Imposter Syndrome impacts my Music Production

I keep wondering if I overstepped my music creation mojo.

So about 6 months ago, I found myself hitting limits in Garageband iOS. After a lot of research I decided to try Audio Evolution, Cubasis 3 and Nano Studio.

I quickly scratched out Nano Studio because it didn’t record vocals, but both Nano Studio and Audio Evolution had internal sounds I really liked.

Cubasis on the other hand didn’t have as many sounds but had an interface I found super comfortable and easy to use. Since Cubasis also has plenty of tutorials I decided to go with this one and sadly dropped Audio Evolution.

So I’ve been playing around and learning Cubasis for some time now, and loving the interface, but because it doesn’t have many of the internal sounds I liked, I’ve gone and gotten quite a few external apps to try and fill the gaps.

You see, while Garageband was limited, I LOVE all the internal instruments and sounds, it’s a beautifully simply DAW that made making music easy and intuitive.

For a beginner I couldn’t recommend Garageband enough. It’s a great DAW to get your feet wet and learn and depending on where you end up taking your music production will depend on if you find yourself hitting limits.

Since I make Ambient music, I discovered a need to add more effects/plugins than Garageband has slots for. This was probably one of my biggest limitations, besides automation and some other little things.

So I decided to expand, but this is where I have completely overwhelmed myself.

You see I’ve gone and watched tons of tutorials across YouTube and SkillShare in hopes to figure how to be more ‘professional’ as a musician. Because let’s face it, I don’t have much in the way of music theory behind me like most of the people behind all the tutorials have. I suppose they wouldn’t be making music tutorials if they didn’t?

So I’ve pumped this astronomical amount of information into my head, trying so hard to keep up with the ‘professionals’ that I’m now struggling to even open a DAW.

Why you ask?

Because the thought of making music is now completely overwhelmed with the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to do it.

I’ve bought so many apps to try and level me up that I’m completely lost as to what app does what, and which one will actually help in what scenario. I’m just so overwhelmed! I know many YouTube channels are wanting to help, but at the end of the day, most are also trying to make money (aren’t we all), and this brings a constant bombardment of awesome apps, fantastic techniques, tips and tricks, skills, and finally do’s and don’ts.

With all that overload, I’m now terrified to try because I KNOW I’m not doing it right.

I make music via feel not theory. Let me explain. For me every instrument, every note, every cord, it all washes over me via a feeling. So when I create music, I’m searching out sounds that fit with a particular feeling that I want. I then combine and shape those sounds until the feeling is captured perfectly.

To make matters worse, traditional music theory often makes NO sense to me at all, maybe I was made differently, but it all simply confuses me.

To me, if it sounds good then why can’t it just be good? Why do we have to create a song in only a Major scale, and why not creatively mix Major and Minor scales?

Now if you add in a passion for world music, you suddenly have a whole lot of different music theory to contend with, because every culture has a compete different take on music and what is right and wrong.

Something else to add to the overwhelming river of information is mixing and mastering, and what dB or LUM’s to export your music for social media such as YouTube or SoundCloud. All of it makes you understand why big-name musicians pay professionals to do all the above.

I find myself wishing to go back to the days of ignorance when I was simply lost in the creation of music and simply learning the basics of how to use my DAW. I can’t help looking back and thinking how much easier it was to make music and feel okay.

So I end up sitting and simply staring into the abyss that is my DAW, and thinking I’ve got no hope.

All these people I’ve watched time and time again, trusting their advice, suddenly have left me feeling worse, because they have dedicated all their time to being a musician and here, I am, little multipassionate me, lucky to dedicate one day a week to it.

So where does one go from here?

I of course keep slogging away because I’ve never been any good at simply dropping a dream. But I’ll probably turn off YouTube for a bit, stop watching everyone’s great advice and muddle my way through.

The next step might be deleting off a chunk of apps, perhaps going back to some type of simple, and trying hard to focus just on creating, and not all the things I need to do to make it ‘professional’ afterwards.

I’m sure I’ll let you all know how I find my way through the storm when I do.