Episode 37: Production Pitfalls

Avoiding Production Pitfalls in DIY Music

In this episode of the Face Your Ears podcast, hosts Rich Bozic and Justin Hochella discuss various challenges and common pitfalls in music production. They provide insights on maintaining effective communication, avoiding overthinking, and resisting the temptation to tweak endlessly. The conversation highlights the necessity of clear protocols, timeframes, and methods of communication, particularly in collaborative projects. They also celebrate the growing global audience of the podcast and share excitement about an upcoming October Fest concert in collaboration with local musicians. The episode aims to equip emerging artists and producers with practical advice to streamline their workflow and foster better professional relationships.

00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Event
02:19 Global Audience and Podcast Growth
04:59 Production Pitfalls: Overthinking and Perfectionism
18:24 Communication in Music Production
27:00 Summary and Conclusion

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Rich 0:10

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name's Rich Boic. I'm joined today with Producer Extraordinaire. Justin, Hola, how are you, sir?

Justin 0:22

I am doing well. I am in the presence of the vocal God that is known as rich Boic. How are you sir?

Rich 0:30

I am doing well. Things are going great here. a lot of teaching happening, which is great. a lot of preparation happening. There's a big, event coming up in October that, I'm preparing with the studio.

Justin 0:40

Yes, that's right.

Rich 0:42

And we will give you more information about that as things unfold in the upcoming episodes. Maybe we could talk some details about that whole process. But it's a big, October Fest concert, that we're doing in collaboration with some local brewers here. should be fun. And actually, Justin is going to come on down and join us that day to help out with sound and do some music

Justin 1:06

Yeah. That's the plan. I am planning to attend. The festivities as both a live sound engineer and a performer with my band, group, project. Same, not same with my good friend Jay Pavona. he actually lives in your neck of the woods, rich.

Rich 1:27

yeah.

Justin 1:28

probably like 10 minutes from

Rich 1:29

Oh yeah. That's why it's a perfect fit.

Justin 1:31

Yeah, we're excited. we've got a couple singles out, One should be out this week, as long as the distributor doesn't implode. we've got another single coming out, so that'll be two songs for us. we're working on a third, so, we hope to have some stuff ready for that event. we're very excited about it. And it's also, I think, in part commemorating. 25th anniversary as Bozek Studio. I don't know if that's official but I kind of in my mind have sort of, equated like this event as like an opportunity to sort of celebrate that.

Rich 2:04

Yeah. this whole year has been, the 25th year of me teaching. and I guess it's another reason to have a party,

Justin 2:14

Yeah. That's how I look at it. in my mind I wanna celebrate you and all the work you've done over 25 years.

Rich 2:18

Awesome. I wanted to give you, some updates here.

Justin 2:21

Yeah.

Rich 2:22

we are up past 3000 listens for our podcast. this is great news, right? things are growing nicely and we've really had a nice uptick this past year. There's, people all around the world listening. Can you fill us in on that? Justin?

Justin 2:41

Yeah. It's so cool that we have a global listening audience,

Rich 2:46

We are a global podcast.

Justin 2:48

we are, we are, available throughout the world. so we are excited to celebrate our listeners in places like Iceland.

Rich 2:58

Oh.

Justin 2:59

we have, a few listeners

Rich 3:02

The Warriors of the North?

Justin 3:04

that's right.

Rich 3:04

Yes.

Justin 3:05

I think there's some brothers of metal there in Sweden. and then we go all the way. to the Oceania region of the world with New Zealand.

Rich 3:16

Oh, nice.

Justin 3:17

in New Zealand, which is cool, Portugal, we have listeners in Portugal.

Rich 3:23

Why wouldn't the Portuguese want to listen to our podcast?

Justin 3:27

I mean, it is universal and it is meant for all. so it's exciting to know that, we have, You know what's interesting is like Canada is on our list, but it's a little bit further down, which is really funny'cause I technically live like 45 minutes from Canada Columbia is on the list. we've got friends in Australia, uk, and Germany. So it's so cool to see that we have listeners. From all over the place. So thank you for all, all of those listeners, from all those different countries or territories that I listed. it's really amazing, to see that.

Rich 4:06

It is a fun thing.

Justin 4:07

a part of that, that 3000, downloads that Rich mentioned. Yeah.

Rich 4:12

Yeah. international folks, friend us on social media. leave a comment, let us know where you are hailing from.

Justin 4:20

It is like a hit of an undescribable drug when somebody actually sends you a message

Rich 4:29

Yes.

Justin 4:30

or social media, like, Hey, I like your podcast.

Rich 4:34

It makes it feel worth it.

Justin 4:37

I was like, I'm gonna be walking on clouds for the next week because somebody in, Istanbul was like, Hey, your podcast is cool. joking aside, it means a lot to us to hear from you because we do this for our audience, for our listeners, and for people that, that wanna get into DIY music and audio.

Rich 4:55

Yeah,

Justin 4:55

for being a part of it.

Rich 4:56

we just love talking and shop.

Justin 4:58

that's right.

Rich 4:59

Justin, the episode, let's talk about this episode.

Justin 5:03

get into it.

Rich 5:04

all right, I've been looking forward to this one'cause I feel like you have a lot to say in this department, so I kind of wanna. Shower you with questions.

Justin 5:17

A little sprinkling of

Rich 5:18

Yes.

Justin 5:19

inquiries.

Rich 5:20

Well, I wanted to talk about production pitfalls. Yeah. And get more insight from you, because. I have a lot of emerging professionals that I work with, and I wanna be able to equip them for when they're going to work with someone like you or any other producer

Justin 5:42

Right.

Rich 5:42

And also, maybe just talk in general about this idea of production pitfalls to anyone who is curious so that maybe some of these things could be avoided and it could make the process way more pleasant. we're gonna talk about this, from perspective of the artist sometimes, but mostly the producer because, you're a producer and I'm asking you these questions, right? production pitfalls. what comes to mind?

Justin 6:10

I'm gonna toot my own horn for a second. I pride myself in being a very professional producer. And so what does that mean? You know, that that of course means I have this technical skills and so forth to create a good track, and I know how to create a beat and. Record different instruments But I think moreover, it's about how you show up as a professional in general, like communication, the way you interact with somebody, how quickly you respond and, the manner in which you respond And so I think that one of the pitfalls that I've encountered is people that. lack that ability. they're unable to show up in a, what I would call professional way, which is to respond to communication in a timely manner, being able to, you know, go really deep into a process, to like nitty gritty details of a project, things like that.

Rich 7:04

Maybe what might be helpful, for this episode is, well, let's break this down a little bit. You've opened Pandora's Box. Okay.

Justin 7:11

Yes, that's why we're doing an episode on it because there is this Pandora's box of stuff,

Rich 7:15

Yeah, so, let's break this down a little bit. Can you tell us about when you might have a client who might be overthinking things what does that mean? Overthinking with regard to a music project?

Justin 7:27

I think that's a really great topic to put a spotlight on because when we talk about pitfalls, there's a lot of them this is a really specific one, and I think for people that are newer in the

Rich 7:39

I.

Justin 7:39

of releasing music, it's their first song, for example, they can start to overanalyze, overthink, the whole process and. Scrutinize to the point where they, are unable to make decisions. you can get to this point where you're thinking so much about it. And you're going back and forth in your own mind that you're kind of paralyzed as an artist. then you can't move forward. Then it's like, all right, you know, if nothing is good enough and it has to be perfect and you don't have a conception of what perfect is, you get stuck in that analysis paralysis where you're just blocking your own self. And so I think that's something that I've seen with younger, newer artists that just overthink it like this one song is gonna make or break their entire being as an artist. And it's actually kind of the opposite. The irony is that You should think less in a way. just follow your instinct, follow your gut more, so that you can release more, music to the world and grow as an artist and have something to pull from the more you get stuck in that mode of thinking, the less latitude you have for growth,

Rich 8:57

So have you worked with people obsessed with perfection?

Justin 9:01

there's people that are like, stuck on a literal sound, like a percussion sound. I've had an instance of that where we have to like audition bazillion different, high hats and, there's a degree of that, but it's like after a certain point it's like, okay, we've gone through 50 high hats. I think we can just make a decision and move on. or it's like, frequencies of certain instruments stuff that you might be able to hear or you've convinced yourself. You can hear, but literally nobody else on planet Earth can hear

Rich 9:32

Hmm.

Justin 9:33

that little dip at, nine kilohertz that you've created, things like that. things that people have convinced themselves that are really important that nobody else is ever gonna notice.

Rich 9:44

endless tweaks creeping into the picture.

Justin 9:47

Yeah. absolutely. I think that's a big one.

Rich 9:50

Second guessing seems to be something that I see with clients as I'm working with them, as they're going through the recording process. They're like, I've been listening to this for the past two weeks, and now I feel like, oh, maybe I should go back into the studio and start over again. And it's like, whoa, you just put in a bunch of time.

Justin 10:08

Yeah.

Rich 10:08

You know, do you really wanna do that? I remember when we were talking to Mark Matthews when we had him on our show, and he was saying, knowing when, Good is good enough, He was saying like,

Justin 10:20

Uhhuh.

Rich 10:20

what do you have to say about that? What can you tell people who are second guessing too much?

Justin 10:25

I think one of the most soul crushing things for me as a producer is when the song is done and the client is happy, and then they, whatever reason, they get influenced by a. Listening to it in a hypercritical manner, or they have their entourage, friends, uncle, whatever, listen to their song and make some kind of like the cuff comment about it. Like, oh, the vocal will seem a little low here. Or like something. Seemingly innocuous, something seemingly innocent, and it completely derails the thing. And this very sensitive, very new artist is like, oh no, this is gonna be a disaster.

Rich 11:10

Yeah.

Justin 11:10

be a total

Rich 11:11

uncle John said he didn't hear the nine k dip.

Justin 11:17

But it's like, put it in perspective. we talk about this often where there's something insane, like 50,000 or so songs getting released every single day. And for you to come along and say oh, well my friend, Matthew says that the chorus isn't loud enough and so that's gonna make your song not shine amongst the 50,000 songs

Rich 11:41

Mm-hmm.

Justin 11:42

that day.

Rich 11:43

Yeah.

Justin 11:43

And it's, to me, It's like, man, I feel like anybody should be releasing music just'cause they love

Rich 11:48

Yeah.

Justin 11:48

'cause if you're trying to make it as an artist and you don't have. of cash to hand out to top tier producers and,

Rich 11:59

Marketing and all that stuff.

Justin 12:01

playlist people and social media managers and all this stuff. It's like. It's not going to happen. I feel like that's a bygone era of making it, and sure there's a lot that do, but relative to the amount of stuff that's out there, the likelihood of somebody being the next big thing because their song is so good. It doesn't really ring true to me anymore, so you may as well just release it because you love it and

Rich 12:26

that's the thing. that's what I'm getting from you. It seems like the client is happy with the song. They like the song, and then they let outside influence creep in and get them to second guess that they like it,

Justin 12:42

right.

Rich 12:43

I also see a thing where people record and then they sit on the project

Justin 12:49

Ugh.

Rich 12:49

What do you gotta say about that?

Justin 12:50

Yeah, I think that's the other side of the coin, right? Is when like people sit on it for such an insanely long time, like a year or more, and then by that point they've lost touch with it, and it's almost become stale to them and they just don't like it anymore. But it's like, man, you should just release that thing and focus on the next thing and keep that process going. it feels to me like when you sit on a song like that and don't release it, it, it almost creates a self perpetuating phenomenon where You don't release that one. you may come up with new music, but you've already gotten comfortable with not releasing music. Does that make

Rich 13:31

Mm-hmm.

Justin 13:31

that's your comfort zone is not releasing music. try to challenge that and get outside of your comfort zone and just put it out there because it's Like, do people really believe that? this song is so bad that someone's going to hear it and never listen to my stuff again. it's like, I, I just, I don't, I don't feel that's the case. I mean, for example, on Instagram, I'm part of a group of industrial, goth kind of musicians And these guys are releasing stuff all the time. when I listen to their stuff, I'm not judging it. I'm just kind of like, I like this kind of music. Whatever they're bringing to the forefront. I'm enjoying it. I'm not like, oh man, yeah, they really need to tweak that nine k.

Rich 14:10

Yeah.

Justin 14:10

You know, I

Rich 14:10

yeah,

Justin 14:11

I just listen to it as like, this is great. This is like somebody's art. Like somebody created this. I'm enjoying

Rich 14:16

yeah.

Justin 14:17

and back to your initial question, I think when people. Sit on their stuff and don't release it. They're, robbing not only themselves, but other people from enjoying this really cool thing that they made, because they're obsessed with these meaningless details of like, it has to be just so in order for me to make it, and it's like that, doesn't exist

Rich 14:40

Yeah.

Justin 14:40

like

Rich 14:41

yeah.

Justin 14:41

exist anymore.

Rich 14:42

think, yeah, ultimately comes down to the song itself. I think the composition is the most important thing to me,

Justin 14:49

I agree. it has to be a good song, right? I think that's true, but you also have to really like it you as the artist need to like it first. I feel

Rich 14:57

Yeah.

Justin 14:58

It's gonna resonate with some people. even if you think it's stupid and it's like, This is crap or whatever I guarantee you there are gonna be people that hear it and be like, this is so awesome. I love this song. so, I would say first and foremost, create stuff that you love first just focus on that. And I think that will naturally lead to creating a good song. not every time. That's not how humans work. That's not how art works. But getting in that sort of mindset and mode will lead you to better results overall.

Rich 15:30

one other thing that I wanna mention is sometimes people second guess the songs. I've heard people second guess the songs'cause they're like, well, the song doesn't sound the same. in my car, like it does, on my home theater surround sound on my phone and on my Bluetooth speaker, like they want the song the sound like Pristine and Amazing and all these devices. What, what do you gotta say about that?

Justin 15:53

I think, there's a degree of ignorance there. I don't, I don't mean that in a insulting way of just, of like, you know, different equipment will yield different results sonically, if you're listening to it on a little Bluetooth speaker that you can hold in your hand. like you said, a, a Hi-Fi system in your home. it's meant to sound different, Some devices are actually built to color the sound to actually add bass, and that sort of thing. And that's going to affect how it sounds. a song should quote unquote translate device to device to device. But that doesn't mean it's going to sound exactly the same. I think a good rule of thumb, is, it should sound good. you should be able to identify the different parts of the song, like the bass, the vocals, the drums, the guitar, regardless of the system it's on. However, that collection of instruments is gonna sound dramatically different listening to it on that little. Beats pill

Rich 16:57

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Justin 16:59

versus, your five-year-old iPhone versus, professional studio monitors, et cetera. So

Rich 17:06

Yeah.

Justin 17:06

I think that's the thing people don't appreciate clarity is one thing. being able to identify the different parts within the song is one thing, which is kind of about the mix and the master. the Sonic Fidelity is going to be a little different, right? Depending on what you're listening on. if you have a Sony boombox from 1995 that has that max base feature on it, That's gonna be different than a pair of finely tuned$5,000 studio monitors, right?

Rich 17:39

So that's one you gotta be careful with.'cause I've seen people get into that rabbit hole and I can hold back a project for sure.

Justin 17:46

if you're new to this, I think that's something that I would

Rich 17:50

I.

Justin 17:50

you to understand as a, as a listener of this podcast, is that differentiate clarity versus quality, so when you listen to it on your iPhone or your earbuds. You should be able to get clarity, you should be able to pick out, I can hear every lyric, I can hear the drums, I can hear the guitar. Like those things in a clear manner

Rich 18:13

Hearing that nine K dip.

Justin 18:15

Yeah.

Rich 18:18

Anyways, this is great. This is great. I'm gonna move on to something else here. you mentioned early on when we were introducing the episode about. correspondence and sometimes clients not responding.

Justin 18:33

Yeah.

Rich 18:34

can we delve into that a little more?

Justin 18:37

Yeah, I feel like this is almost like a therapy session, just unloading all of the experiences that

Rich 18:45

Let it out Justin. Let it out.

Justin 18:46

I just gotta let it out. this goes back to what I was saying at the top, which was about professionalism. And so like there. one thing to have the skills, like the skills to use Logic Pro and to use virtual instruments and record acoustic instruments and on all those things, like that's part of the professional work. I feel like it's sort of price of admission to being a producer. then I think what differentiates people in any, practice, is their ability to be professional with people. that can be, Predominantly in communication. So I think, you know, whatever you do in life, whether it's you're a professional fisherman or, or a music producer, like whatever you do, I think communication in the way you treat people is paramount, to your success. responding is, like, that's a pretty low bar. if somebody, has hired me to work on a song with them, that very seriously I, first of all will set up. Communication kind of expectations about like, Hey, here's, here's what I expect in terms of communication. Here's what you can expect from me. What should I, expect from you? Like, what, what would you like to see and hear, you know, in this relationship in terms of communication? so. You know, when somebody doesn't respond and I have to chase after them, it's pretty baffling to me. I've had, clients that. Reach out to me unsolicited, like, Hey, I wanna work with you. I've heard your stuff. And then I'm like, cool, let's do it. we have a little bit of back and forth and then it goes radio silent for weeks I have to continually follow up like, Hey, are you still interested? What's going on? I actually had a client once that I had to, I had to actually fire the client. I was like, Hey. I am not really hearing from you. I don't think this is gonna work out. I wish you all the best. even in that, I was professional to let that person go.'cause it's like I'm not gonna continue to pull you along and ask if you're interested. Right. And you know, I've had times where, I've sort of been on the other side where I'm the paying client, and I'm reaching out to somebody. their services, I'm willing to pay them. And radio silent for

Rich 21:03

Interesting.

Justin 21:04

it's frustrating'cause it's like, I'm here showing up as a professional, seeking your. Skillset as a musician, and I want to pay you for said skillset. it's like radio silence.

Rich 21:17

that's tough. it is baffling.

Justin 21:19

and so, you know, it, it sours the relationship, I think, and it's just not professional no matter what you do We're just talking about it in the context of music production, but it's like whatever you do in

Rich 21:31

Yeah,

Justin 21:31

be a good communicator and foster good relationships with the people you're interacting and working with.

Rich 21:38

Even if you're not interested or available it is just as easy as sending a message and being like, Hey.

Justin 21:44

yeah.

Rich 21:44

I'm too busy right now, I can't do it, or I'm not interested in the project. Or maybe later, but I can't do it right now. simple communication can take things so far from both the client perspective, but also from the producer as well. Like if a producer is getting, say we're a busy studio, you got a lot of people coming in, I know sometimes it's hard to say no, to people, but if you can't fit'em in, into the schedule or whatever, just be upfront and be, be like, I can't do it now, but I will be able to do it later. just communicate. Don't ghost.

Justin 22:20

Absolutely. love what you said too about, being upfront to say Hey, this isn't my bag. This isn't what I'm into. I don't think I'll be able to, I'm not a good fit for this. it's fine. it's business. I'm not gonna take that personally.

Rich 22:32

Yeah.

Justin 22:32

take it as like, oh, you don't like the song I did, you don't wanna work on, it's like, no, it's not Sunday

Rich 22:37

It is better to do it early on in the process.

Justin 22:39

Yeah, respond promptly. I would say a reasonable timeframe is like 48 hours, and it takes you 30 seconds to send a text message or an email, now we have AI writing tools, so you can just

Rich 22:55

Yeah.

Justin 22:55

your thoughts into your email and have AI make it sound pretty.

Rich 22:59

Yeah.

Justin 23:00

I think respond, just respond like that. that's really disappointing for me when people don't respond, it sours the relationship. Right. if you respond early on in the process. That means like, okay, I respect you and hey, maybe this isn't gonna work out today, or maybe this project won't work out or whatever. down the road we can work together. when you don't respond and sour the relationship, all of that's kind of lost,

Rich 23:27

to break this down I understand, what you mean about. Responding. We got that now. And you mentioned the timeframe, like, 48 hours. I mean, that's generous, but yeah. Let's, say that that's what we're after. are there any other details can you give us a little more insight about that just for people who are new at kind of corresponding trying to set up a project? If we were to get into the nuts and bolts of that a little bit.

Justin 23:52

I'm actually working on a project right now with someone and, I established some of these things. for example, one of the protocols that we have for sharing feedback is using a tool called Boombox. Check it out. Really cool. We'll put a link in the show notes. boombox.io. It's a great collaborative tool. the idea is that you upload a track. and then you and your collaborator or collaborators can listen to the track and leave feedback at timestamped points in the song. I can put my mouse at one minute and 13 seconds click and be like, Hey, I really think there should be a vocal improv here, and I could send that. To, the person I'm working with, and they can do the same for me. that's a very specific protocol. I love boombox because it's so easy and much cleaner than sending emails back and forth. eventually that just becomes a royal mess. boombox keeps it really clean. having a protocol like that is great. establishing timeframes is important because it gets very fuzzy as time goes on. if you don't establish that upfront, it only gets fuzzier. for me, I like to have generally a weekly check-in just to be like. if it's 15 seconds of Hey, anything new? Nope, I'm still working on the same stuff. Okay. at least we've touched base and know what's going on. that's an important thing. what's that standard? then method of communication, the best way for us to communicate in general? And so for some people, like texting is best, I don't think anyone anymore really uses email,

Rich 25:29

Mm.

Justin 25:30

and then if it's like a Defcon one emergency, you can do a phone call. But,

Rich 25:34

Mm-hmm.

Justin 25:34

I think, also doing, web meetings. when do you want to do those? Like I said, meeting once a week, I like to do that in a web. Based Zoom or Google meet situation, just to check in. We can see each other. I can share stuff live, in a meeting So I think those are important, as well.

Rich 25:52

if you're dealing with a project that has multiple people who are involved, who are kind of collaborators, perhaps establishing who is the point of contact in that? Group that you could have the correspondence with and, and kind of funnel all of the information through, one point of contact.'cause sometimes having a lot of cooks in the kitchen, everyone messaging you all at once, that could get tough. I've no, I've, I've experienced that in recording. and it's easier if there's one person who is the spearhead of it all.

Justin 26:26

Absolutely. it's a really great point. if you're dealing with a band of five people, having a single point of contact is critical. a lot of times in the work I'm doing, it's one-on-one, but you're absolutely right. that isn't always the case. You know, there's sometimes a lot of different people. Sometimes you're working with a younger person. So the parent be, the best point of contact. Maybe it's like an up and coming 16 or 17-year-old working with their parents so the parent or parents might be the point of contact. So really good to, to clarify that upfront, like who's the best point of contact.

Rich 26:58

This is all good information. So just to kind of summarize for you folks out there. basically what we covered today was. How to avoid some production pitfalls. a lot of'em seem to revolve around communication and being a responsive collaborator, whether you're the artist or the producer getting back in a timely fashion. another production pitfall is overthinking your project. Becoming perfection, obsessed and tweaking endlessly. also second guessing too much, also allowing outside influence, to color, your thoughts on the project. Too much, sitting on projects too long. wanting the project to sound the same on all devices. when you get into the working relationship, the communication we mentioned, setting a standard as to how things will happen, establishing a protocol, looking at timeframes. the method of communication and the method of your back and forth. also establishing a point of contact if you're working with a group or band. I think this was, a great start on this topic. there's more in there, Justin, and maybe we will make a part two to this at some point

Justin 28:12

I think you're right. It's interesting, I went into this thinking, oh, this will kind of be a shorter episode.

Rich 28:19

Mm-hmm.

Justin 28:19

like a 25, 20 minute episode. there's a lot to unpack here. I think you're right. there just may be even more for us to dive into. rich, thank you so much for having this conversation with me today. thank you listeners for joining us in this conversation. We will catch you in the next episode. Bye for now.

Rich 28:39

Bye.