The Type Beat Bible [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

Pre-Lude Before we begin to change your entire perspective regarding just how the YouTube game works, I wanted to say a huge thank you for making this decision to invest in your future by purchasing this e-book. I’ve thought about how I could help producers such as yourself for a very long time now. It really frustrated me at the beginning of my career when I couldn’t find any solid advice anywhere. Sure, there were interviews and channels out there that managed to give me a vague sense of direction, but nothing specific enough for me to really capitalise on all the skills I had built up over the years, which is probably where you find yourself right now. I know, YouTube and selling beats online in general seems like a luck-based endeavour. You see hundreds of type beat channels that you just KNOW are making good money doing what they are doing, but it seems as though what they do does not seem any different from what you’re trying.  This is where I come in. We will be going into detail on topics such as mindset, and how that is the single most important thing to even begin making money online, niches, tags, titles, thumbnails, descriptions, sales, everything. This is a no bullshit e-book that will, at the very least, get your channel growing more than it ever has before.  So, let me not waste any more time. Be advised, however, that this is going to change your ENTIRE perspective on the beat selling game via organic traffic, so please, take the due diligence in going through the course step by step in order to ensure the best results, so that you can start living your dream as a full-time record producer and online entrepreneur. 

Commandment 1: Have The Right Mindset First things first 1

Believe me when I say this; mindset is the single most important facet in making your dreams come true. Especially as an aspiring producer. Think about it. This career path contains no guarantees. In the beginning, you learn how to put sounds together that can inspire an Artist. This usually takes around 2-3 years to master. Then, you try to figure out how to get those beats heard. This is an on-going endeavour, and will remain part of the trade. Once you get those beats heard, getting paid is another hurdle to overcome, especially as an individual with no team behind you. Even if you get paid, are you getting paid the right amount? Under the right conditions? With the right percentages? Or are you allowing the Artist and their label to walk all over you because you’re aware of the magnitude of the opportunity you have, especially after working so many years to fashion this very moment. The likelihood is, you’re going to waver at this stage, because you have very little bargaining power as a new, unknown producer. As you probably already recognise, making beats and making a living from doing so is a high-risk, potentially high-reward occupation. Of course, there are a lot of producers out there, such as myself, who have managed to sustain themselves from producing alone. But what sets us apart? Notice how everything that I have just mentioned originates from one small but complex system; the mind. None of this would have been possible for any producer out there had they not mastered their own thoughts and decided to use them to their advantage. The entire essence of being a producer stems from creating something out of nothing, and this concept is unrelenting in the journey to riches in the field. In order for you to even have a chance making it in the music industry, it is imperative, not optional, that you learn to utilise your thoughts and understand just how key visualisation is in manufacturing the lifestyle that you desire.

See it, believe it, achieve it. The first thing I need you to do in order to set us on the path to success is to picture exactly what that ‘success’ looks like. Where are you? How do you feel? How much money do you have? Who have you worked with? When did

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you succeed? Why did you make it? This, I believe, was the preeminent thought process that allowed me to find my way selling beats online. From day one, I truly understood just where I wanted to be as a result of practicing making beats. I never doubted that I would reach this utopia that I pictured in my mind when I was starting out. Some may find it funny, but the very first beats that I made were uploaded on to YouTube and Soundcloud with the opinion that I was the new CashMoneyAp. I even used the generic and popular Thumbnails at the time to really emphasise my confidence. You know, the Simpsons thumbnails where they would be attired in designer brands. From the very first upload, I knew that I wanted to do exactly what the biggest Type Beat producers were doing, and that was to make good money from beat-making online. During these early stages, I had a friend (who I still am friends with to this day) who found it preposterous that I was even attempting to share my work so early on. He believed in the concept of honing the craft before taking the shot. Putting the hours in before putting the product on the shelves, so to speak. He was a producer too, who started at the same time that I did. Whilst I half agreed with his philosophy, I knew that from all of my past life experience, nothing ever happens if you don’t try. I didn’t care if my beats weren’t perfect. I knew that I’d only just begun. But that wasn’t the point. I knew the earlier I could find a sense of rhythm that would contribute to my long-term vision, the more likely it was going to be that I achieve it. This was over four years ago. I don’t mean to disrespect my friend, because he played a key roll in helping me reach my goals, but we are in two completely different life-stages as a result of… OUR DIFFERING MINDSETS. Whilst he decided to play it safe and keep his beats on his hard-drive due to the fear of criticism, I constantly put my work out there. I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried again. Eventually, through dedicated, unrelenting effort and ‘definiteness of purpose’, to quote Napoleon Hill (author of Think & Grow Rich, which I HIGHLY recommend), I was able to turn my desire into its physical counterpart. I have now sold over 1,000 beats in just 2 years, and have attained placements and relationships with artists such as Jay Gwuapo, Zion Foster, Journey Gz, Lil Lano and more. Bare in mind, these placements have

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come directly from my YouTube. I’m not a placement hunter. I don’t care about them, personally. I think it takes far too long to get paid, and I’d rather avoid the hassle and make money from my own platform. But I digress. So where is my friend now in his music career, you may ask… well, he still hasn’t made a dollar from making beats. Why? Because of the difference in mindset. From the beginning, we must embed in our minds the vision that we have for ourselves. We must SEE IT & BELIEVE IT, IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE IT. Remember, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Commandment 2: Destroy Your Competition So many producers have asked me the following; “who should I target?”, “what Artist will get me views?” And my favourite of them all; “Is my Artist’s lane too saturated?” I don’t know, Darryl, is it? Here’s the thing. From the very first day of my producer journey, I was told that making a living selling beats online was borderline impossible due to the sheer amount of people trying to make it happen for themselves. But let’s delve into why exactly their theory is faulty, and expose the poor mentality behind it.

People want things easy I challenge anybody reading this book right now to think of one career endeavour or one business venture that doesn’t have a high level of competition. I’ll hedge a bet and guess that you can’t. Am I right? Of course I am. Why? Life is a competition. Period. We fight for power, resources, women, freedom, status, money… the list goes on. And as humans, we’ve been fixated upon these pursuits in different ways since the dawn of time. It will never change. Don’t let our PC (politically correct) society fool you otherwise. Life is

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not fair. Never has been, never will be. The strongest of us survive, the weakest perish, the smartest prosper. It’s up to us to decide what category of people we would like to fall under. Competition will always be around in every walk of life due to the sheer volume of people after the same things. Now, tying everything back to beats specifically, think about how many people want to be type beat producers. Sure, there are a lot of people uploading type beats. But in my humble opinion, that doesn’t mean that they WANT IT as much as they need to want it… You see, anybody can make and upload a beat every once in a while. But not everybody can create bangers, DAILY. Not everybody can upload those bangers, DAILY. Not everybody can get it right algorithmically, DAILY. Those who fit this kind of criteria are the ones you should be studying. They are your example. They are your indication that this can be done. They should inspire you, not demoralise you. But the problem is, people often assume that competition equals impending failure for their own ventures. But to adopt this mentality is to commit mental suicide. By doing this you forgo your own potential for success. The type beat game does have a fairly high level of competition, but like I said before, what industry or pursuit doesn’t? Competition means that the industry itself is thriving and working out for somebody. So you need to figure out the answer to this vital question: why not you?

Why Producers Can’t Rival Competition Producers like to assume luck every chance they get. It’s easy to see something you’re not succeeding in work for somebody else and get frustrated. People typically don’t like to be told what they’re doing is wrong. Man’s ego can be fragile. But the thing is, there are a plethora of reasons as to why your channel or your brand isn’t growing at the same rate as another. Here are some of the main reasons that I’ve come across in my years of uploading content: - Bad aesthetics - Poor upload consistency

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- Poor quality beats - Generic beats - Too many artists - Uninteresting beat structure

Bad Aesthetics This is the most frustrating error that I see being made by producers. I’m going to keep it very concise here. If you don’t know how to design cover art at a high level (and I mean HIGH), just don’t bother using any for your beats. It’s fine if you want to be independent and learn this kind of skill, because it can definitely go a long way for you in the future. But if you’re just starting out, please for the love of God DO NOT use poor quality thumbnails. I can’t describe to you just how much my blood boils when somebody asks me; “What am I doing wrong bruh? I’m only getting 5 views per beat”. Like seriously. Have you seen your channel design? I get it, you’re trying to stand out from the competition. But your videos are less attractive to potential viewers with that 2paint thumbnail you created in 5 minutes than if you were to just use TunesToTube and a picture of the Artist you’re trying to target. My most viewed beats follow that exact formula; picture of the artist, beat, TunesToTube and you’re golden. There’s absolutely no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to this UNLESS you’re genuinely good at graphic design and can come up with stronger branding for your channel. Trust me, thumbnails can make or break your channel. I sometimes spend over an hour looking for the right thumbnail before I post my beats. That’s how important it is.

Poor upload consistency Quite self explanatory is this one; uploading when you feel like it won’t get your anywhere. You’ve got to treat this like a job. Part-time effort gets your part-time results. If you post when you want, you’re not going to grow. Remember, this market is in fact competitive. If I decided to stop uploading everyday, I would be giving another small channel in the same niche the opportunity to surpass me. I have done this to multiple producers within my niche, and I always knew that with consistency they would be mine for the taking. My advice has been and always will be the same. You need to post

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daily to give your channel the best opportunity for growth. It starts off difficult, but then it just becomes a habit.

Poor quality beats Of course, like I was saying in the previous chapter, you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. But the fact still remains; if your beats lack that cutting-edge that people crave, you aren’t likely to build a fan-base just yet. But it’s okay. We all start somewhere, and I was posting quite consistently with terrible beats at the time that I started. But guess what? That’s when I got my first sale. That sale alone let me know that with more time and effort, this would definitely become an income-stream for me. If I could entice somebody into buying a sub-par beat for $50, then I could definitely sell multiple beats of higher quality in the future. I encourage those of you who have been making beats for under 3 years to keep posting your beats anyway, but put more emphasis on the craft itself and becoming better at making instrumentals. Each beat you post should be better than the last. Aim for that and you’ll see the fruits of your labour in no time.

Generic beats These days it’s pretty obvious that most beats follow the same formula; 808, clap, hi-hats, snares, piano/guitar melody blah blah blah. That’s just what’s in demand right now. So of course, we need to cater to this somehow. But that doesn’t mean that you cease to put your own unique twist on what’s already popular in order to make it your own. Like my 808 for example. Not many people use the same exact preset 808 that I use and they definitely do not use velocity in the same way that I do. This allows my sound to be distinct among a sea of producers within a similar niche. My friend often told me that a lot of my beats didn’t sound like A Boogie wit da Hoodie type beats. But I posted them anyway. These beats were just my personal interpretation of A Boogie’s sound, and people like my beats for incorporating the more generic facets of an A Boogie beat, whilst also switching up the dynamic to create a more unique listening experience. Long story short, I now have over 10K subscribers on that channel with 4 Million+ views.

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But please, don’t be one of those guys (or girls) who just makes pain beats in the exact same way as everybody else. Even if you blow up a little from those kinds of beats, if you don’t have a unique mysticism that your subscribers can credit you for, they will eventually find somebody else. My fans continue to latch on to my videos because they don’t know what kind of flavour I’m going to provide them with each time. It’s this sense of unpredictability that grows your brand. Whilst you do have to be somewhat consistent in the type of beats you’re making, you don’t have to make the exact same beat every single time. Switch it up, show that you’re different, but don’t make your beats too complicated at the same time. Leave space on the beat for the artist to flow. That’s how you make the most money. More on this later.

Too many artists I could talk about this one all day long. But to cut a long story short, do not upload beats targeting more than 2 artists total. It’s good to experiment here and there, but there’s a way to do things. Here’s exactly how you need to think about your niche: 1) Pick 1-2 artists to focus on. These artists need to have a decent level of search inquiries on YouTube, with low competition. This is so that you can find your way into the algorithm easier as a new channel. You don’t have to pick a small artist, but this is what I recommend at first. But having said that, my most viewed beat comes from a second channel I made that focused on Gunna type beats. Because I knew what I was doing from the experience of my main channel, I was able to gain 300k views on a single beat in a relatively short space of time. But whatever artists your choose, you need to stick with it. 2) Target the artist that you get the most views/growth from. If you go into your YouTube analytics section, go onto the reach tab and see that most of your views are coming from your search results via the term ‘Gunna type beat 2022’, guess what needs to happen? You need to upload beats titled: Gunna Type Beat 2022 - “Example” every single day in order to take advantage of that growth opportunity. You should not see something like that in your

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analytics and think “Right, I’m going to start uploading Nicki Minaj type beats now”. Obviously, this would kill your momentum and prevent you from finding your way into any algorithm. You need to work on being the channel that YouTube expects you to be. If you’ve been posting Gunna beats consistently and have been growing as a result, you need to continue doing so. It won’t be long until you get that well-deserved luck. The harder and smarter you work, the luckier you get. 3) Don’t ignore statistics. If your channel isn’t growing with the artists your selected, you need to change something. It’s perfectly fine to switch lanes if after 2 months you’ve seen no growth or maybe even regression. Clearly, this lane isn’t going to work out for you, so don’t bother wasting your time. Look around and try something else. It took a couple different niches before I went with A Boogie, J.I and Tory Lanez. 4) If you have a working niche, try adding in new, relevant artists into the titles. For example, if you upload Gunna type beats, and it’s doing well, try redlining your growth by adding into your title something like this: Gunna x Wheezy x Future Type Beat 2022 - “Example”. By incorporating more artists within the same kind of lane, you are giving your video the opportunity to tap into bigger audiences. If Gunna type beats have a views potential of 10million views for example, you’ll be giving your video the opportunity to tap into more than that given the views ceilings of Future type beats and Wheezy type beats. You may go from something like a potential 10 million views, to a potential 50 million. But don’t do this every single video, at least not until you’re established with your main artist and are already ranking for their key words. 5) If you’ve been posting on the same channel for a while and haven’t really gotten anywhere, it’s time to start a new channel. Now believe you me, I didn’t want to do this either. I had an old channel with 760 (inactive) subscribers on it, and I was reluctant to let it fizzle out into a memory. But at the time, I was experiencing no growth whatsoever, no matter what I did. All of my beats would hit 150 views or less, and I was posting consistently under

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the same Artists for a long time. This was because on this channel, before I turned it into a Type Beat channel, I used to post irrelevant content. By irrelevant I mean completely unlinked to music. Sure, I put those videos on private, but that didn’t matter; YouTube already categorised me as a Call Of Duty Editing channel based on my upload history within that algorithm. I really didn’t want to start from 0, after all, this channel was my baby! It was my friend Babz, another reasonably successful producer, who advised me to sacrifice my channel in the hopes of a more profitable tomorrow. Long story short, I killed the channel, started a new one as QESTN, and the rest is history. He was absolutely right. So here’s what I recommend: If you’ve had a channel for over 1 year, you’ve not grown significantly and you didn’t start that channel as a producer, start over again. This time with your new channel, following the advice of this book, you’ll be starting over. But this time ticking all of the necessary boxes.

Commandment 3: Don’t Waste Uploads Common Sense Prevails In the case of upload time, we need only consider a couple of important but reasonably obvious factors: 1) Consider when viewers of your niche are likely to be most active For example, if the artist I’m targeting is from New York, and I know my

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demographic is going to be 16-24 year old young men, then it would make sense to post either when they’re waking up for School/Work/College OR after they finish. If you’re not confident in selecting a time for yourself based on your own analysis, I would suggest uploading somewhere between 4pm-6pm GMT. That’s what’s worked for me but I can’t guarantee that it will work for you. Analytical prowess is an important skillset to cultivate, so it’s best you start learning how to read data in the hopes of leveraging it for results. 2) Once you have a time, can you stick to it? It makes no sense picking a time that you can’t stick to. The reason 4pm GMT works for me is because I have hours upon hours before that time arrives to make my beat for the day. If I was posting at 6am, I’d find it a lot harder to adhere to, given the fact I would have very little time to cook up.

How to stay consistent The way I’ve managed to maintain such a prolific upload intensity is through the use of a very basic tool; YouTube upload scheduling. My routine is as follows: 1) Make beat(s) 2) Use tunestotube to upload my beat(s) on private mode initially 3) Use YouTube studio to write my description, tags and title 4) Schedule the upload for 4pm GMT, ready to go You see, when you schedule your uploads each day, it makes it near impossible to forget about posting. Especially given the fact that, with time committing to this routine each day, you will find that this process will manifest itself into a habit.

Build that momentum I’ve found that the most progress happens when we make the most

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important aspects of our journey autonomous through repetition. Whenever I’ve had a great physique, I was going to the gym at the same time every single day without fail, to the point of it being abnormal to NOT go. I’m my most articulate and able to debate whenever I’m reading multiple pages of a book. Daily. I’m at my most creative whenever I make it an imperative to take a walk. Daily. All of these things become autonomous and therefore cogs in a system geared towards producing a capable and consistent individual. Take these things away and best believe there will be little momentum to thrive from and I would find it hard to get going. Momentum is extremely important in achieving any set goals. Everything seems harder at the beginning of an endeavour, as being new to something often starts as an uphill battle. But overtime, momentum builds. You eventually find yourself at the top of the hill, ready to roll down the other side with all the momentum that you’ve built up via hard work and dedication.

Commandment 4: Make Progress To Make Money Are things heading in the right direction? Once you’re uploading consistently and beginning to fall into a routine, you need to study your videos. What I mean by this is you must make it a habit to see how certain tweaks to your descriptions, titles, beat length, structure, artists etc. affect your views. For instance, whenever I upload a beat with Lil Tjay in the title, my views within 24 hours slash by about 40%. FOURTY PERECENT! If I were to ignore this fact, and try to force a niche that clearly doesn’t work for my channel, I would suffer from it. Massively. I see a lot of producers do this. They finally build some good momentum where they’re getting lots of views each day. They finally made it work for themselves. They’ve established themselves within the algorithm. But then it

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happens. They decide to switch lanes. They decide that they don’t want to make Toosii Type Beats anymore, and that they’re sick of the guitars. Even though it’s clearly working and it’s what people want to hear from him. Despite all of this, he decides to upload Migos type beats because he prefers the way they sound. What could possibly go wrong… Right? All of a sudden, their views have dropped by 50%, their subs aren’t going up as fast and their watch time is down to just 30 seconds per upload. He tries to make things right, and finally realises that it’s not about what he wants to post that determines success, but it’s WHAT THE MARKET WANTS FROM HIM! His next upload is a Toosii beat. But wait… IT’S DOING WORSE THAN THE MIGOS BEATS NOW! Panic mode has ensued, and his channel is in the mud. Lo and behold a frenzy of uploads that make absolutely no sense, ranging from Toosii beats, to Migos beats and all the way to Lil DropTop Type Beats…

It’s not about you Look, YouTube can be brutal. When it expects a certain type of content from you, you better be a good boy and stick to it. Otherwise it can result in scenarios just like the one that played out above. I see it all the time! Overconfidence and complacency are the death of many YouTube producers. You have to remember, YouTube is about supply and demand. Attempting to dip your spoon into every niche known to man is not going to get you anywhere. Becoming a YouTube success is about understanding what type of content does well, attempting to put your own unique twist on it and continuing to supply said content over and over again. Once YouTube recognises your value, they will recommend your content to millions of potential viewers so long as you maintain good viewership and watch time within your niche. You don’t go on to Disney Channel expecting to see the latest WWE footage. That would be absurd. So we must provide our audience with a reasonable expectation. If they subscribed to you because you make the best Drake type beats, then you need to satisfy their lust for your proficiency in

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providing such content. They want to associate your name with a certain sound so that they can come to you whenever they need that specific kind of beat. And trust me, they will come back again and again and again. Remember, being a producer is about supplying the canvas for the artist. It’s not about you. It never has been, and it never will be. You need to give the market what it wants. Otherwise it will chew you up and spit you out before you’ve even had a chance to make your mark on it.

Keep what works If you manage to build some momentum and start getting results, you need to take note of what exactly you did to get there. I’m talking thumbnails, titles, the structure of your most viewed beats… you need to put on that analytical hat and really take the time to understand WHY people are subscribing to you and buying your beats. It’s not enough to just let it happen. The better an understanding you have of each win you achieve, the more likely it is that you will be able to repeat it over and over again. It’s like playing an instrument. At first you noodle around trying to learn stuff and failing. But overtime your neurological pathways store information on the efforts you make so that the next time you attempt the same thing, you are more successful. Your brain analyses your efforts automatically and builds up myelin sheath around your brain so that you perform better each time. You must mirror this process; you are the brains behind your channel. Analyse and understand your wins & losses so that you can retain what is useful and discard what is obsolete. If I get 100,000 views on a beat, you best believe I’m going to remember the structure that I used and abuse it to the maximum. I repeat what I know works! It really is that simple. If you haven’t yet had this kind of success from uploading to YouTube yet (you most likely haven’t, hence why you bought this book) then I implore you to take this same concept and apply it by studying other people. Find your favourite producer’s YouTube channel and replicate the way in which he makes his beats. Maybe he doesn’t allow his intros to surpass the 0:30 mark. Steal it. Maybe he doesn’t use a kick and relies

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mainly on a hard hitting 808. Steal it. Perhaps he gets most views from beats within the 160-180bpm range. Steal it. Don’t be shy; good artists copy, great artists steal.

Commandment 5: One foot after the other. Overthinking leads to underachieving How many times have you tried to start something, only to think yourself into a car crash. You find an idea you think can succeed with but have little experience in, you try it for a few days until you lose faith in the plan you sought out to follow and you inevitably cease all efforts to make it happen. Trust me, I’ve been there. Multiple times. But here’s the thing. I learned. I know better now. I realised that my mind was the enemy in all of these situations, and I allowed myself to overthink and distort my perception of how long and how difficult it really would be to transmute my vision into reality. So what do you do to avoid this cyclical pattern of thought? You simply put one foot after the other, following and utilising all of the information that you have on said idea. What tends to happen is that we allow ourselves to be driven by fear of failure, which causes us to remain in our comfort zones for longer than necessary. As you may know by now, the comfort zone is enemy numero uno. If you’re comfortable, you won’t have any desire to change and therefore nothing will change. In this state, any opportunity you come across will seem like a death sentence to you as it threatens your ego. Nobody likes to face emotional rejection, so we try to seek comfort and justification for our current way of living, even if it is at a much lower standard than we really desire.

Embrace the beginner stage There is no way to bypass the beginner stage. You must walk the path. You must put one foot after the other, not knowing how or when you will reach

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your destination. The glory is found in the journey. This is when you learn the most. The destination is simply the result of all the hard work you have put in, and you arrive far more equipped and knowledgeable than you were when you set out to make it there. I can assure you, I did not know everything that I know now about selling beats as I did when I first started my channel. I developed most of my skills and found my tools for growth whilst still on the journey. This is why I am able to empathise with anybody experiencing the same issues that I faced during all stages of the process. Even if you can’t see the picture clearly yet, keep moving forward. That’s if you really want this. You have to want this. You can’t embark on this mission and give up half way through out of frustration and fear of failure. It takes time. You must remain resolute in achieving your goals. This goes for any endeavour in life, not just making beats. There was never a moment that I gave up on the vision of making money selling beats online. It was always my goal, and I gave everything to make it happen, but I understood that it would take time.

Commandment 6: Never Stop Learning Learn, learn and learn. Life is the best of teachers. If you want to learn what not to do fast, go out and fail as quickly as humanly possible. This is how you learn, and this is how I learned. Upon amassing a decent level of success, we as human become extremely vulnerable. But not in the sense you would think. We become vulnerable to the wrath of something I’d like to call ‘Crippling Complacency’. Crippling Complacency occurs when we think that it’s okay to take our foot off of the gas when things are going well. Sure, it might be okay in brief periods, but to do this for prolonged stretches of time can be a fatal mistake. I’ve come close to tarnishing everything that I have built as a result of this error. The truth is, our life is always following a trend. Have you ever seen a

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stock market graph? It’s exactly like that, except the line doesn’t represents the value of a stock; it represents your quality of life. With every decision we make, we effect the trend of this ‘stock’ incrementally. Don’t feel like making a beat today? Well, giving into that moment of laziness and skipping a day creates a small downward spike in your graph. But it’s just one day, right? Sure. That’s true. It is only one day. But that same error in judgement compounded over time will result in a consistent downward trend, leading you straight to the ruins of despair that we so desperately need to avoid if we want to establish ourselves as ‘known’ producers. However, if you try to consistently make the right decisions, and you do decide to make that beat today, even though you’re as tired as a sloth, you will start to see an upward trend on that imaginary graph and therefore your life. This is why, even when you become successful, it is imperative to remain a student of the game. If you start to get complacent and think you’ve already made it, you will inevitably lose what you have. In business, you are either dying or growing. Depending on how successful you become, this can take a while to manifest itself. If you have 10,000 subscribes on your type beat channel and average 2k views a beat right now, but you start to get lazy and forgo your responsibility to put out the highest quality that you can, you will set yourself on the downward trend. With that, your views, hypothetically, will start to decrease. If you’re smart, you will realise this for yourself early on and try to correct it, preventing any further damage to your channel. Yet, many people will simply ignore the warning signs until its too late. This is why you see a lot of YouTube channels that used to get a lot of views turn to shit; the creator likely stopped doing the things that got them to those heights in the first place.

Commandement 7: Become more valuable It’s more than just beats Making beats is a small piece the the puzzle. 100%, it is definitely one of the most important aspects in regards to building a fan-base. But that alone

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isn’t what enables you to profit and survive off of your craft. You have to be valuable. So many producers make beats these days. It’s crazy. What started out as a pretty niche hobby has turned into something literally anybody with a laptop and internet can do. And what’s more, these new producers are able to learn faster than ever before, which has raised competition to an all time high. This is all thanks to the introduction of YouTube and beatstars. Literally anybody who is willing to put the time and effort into making beats can learn to surpass the greats that have been doing it for years.

How to set yourself apart So how can we ensure that we as producers stand out from the rest? We must differentiate. It is critical that we have skills on offer that not every producer is willing to learn. Sure, making beats is the main skill, but how we make the beats, for example, is one way to start increasing your value in the music industry. For instance, learning an instrument is a great way to show a higher level of competence than most. By learning an instrument, you not only improve your perception of rhythm, timing and cadence, but you also learn music theory that can be applied to the beat-making process, which can actually make you more efficient. Not only that, but you also open up the pathway to getting placements and sales online through the collaborative process of sending out loops (or melodies). Because you include live instrumentation into your work, such as guitars for example, you end up with a distinct sound. This way, you not only maintain your independence, but you also take a percentage of revenue from any of the producers that you end up working with by involving yourself in their process since they aren’t able to create beats with that instrument by themselves. Eventually, if you’re good enough, they will become somewhat dependent on you and use more and more of your loops. I can’t even begin to describe some of the things this can lead to, as I’d be sat here in Starbucks for much longer than I ever envisioned. All you need to know is that by increasing your value, you open up more opportunities because more and more people are going to NEED you.

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Good ways to build value as a producer are as follows: - Learning an instrument - Learning how to mix vocals - Learning how to market - Learning how to mix beats professionally - Learning songwriting - Learning how to design cover art I’m sure there are so many more examples, but this is just what I’ve managed to come up with and see as most applicable. Be sure to use your own imagination to conjure up other ways in which you can raise your value alone. Force people to need you. Become irreplaceable. Be great.

Commandment 8: Vary Your Intensity Your craft is your work Being a producer demands that you are always, well… producing! From the day I started 4 years ago, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t at least thought about beats. Beats have become a part of my identity and a huge part of my routine. Being a producer isn’t for the faint of heart. It demands a lot of you. The creative process itself is enough to break a man down and drain him of all his vitality. When you enter that flow state - the state wherein you lose track of time and are completely fixated upon the task at hand - I believe there is a huge tradeoff taking place. The act of creatively producing something unique every day is at the expense of a huge chunk of your brain power. That’s why at the end of a long session you might even feel physical symptoms, such as a headache. To the naked eye, producing a beat may seem easy, undemanding and fun. But full-time producers will know just how untrue that kind of assumption tends to be. The thing is, I’ve been posting for two years straight. No days off. Which

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means I’ve had to make beats almost every day during that period of time. As much as I’d love to take a break and completely forget about making beats for a while, it’s not realistic. A man must work. There’s a lot of young producers out there who think that this isn’t a job, or that it can be classified as a ‘nonjob’. Whilst I half agree, given the freedom being a beat maker can give you, there is that generic, traditional element of putting one’s hand to the plough that mustn’t be overlooked.

Take active recovery Day in, day out, you have to make beats. Especially if you’re going to be depending on algorithms to drive most of your traffic, and therefore sales. You simply can’t afford to miss days, as stated previously. But going at 100mph for long stretches of time without taking your foot off of the gas isn’t productive either. You’re going to burn out. Guaranteed. And this will set you back much further than you can imagine. So what can we do to combat this dilemma? I want you to think of your creative power as a renewable resource. It comes and goes based on usage and the time it has to recover from said usage. Let’s say you’re feeling motivated at a certain period of time. You’re making 3 beats a day without busting a sweat. This lasts for 2 weeks straight. The third week rolls around, and whilst you’re still making a good 3 beats a day, it’s starting to wear down on you a little bit. You carry on anyway. Week four has arrived. All of a sudden, you can’t seem to make even one beat. What happened? Where has my creativity gone? Why am I feeling like this. This is the point at which your creative reserves have been taxed completely and you’re running on empty. An unaware producer will continue to force his way through this common phenomena (commonly known as beat-block) in an attempt to keep up with the competition. He feels he must maintain the ‘grind’. The correct thing for you to do at this stage is to use all of the beats available on your hard-drive as uploads whilst you give your mind respite. This will allow your creative juices to restore sufficiently so that you may continue to work hard long-term, preventing burn-out. This way we can capitalise on the periods of motivation that occur ephemerally whilst allowing

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our mind, body and soul the breathing space they require. This is NOT an opportunity to get lazy. Besides uploading your beat for the day, you still want to be learning something. Maybe it could be watching a ProducerGrind interview, watching your favourite producers cook-up or even reading the manual of your DAW. I don’t care what it is, but you must allocate some time to your craft regardless. I just want you to spend less time during the active recovery period than you normally would. Slash it by around 80%. Essentially you allow yourself to consume more and produce less whilst you recover, and that consumption should lead to inspiration that can be leveraged by the time you are ready to go hard at it again.

Commandment 9: Respect Yourself What most fail to recognise Making and selling beats is a business, and a business that devalues itself by trying to compete on price is a business doomed for mediocrity. As a producer, you must compete on a more respectable level. A level through which you will be considered top-tier by those who know of you and your work. YOU MUST COMPETE ON QUALITY. Far too many desperate ‘wannabes’ enter the beat making game with the aspiration of making a quick buck. They desire the fruits of the labour without enduring the labour itself. They moan & cry about how they can’t seem to sell beats, yet they haven’t even began to build up their own digital real estate. They price their beats far below what they (should be) worth, assuming such a practice would be beneficial to them in the long term. Look, there’s no other way to put it. Producing is a skill. And all skills are mastered over time. What you put in is what you get out. Work hard at ANY

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skill hours a day consistently for 10 years, you WILL be a master of your craft. There is no getting past this reality. This is the essence of life at its core. We become good at the things we put our precious time into. This is why masters are able to be paid premium for their services. There isn’t a man on this planet who can do EVERYTHING that needs to be done in this world. Our time is limited. We can only make ourselves useful through few mediums. We require a decent amount of time to become actually good at something. So, paying money for goods & services is simply an exchange of value. You are communicating to the seller “I haven’t the time nor expertise to do/create this by myself, so I will trade this (money) so that you can do it for me.” Further, if there aren’t many people who can carry out said service at the same level as a particular individual or a specific entity, the price will reflect the need for this service as well as the scarcity of it. Apple can charge $1200 for a mobile phone because of their ‘blue ocean’ product-line and expertise, of which nobody in the tech industry can rival. LeBron James gets paid so much due to his one-of-a-kind playing ability intertwined with his obnoxiously notorious brand, giving any franchise he signs to an instant return on their investment, both on and off of the court. Metro Boomin can charge $100,000 per beat due to his tremendous discography and hit-making know-how, as well as his popularity and thus demand for his beats by the best Rappers around. Now the point of all this is to highlight just how important it is to not only be the best producer that you can be, but to charge prices that reflect that skill. If Apple were to turn around and offer their customers the newest iPhone for $100, with the rest of the industry selling sub-tier phones for at least 6x the price, what do you think would happen? Well of course, there would be question marks surrounding the actual quality of the phone. What once used to be a product that filled their customers’ hearts with certainty, would now become a product that constantly keeps their customers paranoid and trying to figure out what’s wrong with the device. 24/7. And if something were to go wrong, they would not doubt themselves but instead blame the vendor without hesitation and look for another company to replace their device. If the price were still $1200, the same phone with the same problem would’ve been

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given a second chance due to the customer second-guessing themselves, given the perceived value of the brand that sold it to them; “Maybe it’s something I did wrong”, “I paid a lot of money for this, it must be a one off problem”. Perceived value is oh-so important in maintaining a positive brand image. If you charge cheap prices, people will view your beats as unpopular or average. This is especially catastrophic in the Hip-Hop game, where rappers thrive on relevancy and popularity. They will NEVER buy your beats if this is the case. I once dropped my prices in an attempt to compete with a new, hot producer in my niche. I thought I was guaranteed to make more money and re-attract some of my fans given that they were charging less than I was, but the opposite happened. I made less sales, lost more money and gained less views. After a while not realising the correlation of these unfavourable results and the lowering of my prices, I decided to raise them back up. In fact, I put them higher than I ever had. Within a month I made at least double the amount of sales, and my views returned to a healthy amount. Afterwards I understood the importance of perceived value in maintaining and growing my brand. If you’re just starting a channel, it is even more important to have higher prices. If someone finds your beat and it only has 500 views, they might give you a chance. They might just think you’re underrated if the beat is fire. But if they go over to your beatstars to check out how much it would be to purchase it and they see you’re only charging $10, they’re going to throw up in their mouth and close the site faster than you could ever imagine. They think you’re an amateur now. Or maybe they do decide to buy your beats and take advantage of your ludicrously low prices. Let’s say they buy 5 beats, but get 5 free as part of that stupid promo you’re running. Now for just $50 they can make a whole album with your beats. They’re going to get very bored, very fast, and move on to the next producer who’s charging higher prices, because he feels intrinsically that the other producer must have something that you don’t. The other producer exudes a sense of elegance and class that you aren’t on par with. By selling $10 beats, you project desperation onto your prospects.

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Not good. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend to charge anywhere between $30-50 for a basic lease (mp3 file, up to 10,000 streams), $50-80 for a WAV lease (wav file, up to 500,000 streams) and $100-200 for the unlimited license (unlimited streams, track stems, wav + mp3.) Feel free to innovate. It’s your choice. As much as I’m giving you valuable information here, you need to be able to walk your own path and make decisions based on your own knowledge and experience. The reason I’m even able to write these words on this page is due to my persistence in trying and failing over time, whilst paying heed to the wisdom from those ahead of me. But by no means did I ever worship other producers. I recognised their skill for what it is, but I remained well aware of my own potential. I understood that it was just a matter of time until I reached the levels required to make a living off of music. You need to do the same. Remember your own value, and others will respect you.

Commandment 10: Let this book serve as your guide Now that you’ve made it to the end of this book, you have all of the tools required to make it work as an online producer. The rest is down to you and how well you decide to apply what you’ve learned from me. Before you close the book in angst forgetting to ever open it again, I want you to make note of the key pieces of information that really struck a chord for you (pun intended). It’s never good enough to read a book once and that’s it; we tend to forget most of what we read. Always try to come back to it so that what you learned remains fresh in your mind. So long as you try your very best to exercise your newfound knowledge, you will have a MUCH higher chance of succeeding. This will serve you well as a resource from here on out. Don’t feel like you’re alone. Whilst you will have to navigate certain challenges and situations by yourself, you have a 24

guide here that provides you with the blueprint for crushing all that stands before you. A guide that I wish I had when I was starting out. Remember, it all begins with the mind. Keep studying the game. Keep referring back the notes you’ve made and keep modelling your process off of your favourite producers. If you manage to do those three things whilst remaining resolute in your endeavours, you will find your way as a producer. And who knows, maybe I’ll be reading your E-Book one day. (For more guidance and future opportunities, follow QESTN on Instagram @qestn)

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