to 12 haha!

[@whysttun]

im probs gon buy that course amen

[@CompleteProducer]

we'd love to have you!

[@alexzehnmusik]

I love it

[@CompleteProducer]

(: !

[@Celeb_Troskey]

Thank you for your videos, you just earned a amapiano producer subscriber from South 🇿🇦 ❤

[@CompleteProducer]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@Celeb_Troskey]

@@CompleteProducer Next time please make a video on the best website to upload songs and pays well🤝

[@Celeb_Troskey]

@@CompleteProducer Next time please make a video on the best website to upload songs and pays well🤝

[@CompleteProducer]

no need to make a whole video about it, distrokid is my recommendation. in my video "What PRO Producers Do That You DON'T" at 22:50 I break it all down for you!@@Celeb_Troskey

[@DanielRoolf]

can you do a making a house music from scratch with vocals etc.

[@Kota_werks]

Do you leave the pro lab filter the whole time. Like you don’t finish the song and take it off right ?

[@CompleteProducer]

i leave Pro L on the whole time pretty much no matter what, if I'm the one mixing and mastering the song. you don't necessarily need it if someone else is mixing the song for you!

[@ryanmarks2929]

I want to over this ❤

[@Dr_Monster]

Any links to live performances ?

[@inversionproduction]

Would love to know what you did with your voice that’s awesome👊🏾

[@CompleteProducer]

i replied with this to another comment, but it applies to yours too! I have a video called "How To Mix Vocals Like A PRO" where I cover my vocal chain at the 13:15 mark of that video. Also, that video shows you how to process vocals with only Ableton stock plugins if you don't have the plugins for my chain. hope that helps!

[@IsaacTurnerMusic]

Yo unrelated to the video but for two weeks I have been trying to export a song and I keep getting weird glitches and pops on the recording! I’ve tried freezing tracks all kinds of stuff! Any help would be appreciated- Isaac

[@vAchilless]

Do you have any recommendations for your top MIDI's??

[@mi_walczak]

That is amazing proof that if you put an appropriate dose of creativity you don't need top dollar hardware and all these plugs

[@CompleteProducer]

amen!

[@jewelthompson4210]

Once again, Ethan, you are the definition of God-sent. 🎊🎊❤❤

[@willieburney1552]

Damn bro can sing

[@spacebar333]

Cool❤

[@spacebar333]

Your awesome dude❤️

[@Lo.0se]

Good vid as always, Question: what's your opinions on an individual with less than zero experience playing instruments making music? both morally and practically.

[@voinrima]

There's no place for opinions, just go and earn the experience

[@CompleteProducer]

That's a good question. I think you don't need to play an instrument to produce music. I mean...look at Rick Ruben! haha he's a legendary producer and he hardly touches anything, he just gives his opinion. I will say though, for creating your own music, you just need to learn music theory and you can draw in all the notes without needing to play anything any. I drew in everything for the first few years of my production career and was able to tour the world from the music I made. It was dance music though, which caters a lot more to programming instruments instead of playing them and recording them in. hope that helps!

[@Lo.0se]

@@CompleteProducer It seems I'm on the right path, I haven't made a song yet, but I have filled an unconfirmed number of Indepth pages on music theory. I got a launchkey to mess around on and started learning cords and progression predominantly from your vids as they are very informative and easy for a noob to follow. I can play a little Fur Elise so far largely to your credit, mildly trivial but personally surprising. thanks for taking the time to reply, you're a real one!

[@yourunemployedfriendat2pm]

Creating and playing music are very different things

[@jakestagg]

Hey Ethan! Im curious, do you ever produce in 96khz sample rate?

[@DJABIN25]

How to make mashup songs. Can you make this tutorial video

[@emtusee3907]

've produced and writed for few years and i want to level up make skills to get high quality music . i dont know if you still have available slots on your producer pro program ? Thank you

[@CompleteProducer]

love that! and yes we're welcoming new students (:

[@radiojean]

I liked this

[@CompleteProducer]

(:

[@ricomas]

Please share the link to your course. It isn't in the description and I'd love to check it out. Thank you

[@CompleteProducer]

bad i forgot to put it in the description! it's there now!

[@ricomas]

Thanks Ethan!

[@louise-ve6xz]

You're like the Bob Ross of producing.

[@CompleteProducer]

haha that's one of the best compliments someone could give me

[@Lakttos]

🎉🤘🤯🤯🤯⚡

[@CAMMEDIAPRO]

When’s the progressive edm course dropping?!??

[@CompleteProducer]

Last couple videos are being wrapped up! Should be launching by June 10th with everything but...that's the plan and sometimes plans change. I'll def make some vids on it when it's out though!

[@blessos]

Hey, can you link to your Spotify? I'm trying to find you but no luck..

[@jewelthompson4210]

Can I ask--why did you quantize the bass notes to 1/8, if your grid in piano roll was set to 1/16th?

[@CompleteProducer]

because the notes i played were a more simple pattern so 1/8 was what I thought would line it up best. i played faster then i would use 1/16 for sure

[@jewelthompson4210]

thank you for taking the time to explain this 🙂@@CompleteProducer

[@Top_Dawg360]

Can you make a video about justin bieber’s style of production please? 🙏🏼

[@Andrew-rz7qt]

The White Stripes would only ever have three elements playing at anyone time. This was the ethos behind the band. Drum, guitar and vocals. If there's no vocal they would add something else like a synth. All their music had to translate to just two people in the performance on stage.

[@CompleteProducer]

the White Stripes are sooooo sick (:

[@Andrew-rz7qt]

@@CompleteProducer awe yeah, they groove alright.

[@alexv9649]

RIP not wearing headphones at 4:53 w/ the volume all the way up...

[@Miriamchoi25]

Please release this song 🥹🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@BoggleJoogs9]

Thats the exact chord progression for kill bill right?

[@CompleteProducer]

i believe so! it might be in a different key though