More cows with bells…
I listened to Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal at full volume on headphones on repeat way too many times as a kid, and I legitimately think that’s when my ears decided to check out.
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When I went into the studio with my first band for the first time we had an engineer who didn’t do much editing on single takes / tracks. He told us he wanted to embrace small imperfections in music and that those imperfections made it sound more human. Looking back I don’t know if he was just being lazy, cause we sucked and to make it sound OK-ish would have taken shit tons of editing, but what I did take away from that experience is that it’s not important to have perfect takes. Takes can be better when you have a small mistake or imperfection in there so the listener can hear it was actually played by a real person. That’s probably also why I don’t sequence everything and don’t use perfect quantizing.
Some really good advice I got last year was to keep the music as a side hustle / part time thing, even when I could live off it. Having a steady part-time office job allows me to stay indepentent in doing music and it lets me do whatever the hell I want instead of feeling pressure to please labels and write and release ‘safe’ stuff to get those streams.
So in short: don’t over-edit and don’t quit your day job 
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Just finish the damn track. If its shit, no amount of reverb is going to fix it. Finish it, learn from it, and move on.
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The price for being an indepedent artist. Works!
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“You suck at producing music”
I’m still not sure if this was good advice or not 
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from my drum teacher
“COUNT!!!”
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Keep it simple
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To riff on that further, in addition to the importance of constructive criticism, there is still an audience to consider. Sure we all want to go our own way and think we will create something really unique and creative. Do whatever you want, but if one is just going to make weird random noises they would have to understand that is a pretty niche audience. So you have to consider who is going to listen and what their expectations are.
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Hey I like reverb!!!
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You underestimate how much reverb can be used
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Less is more for that too
I try to get some breaks… (damn my right ear starts to ring atm i am writing…) whenever i work and before leaving the desk i turn down the main volume. Helps to not raise more and more and ending up the end of the night with +10db.
watch out - cowbells can get you sued Did Robin Thicke steal ‘Blurred Lines’ from Marvin Gaye? – Joe Bennett
Bernard Purdie:
the 2 and the 4 put food on the table
I saw a video of him way back when he said that and it always stuck with me as a drummer who spent much of his 20s and 30s gigging for several different acts. The song needs what it needs not what you want to show off.
Also for the hired guns out there, be on time, be easy to work with, and don’t be an asshat. People want to work with others who bring a good vibe. Not everyone will remember an off take in the studio or a missed cue at a gig but everyone remembers the asshat!
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Kill your Idols
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Trust me, I currently have 23 unique sources of reverb. I very much am a reverb guy. These were painful words for me to hear, but I rebuilt. Now I use delays, haha those suckers with their good advice didn’t see that happening.
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What a World it would be? There is enough King Child in the World.
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When fine tuning a Sound, don’t listen to it. Instead, listen to all other Sounds.
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“The business men are drinking my blood.
Like the kids in art school said they would.”
- Arcade Fire
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This one resonates with me - if you want encouragement and validation, you probably won’t find it with your friends unless they’re into the same music as you. I’ve been deflated so many times showing my close friends my tracks only to receive barely any reaction. Show them to the right people or keep them to yourself.
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