It's 3am on a Tuesday in 2017.

I'm sitting in front of my laptop in my small Berlin apartment.

I'd just moved there. Given up my stable job in Munich to pursue something I actually cared about.

And while I'm staring at a colorful Ableton session full of tracks and automations, I catch myself thinking "what the hell am I even doing here?"

This had been going on for weeks.

I'd move an EQ 0.3 dB up or down, change an automation, or swap out the kick for the fifth time, only to undo everything the next day.

I was working on my follow-up release for New Port Records, a Berlin underground techno label.

My first EP had done quite well in the scene, so I had to deliver.

But the more pressure I felt, the less creative I became.

I'd been too scared to ask for feedback. And if I'm honest, I was also too self-reliant as a person to ask for help.

But I couldn't see the forest for the trees anymore.

So I swallowed my pride and sent my half-finished, messy demos to Martin, who ran the label, and a few of the other artists on the roster.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.

They heard things I'd stopped hearing weeks before.

Things like "I really like your kick and sub bass, but that other bass layer isn't adding anything meaningful to the track, and it just makes your low end sound weaker than it could be."

That was just one of the notes that was spot on.

I'd only added that layer because I saw someone do it in a tutorial. My track never needed it.

Some of these things were hard to hear, especially when you've already lost all objectivity.

But it came from people who wanted me to succeed with my music, and they said it in a way that felt kind but honest.

And that changed how I listened.

I didn't need to defend the track. I could just hear the note and fix it.

Two weeks later, that EP was done.

And I felt like my skills, especially critical listening, had grown more in those two weeks than in the previous two years.

That's when I understood why feedback had never really worked for me before.

Who it comes from, and how it's said, decides whether you can use it at all.

Maybe you're not signed to a label yet, and there's no Martin in your life right now.

Most of the places producers go for feedback make this harder.

In a lot of Discord servers and subreddits, people comment to show what they know (and often it's nonsense).

So you either end up defending your track, or you take bad advice and add another bass layer your track doesn't need.

That's why I've been so careful about the culture inside our community, the Prolific Producer Collective.

You can post a messy, half-finished demo, the way I did, and get detailed notes from producers who want you to finish it.

And on Premium, we break down member tracks every week in the Feedback & Analysis call.

It's a collective of artists working towards the same goal: putting out music that means something to us, and that we're proud to share.

If you want your own crew like that, here are the details:

https://www.skool.com/pickyourself/about

Your music matters. Make it count.

Philip

PS: If you have questions about the group or want my honest take on whether Standard or Premium fits where you are right now, just hit reply and I'll help you personally.