Hey a,

The most useful things I learn never make it into a YouTube video.

They're too specific, too niche, or they come from someone else's project.

Yet they're often the most valuable lessons (and the most painful ones) my team and I can share with you.

I'm talking about things like:

• How one specific project finally gave me the confidence to go full-time as a producer and mixing/mastering engineer
• What "diversifying your income" as a music producer can actually look like (and which advice you can safely ignore)
• The single biggest mistake I've ever made, which almost ended my music career
• How producing a full-length album forces you to think differently, and how to plan one (from our coach Thomas)
• What actually happened on the way from zero to 30k+ monthly listeners, and what gets someone signed by their favorite label (from Paul Conrad, who went through our program and now coaches in it)

We all wish we could have learned those lessons without the scars.

That's exactly why we share them inside the Prolific Producer Collective, in a post type we call "Backstage Pass."

Just this week, I shared one from a mastering session.

A band handed me the mixes for their first album. 

The emotional core of the songs was there, but the mixes were barely holding the production together, like duct tape. And the band just wanted it out.

So I did things I'd normally never do in a master. EQ boosts of 8 dB.

Saturation that would usually feel like sacrilege. 

Mid-side and multiband tricks I'd avoid on any other project.

Mastering rules assume the mix is already decent. But when it isn't, the goal changes, and the rules change with it.

The harder part was helping the band say goodbye to the version of the album they had in their heads, so they could be proud of the one that actually exists.

Every producer with a folder full of "70%-finished" tracks has to learn that at some point.

We share lessons like this as they happen.

Whenever one of us hits a wall (or breaks through one) in a real project, you get the lesson while it's still fresh, with the chance to ask questions right underneath the post.

With me and a team of coaches working on releases and client projects every week, you can count on hard-earned lessons coming in regularly.

The Backstage Pass is included in both plans:

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

Your music matters. Make it count.
Philip

PS: You can still join this month's challenge and make progress right away. The premium plan gives you direct access to me and my team four times a week. Don't sleep on this, it's about time you make tangible progress every single month.