Blame the algorithms, but the easiest way to get views and interactions on social media posts are by sensationalizing the titles. “I wish I knew THIS earlier!”, “Make your songs PRO LEVEL with this easy trick!”, and “Best Saturation Plugins for a Modern Sound!” all are effective clickbait-worthy titles that reel in the viewer (myself included). Over the past year, I’ve personally gotten burnt out with the large amount of content available online that goes over nearly everything imaginable about music production. As a result, I’ve come up with the following “rules” for myself when combing through the wide expanse of the internet, to keep myself more on track and not go down as many rabbit holes.

1.) Listen to the Creator’s Music

Years ago, I got super excited when a known engineer posted a YouTube video explaining how he mixed the drums for an album from a band I like. So, I watched the hour long video taking notes that I could implement into my own recordings. A good way into the video, I noticed that the things he was doing were a little… let’s say different, than what I had seen others to do get a heavier, polished drum sound, so I went on a quick Google search to find out which album(s) he had mixed for this band. As it turns out, this engineer had mixed a live recording of the band, and that recording didn’t sound anything like how I would want my music to sound. 

The takeaway from this is to first listen to music that the content creator has worked on before delving too deep into their videos and blindly taking their advice. If you don’t like the music the content creator is making or has worked on, there’s probably not going to be a whole lot that’s applicable to your music from the video. On the plus side of my watching this drum mixing video, I got to see a different approach to things that I wouldn’t normally do, but I wouldn’t have watched the video if I had done my due research beforehand. This leads into my second guideline for consuming content:

2.) Consider the Basis of the Content

If you’re regularly working on jazz albums, spending hours watching videos on how to craft the perfect metal guitar tone from a 5150 block letter through a Mesa 4x12 cab isn’t going to be of much use. There are certainly things to learn from other genres, but going too far down random rabbit holes can be a waste of time in many aspects, and a quick road to burnout if you’re not careful. I imagine that most people stick to watching and reading content that has to do with the genre of music they work in, but there’s alway that pull of watching something completely different; I’ve certainly spent too much time learning about the history of electronic subgenres and why Django jazz sounds the way it does in terms of music theory. While interesting, these admittedly aren’t the best use of time for my rock endeavors (although I do now have an electronic project out!).

Lastly, and arguably most important since the advent of Tik Tok, is being aware of the presenter’s background:

3.) Be Aware of the Source

Wayyy too often do I see someone relatively new in their production/engineering journey giving blanket advice presented as an absolute, such as “ALWAYS Boost ‘x’kHz to get a Pop Vocal Sound!” showing you why a 9db shelf at 3kHz should always be added to get modern brightness and clarity in your vocals. Now I am all for doing extreme measures to get things to work, but when this is done simply because it was recorded on an inexpensive condenser mic with muddy top end, it’s not something that’s going to translate to every situation. If you tried that out on an AKG 414 for example, your ears would have a tough time forgiving you! More accurately the video could be called “How I Got My Vocals to Sound Pop Ready” which indicates a personal solution that can absolutely be applied to situations of a similar manner. 

There’s a lot of content out there based on inexperience, so it’s important to be aware of the source before taking the presented advice. Nowhere is this more apparent than seeing Tik Toks about how to record studio quality vocals, when the example vocals in the video sound shrill and over-compressed. The danger here is incorrectly swaying other newcomers in the wrong direction, and instilling techniques that will be hard to unlearn down the road; from personal experience, it’s very difficult to politely explain to an engineer that their custom go-to vocal chain based off their AT2020 they have been using for years will not translate well to to a U87 or Manley Reference. Fortunately, “Audio Tok” is pretty good about self-policing content like this, and leading to a more informed populous.

With these three rules in mind, I’ve been able to cut down on time spent ingesting content that realistically won’t move me forward in my career or personal endeavors, and get less burnt out when viewing social media. With that being said though, I do want to point out a large caveat to this article:

I am of the mindset that no knowledge is bad knowledge, and that especially in music, things are always changing. I’ve watched more hours than I care to admit about off-the-wall recording techniques that I may never use, genre-specific tonal EQ moves, and histories of esoteric schematics of analog gear that a plugin was loosely based off of, and the wide majority of these I have probably forgotten, or will never use. However, a sense of curiosity is necessary in maintaining a keen interest in any subject, and getting yourself out of the echo chamber of your own personal comfort zone can be a welcome departure from your normal routine. I am by no means saying that it’s worthless to watch or read content that has nothing to do with the field that you’re working in, but rather keep it to a manageable minimum.

Ben Parker is credited with the quote “With great power comes great responsibility.” When he tells this to his nephew and accidental superhero Peter Parker in the Spider Man series, he wasn’t talking about music production, but in a weird way I think it applies all the same. We now live in a world where we have access to a near-infinite amount of knowledge at our literal fingertips, so it therefore becomes our responsibility to sort through the weeds of the expanse of the internet and figure out for ourselves what’s worth our time.