Music Production Workflow and ProductivityHow fast do you produce your music? 😃

Flow is incredibly important for you as a music composer, producer and artist. When you are creating music in your studio, you want optimal productivity based on both inspiration & creativity and a super efficient workflow, but how can you achieve this amazing flow?

Hello, Mike here again from Masters of Music, and today I will share my best tips on music creation workflow. Let’s go! 😃

My Story

I used to never really think about my workflow when I produced music. I simply sat down at my computer, opened up my DAW, and started messing around and trying stuff until something good came out, hopefully! 😂

From all my “failed” music production sessions I finally realised that a great workflow is essential. So I developed a strategy that would level up my music production workflow, and I never looked back after that. It feels so much more motivating to be able to work super fast and efficient.

Now let me give you share these tips and tricks on how to boost your productivity and workflow as a music composer and producer! 😃

Music Workflow Tricks

🎹 Schedule your Studio Time

There is something strange that happens as soon as you actually dedicate a time slot in your schedule and calendar for a specific task. I started adding “studio time” in my Google calendar, to make it crystal clear to myself that the time should be dedicated for music studio work.

It may seem strange, but it truly feels more professional to schedule your productive time, and it also makes your mind much more focused on what you are supposed to do = make music. 

😎 Remove all Distractions

I’m sure you will agree that distractions have become a huge issue in our modern world of social media, online entertainment, notifications and other things that pulls our attention away from what we are supposed to do.

I solved this by effectively removing all distractions during my “Studio Time”. This means that I close all web browsers and apps except my DAW. Then I put my phone in “do not disturb”, close the door to my little home studio room, and basically go into to “zone”…that’s where you want to be: your creative zone, without distractions.

💻 Create Project Templates

I can not stress this enough, as it can boost your music production flow by a huge degree. You can either use 1 master. DAW template that you start all your music productions in (this is what I do). Or you may prefer to set up different project templates for different genres and styles of music.

What you include, and how you set up your project template is up to you, but here are some things I like to always add: DAW project settings and layout, instrument folders, mixing groups, insert effects, send effects etc. Some people like to also include instrument plugins, so that you have all your common instruments already preloaded.

The main key here is that you want to have a project template that you can start producing music in straight away, as soon as you open it up, without messing with technical stuff. So make sure to create an amazing project template in your DAW.

🚀 Creativity Boosters

Flow is not only about the technical productivity, but for us music artists, it’s extremely important to get into that incredibly creativity zone: inspiration heaven! 😃

You want to find techniques that work for you, ways to add a rocket booster to your creative inspiration and flow. Here are some tricks I use that you maybe want to try too:

1 – Artwork & Images
I love using an image or artwork to get into the atmosphere and mood of the specific track I want to create. For example, if I’m going to compose an evil boss music track, I may start by watching artwork showing a big powerful demon.

2 – Instrument Doodling
If you play any music instrument, it can be hugely effective to come up with musical ideas and kickstart your creative mind by simply playing your instrument without any set direction, and see what comes up. Playing on one single instrument will help you avoid the overwhelm of looking at a blank DAW project, or a 1000 choices of VST instruments.

3 – Listen to Music
I also love to start up Spotify and listen to any piece of music in all my various playlists. If I know I want to compose a dark ambient track, I can simply choose a random track in my dark ambient music playlist.

If I want to compose a dreamy fantasy track, I can launch my magical fantasy music playlist. Simply by playing 1 single track in the specific style, and then stopping and going into your empty DAW project, can help kickstart your creative muscles.

Bonus Tip – Stay Focused
As soon as you find yourself in the “creative zone”, make sure you stay there. Find strategies that work for you that helps you avoid all distractions and keep your focus, so that you can produce music with an efficient and productive workflow. You immediately know when you are in this amazing creative flow zone, because time flies and it feels so good to make music. Good luck! 😃

✅ More Resources for You

👍 Thank you for Reading

More tips & tricks to level up your music success are on the way. 😊

Sincerely
Mikael “Mike” Baggström
Composer, Musician, Artist