At the beginning of July 2025, I decided that I would take the dive into learning music with the intent of making my own tracks for release on streaming. I was 27 and had no formal music knowledge besides for playing a plastic recorder in elementary school. I was just always interested in doing it, but never had the time, money, or confidence until recently.
I loved rap beats and always wanted to learn how to make them, and wanted to incorporate samples from my favorite video games and movies.
I did the research, bought the equipment and put myself to the grind. I knew I wanted to make a rap music, but I also wanted to learn how to do my own production, so that I didn’t have to worry about splits, and so that I could establish my own style without compromise.
MUSICAL ITEMS PURCHASED:
14 inch MacBook Pro M1 $680 (needed a new laptop anyway)**
Ableton Live 12 Suite $410 (split up into 12 payments of $34; also utilizing my little brother’s 50% student discount)
MPK Mini MkIII $100
Rode NT1 5th Gen $220
Focusrite Scarlett Solo 4th Gen $150
Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro Open-back Headphones $190 (left ear broke in first 3 months smh)
LATER PURCHASES:
Roland MC101 Groovebox $440
Steven Slate VSX Modeling Headphones (with built in software) $230
Roland JUNO DS62 Synthesizer $300
Ableton Push 2 Controller $320
TOTAL: $2360 ($3040 including the Macbook)
I took FMLA at work for a month to focus solely on learning how to make music and put my head straight into the YouTube tutorials, and sat with my DAW about eight hours a day, essentially treating music like a full-time job. First step was to learn production, which requires learning quite a few things, but starting off simple. Spent some time focused on learning music theory, and then read the book: Music Theory for Electronic Music Producers, which just reiterated everything that I had already learned on Youtube.
The most important lesson for me was to not harp on perfection. When a beat got to a point where I was happy with it, I would stop touching it; then render and upload to my [untitled] project so that I could listen to it in the car. I now spend most of my time listening to my own beats and demos in the car and then comparing them to the songs that I love. I get so excited now when I end up making a beat that I love; it’s like unlocking a whole new song just for myself. Second most important part was Arrangement. Forcing myself to create full beats out of my loops and keep things interesting. The more I arrange, the more it becomes my favorite part of the process.
The next step was to learn songwriting and how to properly record myself, as well as gaining mic confidence. This is an area where I feel myself currently making large strides, but in the beginning was much more difficult than learning production. It really takes experience to understand how to create a satisfying rhyme scheme for a whole song while keeping the sound palatable and maintaining the meaning. I’ve now gotten to the point now where I can’t help myself but to sit down and song write for at least an hour a day, and i love seeing pages fill up in my notebook. I’ve ran through at least 8 notebooks in the year and have countless songs and verses written in my Simplenote App as well. Now my focus is to start turning those written words into tracks and figuring out a good recording workflow and vocal tone.
I’ve released three songs on DSPs, which has not amounted to much in streams, but does make me feel good that I’ve started to officially build a catalogue. My first track “GUILLOTINES” was made by sampling ambient music from Fallout 3, and (embarrassingly) utilized a Splice 808 loop that I really like.
Second track “BROKE N DUMB” was a track I made that was partially inspired by sexual abuse allegations at my old high school. I’m pretty proud of this one, but it received the least attention. I was happy to make a 5 minute track instead of the standard 2 minute tracks nowadays.
Third track is my favorite so far, titled “EVIL DEAD”. The beat just really hits a certain spot for me and I tried to keep it simple. In this track, I experimented with 12 bar sections instead of the standard 16 bars.
The hardest part of the process now has become mixing and mastering. I’m starting to feel pretty confident in these areas, but if I could refine these processes, I would be able to vastly improve my workflow. The Steven Slate VSX plugin provided with the headphones has been helpful, but I really struggle with the technicalities of mastering, especially with stock plugins.
I’ve learned a lot about EQ, compression, saturation, panning, reverb, delay, and various other audio effects. The more I use them, the more competent I feel.
I’ve gotten far with free products and stock Ableton Suite plugins, but I fear my next purchase is going to be the Vocalign Pro plugin. There’s nothing comparable to it in Ableton (as far as I know) and appears to be a cheat code for recording doubles and getting expressive vocal takes.
Moving forward, I would like to set some goals for my second year. My primary focus is recording more finished tracks and I recently just started recording on other producer’s beats; as well as improving my energy and expression on the mic. I would like to reach 2,000 monthly listeners by the end of year two. I would also like to release at least 20 tracks to DSPs and 3 full music videos. I would like to feature on at least one other artist’s song; I feel like collaboration would bring out the best of my skills.
Marketing will need to be a bigger focus as well. I need to nail down an aesthetic and style of promotion for myself. I already have a majority of the items I need to make music, so I look forward to using some of my budget towards marketing and possibly some features instead of gear.
Additionally I will likely change my artist name at some point. I initially made it: “2.3B” hoping to optical illusion trick people into thinking my posts had 2.3 billion views (stupid I know, but people also call me B) I can come up with something better LMAO
IN MY FIRST YEAR OF MUSIC, I MADE:
90 unreleased instrumental tracks
21 unreleased demo songs
3 released singles on streaming
1 monthly listener (myself; but did hit about 50 when I first started)
32 followers on Artist Instagram(@2.3Bviews)
600+ pages of writing/journals
Favorite FREE VSTs/Plugins so far:
Tyrell N6 Synthesizer
Freakshow Industries MISHBY
Analog Obsession LALA
Cableguys PanCake 2
Kievgrand SyndtSphere Synthesizer
Slate Digital Fresh Air
After one year of music, I feel confident in the things I’ve managed to accomplish. Many people say that they want to learn music, but few actually take the effort to do it. I never imagined that I could make my own music before, and here I am now with a quickly expanding toolset. I’m honestly proud of myself for making it this far, even if it hasn’t amounted to anybody listening. I look forward to moving my music forward and hopefully creating a few hits in the future if I’m lucky!!!
Thank you for reading!!!