Black-Friday is officially raining down upon us also in terms of special music deals. Your e-mail spam folder is probably bursting just about now. Software companies are trying to invade the primal, shopping prone part of your brain. For once, the loudness war is not limited to wave-forms and audio formats. It’s happening across your social media channels. 60% off. Bundle deals. 90% off. Three-for-one deals. Vouchers like vultures, hovering silently.
Cut-to – your DAW. Sitting there, patiently. The plugins you use, and the ones you bought a while ago, also sitting there, unused. That’s right. We all fall for something from time to time. Going for a clever deal and a promise of the perfect processing chain. Question is – are you even harnessing the full potential of the software you currently own? Second question – would it make your life easier, your production more fluid, if you had more tools to choose from?
Smart spendings
Buying music software, especially in times of super-convenient payment options and subscription plans, can turn into a comforting obsession. And we’re not even blaming anyone out there. The quality of products is, honestly, quite impressive. And more often than not, promises are actually honored. If you want that vintage sound, that plug-in will probably get you pretty close. You might get disappointed from time to time, but if you bought it as a deal, it doesn’t really hurt, right?
Well, you could also think about funneling that extra cash into some unsexy stuff. Things like marketing tools. Back-end things that no one on this planet, besides you and maybe one person helping with marketing, will get the pleasure of looking at. Maybe you want to save some $$$ for your next vertical video campaign on Instagram. For your upcoming release. Definitely not as fun as playing around with a new, digitally modeled vintage tube amp. Probably not as pretty. Or one step back. How about saving some funds for the production of your next artwork. If you do it yourself, that’s great. Do you also shoot music videos? A lot of interesting blogs will need a visual incentive to place your music. Try persuading them by explaining how expensive your music production was – in terms of plug-ins used, channel strips modeled.
The proposition
So here’s our wildly blatant black-friday proposition:
Before spending money on something shiny and beautiful, take a breath. Imagine the upcoming 6-9 months. Visualize all the boring, non-fancy stuff. Now put a price tag on those things. Got them covered? Perfect. If not – keep your damn cursor from that pay-via-paypal tab.
Especially if you’re a DIY artist, you rarely want to think about the necessity of investing in infrastructure. Things like hiring a professional to manage online targeting or sales funnel optimization. You’d rather invest in beautiful toys that give you the feeling of aesthetic control, of having done everything you COULD have done to build your perfect, sonic landscape.
Now let the reality sink in. How many of your tracks have been placed on huge, kick-ass playlists? How many blogs have picked up on your last release? Is your catalogue equally distributed and present across a variety of platforms?
Embrace ROI
If your goal is to live off of your craft, you have to think in return-of-investment. Sooner or later you’ll have to let that big ROI into your heart. Give it a spot next to all the more interesting, pleasant things. Things like plate-reverbs or highly intuitive multi-band compressors.
Prioritize your spendings. Be boring sometimes.
0 be the first one to show some appreciation for this!