What should my next step be?

Okay - so recently I started a new Soundcloud. After almost reaching 1000 plays on my personal Soundcloud, I found a direction I want to head in. I have one track on it so far but have work for the future. After producing music for over a year, of course I am not an "experienced artist" but I have identified a style of music I enjoy making most, and I want to focus and refine this style slightly. I'm not limiting myself i'm just starting to try and create an image.

Now: I'm going to hold my hands up and say - "I want my music to be heard." At the moment, only my friends really hear my music on Soundcloud simply because I share it on Facebook. I feel like Soundcloud isn't the best platform, because not a lot of my friends use it so it doesn't get shared or reposted. My friends like the music I produce (of course they could just be being kind, but I'm happy with what I am making) but I feel I will be stuck in this cycle of making a song, releasing it, getting a small amount of views but nobody new. There is no growth.

I'm not trying to say I want to be famous or even make money from music - I just want my music to be heard by more people than my friends. I want to start an organic and active fan base - even if I only have 10 followers, I want those 10 followers to actually listen and like and repost the music. Does anyone have any tips on this? Any particular social media sights you would recommend? Obviously Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc but which would you say is most active and most helpful in creating an ACTUAL fan base, no matter how small.

Like I implied before, i'd rather have less followers who were all active and liked and shared and downloaded the music than more followers who just followed me because of one song and were not active on my social media. I suppose you could say I just need to produce better music - and that is true again I will hold my hands up - but any other advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :)

You bring up questions and concerns that I've seen many budding producers ask. Before starting to work on Equipboard, I was in the same situation - I was honing my skills, working on several tracks, and wanted to break into the industry by building a bigger following, and getting noticed by someone with influence. I actually was able to achieve my small break, and got signed to a label that released my music and allowed me to reach a significantly larger audience.

For what it's worth, here are some things that worked for me:

NEVER STOP WORKING ON TRACKS

This isn't so much of a technique to grow your audience, as it is an underlying fundamental, but I still feel like it needs to be said. It's amazing how working on newer tracks makes your older ones feel shitty very quickly! You're never finished learning and improving in music production. From writing hooks and melodies, to sound selection, to arrangement, to learning how to use your synths/instruments, to mixing, to mastering - always be improving. Also, always be finishing tracks. No half-baked ideas. Especially at first, force yourself to finish a production, even if it doesn't feel like it's gonna be the one. It's such a good learning experience and mental strength exercise.

The reason this is so important is while you "shop around" a given track, you might quickly realize it's not as good as you imagined it to be. This brings me to my next point...

YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ARE NOT GOOD JUDGES

Limiting your feedback sources to friends and family shields you from the harsh reality that is audience feedback. In my experience, friends always thought my tracks were amazing because they were simply happy that I was pursuing an artistic dream of mine. They mean well, and I love them for it, but the praise is artificial. IRL people make snap judgements, which are often mean and harsh, and you need to expose yourself to that (who knows, they might be right). So how do you expose your music to the cruel and honest outside world? Read on...

GIVE FEEDBACK TO RECEIVE FEEDBACK

When you are not a "somebody" in the music production world, it's hard to get heard from a bunch of strangers at once. Take advantage of communities that have feedback threads. The Listening Booth in the IDMforums was a great resource for me. They have a nice system set up where you have to give a certain amount of feedback before you can get it on your own stuff. I'm not sure if they changed the rules since I've been there, but it worked out great and helped me build a small audience. I spent significant time giving people feedback on their tracks in genres that I know a bit about - progressive & electro house for instance. I would give good, honest, detailed feedback, and some of those same people started remembering my name and would then give me feedback. What happened was as my music got better over the course of months, people's feedback got more nitpicky and I got a lot more of, "holy shit dude, this is good! you should try to get it signed!" That's how I knew I was doing something right.

Reddit's edmproduction community also has weekly feedback threads, but those were more hit or miss since things that get upvoted rise to the top, which leaves a lot of people at the bottom with no feedback. Persistence and timing is key!

PARTICIPATE IN REMIX COMPETITIONS

This might be a controversial one, but it's something I did which had mixed results. It was a Beatport remix competition. There was a popular vote, and a vote by the artist/manager/label. I don't think this a fantastic way to get noticed. Yes, some artists have gotten their big break by winning one or more notable remix competitions - but I don't think thats a typical route to the top. The popular vote is often won by people who master the art of the spam, with little regard of how good or bad or trite their remix sounds 😁 I didn't spam the world super aggressively with my own remix (which I actually was semi-happy with and thought had a decent shot at winning), but it did teach me to hustle. Self promotion skills are important, and perhaps a necessary "evil." One day when you're huge and have support of several labels, managers, etc. the promotion of your tracks will be well taken care of. Until that day comes, it's all about the hustle. You need to go after putting your track in front of people with the same spirit as, say, applying for your dream job. Treat it like business - don't be spammy or abusive with anyone, but be persistent, charming, and open to criticism.

For what it's worth, promoting myself in the remix competition honed some of those skills for me (I did not win the competition, but the track became a solid part of my portfolio).

SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES

This goes along with my previous point of having hustle. You never know when an opportunity will present itself, particularly in the communities you are part of. When it does present itself, be ready. Also, make your own opportunities. Producers that have "made it" are always asked, "how did you get noticed?" and they answer in a very cliche way: "Oh you know it was hard work and a little bit of luck." Luck just means they were prepared when the opportunity prepared itself, because they had put in so much hard work.

For instance, you've supported Equipboard almost since the start - if you want more listens, you should ask me to post your track or SoundCloud page to our Facebook page. Hint: I'd be happy to 😁

Hopefully you can extract some learnings from what I went through. Happy to answer more questions!

TL;DR

• Your next track will be better than your current one. Keep producing.

• Family & friends are too nice. Largely ignore their feedback.

• Make friends with strangers. Give feedback to get feedback.

• Remix competitions - yeah they're hit or miss, but can teach you about deadlines and to promote yourself.

• Be bold and go after it. If you work hard at it and you hustle, that's usually a good combination.

Wow, haha well I always like a comprehensive reply so thank you very much! I'll try and reply to everything...

First of all - I find I do struggle to carry on working on a track often. I feel like i'm always heading to a bit of a dead end. My new hooks or melodies or beats are good for like the first few times I hear them but I become sick of them quickly. Is this normal?

Secondly - a lot of my feedback has been from friends and family and I totally understand there will be a hint of bias and it won't be completely true.

Third - I certainly need to expose myself to the outside world a lot more. Thank you for suggesting a few forums i'll try get on it as soon as I can. For a long time music has just been personal to me it was just meant for friends and family but now I do want to take the step forward I guess this could be very helpful.

About remix competitions - the only song on my new Soundcloud right now is actually an entry to a remix competition. I really enjoyed it and I understand it does help with the outside judgement. I never expected to win (and I didn't win) but it's still sometimes easy to think your music is good and fail to spot flaws in your own work.

And finally - I feel like I haven't had an opportunity yet although my eyes are always peeled. I'm only 15 I have a long way to go. I don't want to sound like one of those whining kids who think they're the best and they're not!

Thank you for the kind offer - I guess i'll share a link to my new page :) "thejameskellymusic" is my personal account now - I plan to release music here.

There should be more music on its way - I guess if I keep up with your tips i'll certainly be releasing more music. I am at a busy time right now with mock exams in school so I have to balance everything - but making music is my real dream.

Thank you very much once again! I hope I covered everything :)