8 SECRETS TO

FINISHING MUSIC
 ABOUT HYPERBITS

I’m obsessed. Seriously. I’m completely and hopelessly obsessed with making music on a computer
and teaching what I’ve learned along the way.

A few years ago, before I ever remixed artists like Beyonce, Tove Lo, Nick Jonas or Laidback Luke, I
was a miserable, disgruntled, cubicle-slaving 9-to-5er.

Today, I’ve worked as a producer, remixer or engineer for some of the biggest labels in the world, like
Universal, Sony, Island Records, Virgin-EMI and Ultra. I’ve had almost 30 million streams across
Spotify, Soundcloud and Youtube, and over 100,000+ fans across social media. With all this
real-world experience, I couldn’t believe how much misguided music production and industry
knowledge was scattered throughout the internet.

That’s where the Hyperbits Masterclass comes in. I started it for one simple reason: to discount those
myths and share the truth. And in that process, a few other things happened: I was able to connect
with hungry, up and coming music producers dedicated to honing their craft. And I fucking loved it.

I want to show you how to conquer advanced music production by learning to mix and master like the
pros, rapidly increase your output, improve your workflow & creativity — and have fun doing it — with
fellow producers in a cutting-edge online school. It really doesn’t matter if I’m remixing Beyonce, or
working with you — the fundamentals are the same.
So look – my parents are teachers, my sister is a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher – it’s literally
in my blood. Teaching music production is what I was meant to do, and hopefully, you’ll see that in my
energy and teaching style when you watch one of my free production workshops.

Enjoy those free resources, and please, hit me up if you have any questions about music, business or
life. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.

All the best on your music journey!

Cheers,
Hyperbits

P.S. Outside of music, I’m a health enthusiast, fitness lover, 8-handicap golfer, avid plant-eater, and an
inspired world traveler. I try to let my genuine love for life inform everything I do — in music, business,
friendship & community.

“You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.”
– John Rogers
 THE LIFELINE OF PROJECT
*Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

The entire point of the ‘Lifeline of a Project’ is to showcase exactly how emotionally rocky the journey
of making a single song can be. And because it’s so emotionally complex and draining, there is really
only one solution. You need to finish music faster — you need to get from that first initial spark, that
initial point of inspiration – to the finishing line in less time. That’s what this is all about. Speed. This
entire PDF is going to help you take advantage of what the best producers have already figured
out.

You need to move fast.

In the same light that entrepreneurs and startup culture follows a ‘fail fast’ attitude, music producers
that are at the top of their game can make a track in only a few hours. They too, ‘fail fast’. And we’re
not talking about just any track — we’re talking commercially viable hits. Songs that sound incredible
and have billions of plays.

At the end of the day, the best artists in the world know they have no choice — they have to keep
making music. And because of that, they have tried and true systems and techniques that solve for
individual, specific problems. This PDF attempts to share the best solutions to any problems that slow
down a producer’s final output, which is their completed, finished work).
 SECRET #1
CREATE & MAINTAIN AN INSPIRATION BIN

In order to be excited to create music, you need to be collecting and nurturing your love for music.
There are lots of ways to do this, but what worked for me is consistently listening to radio shows and
podcasts, and keeping an up to date inspiration bin.

There is an insane amount of music out there. No producer needs a playlist with 100+ songs on it to
help inspire them, in fact, it’s the opposite. You want to pull out at least 3 songs, but no more than 5
songs, and this small selection of music will act as the perfect guide to inspire each track you make
moving forward.

That way, you’ve pulled out your absolute favorite music, the stuff that inspires you the most, and you
can borrow from it or get inspired from pieces of each of the songs in your inspiration bin. Creating
an organized, current inspiration bin should be something you keep up with as religiously as the
actual music production itself.

SUMMARY

Create an inspiration bin with 3-5 current tracks that inspire you. Reference these every time you
are struggling to come up with a new idea.
 SECRET #2
BE RUTHLESS WITH DEADLINES

Real quick, I want to share a story about the power of deadlines.

I remember I had my first opportunity to do an official remix for a major label back in 2013. I was
beyond amped. I couldn't wait to get started. This was my chance to take advantage of a HUGE
opportunity which I'd been working for years towards, just to have this chance.

The only catch was that I had less than 24 hours to submit the remix. Yikes. So after a minor panic
attack, I sat down and got to work. And it wasn't easy. I stayed up half the night. I questioned
everything. Things were looking bleak for a while (see the dark night of the soul in the ‘lifeline of the
project’ earlier).

But eventually, I finished the song, and it got approved. And looking back, my biggest takeaway was
this: I finished an entire track in a day because I had no choice.

That’s why deadlines are incredible. I don’t care how you implement deadlines into your schedule
and workflow, but they have to exist.

Make your friends hold you accountable to deadlines. Build a team that holds you accountable. Sign
up for one of those accountability apps. Make a bet with someone where you have to pay them $100
if you don’t finish something on a consistent schedule. In fact, that’s the best form of accountability
because it combines social and financial pressure.
Being ruthless about setting deadlines will force you to make decisions. It will force you to commit to
progressing a song, and hopefully, get away from that terrible p-word. I call it the p-curse. Yep, you
guessed it - perfectionism. Deadlines will help you put the idea of finishing a song in front of the idea
of creating a perfect song, and that’s a really, really big distinction.

Deadlines will also help you get into the habit of deleting everything that isn’t 100% necessary to the
track. Don’t save 1000 versions of every idea. If you really liked it, you’ll find a way to recreate it later.
I started out saving all these different versions of tracks, but I never went back to all those different
versions! So once I stopped doing that all together, I didn’t miss them.

And finally, don’t forget about printing to audio. Printing to audio is the non-DAW specific way of
saying “exporting” or “bouncing to audio”. This will save CPU, and it will help you to move forward
with ideas and commit to whatever is in front of you. Plus, editing in audio has a ton of more freedom
and malleability.

SUMMARY

Be ruthless about deadlines by placing the idea of finishing before anything else. Yes, this means
quantity over quality.

Commit to your decisions by printing to audio and delete, delete, delete if anything is not necessary!

“Time will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally.Bad habits make time your enemy.”
– James Clear
 SECRET #3
MAKE SOUND SELECTION A PRIORITY

THE TIME DEVOTION PROBLEM

The main issue with pursuing sound design from the ground up is the time devotion problem. And
on top of that, there are TWO time-related issues here — first is the time it would take to learn how to
get good at designing sounds, and then even once you’ve gotten really good, there is the time that it
takes to design each sound that you’re using or making entirely from scratch. Which, if you’re trying
to focus on making and finishing music fast, this will slow you down exponentially. So much so, in fact,
that you might not be able to finish music at all. And that’s a real problem.

THE QUALITY OF SOUND PROBLEM

Even if you got really good at sound design, and then also got really good at quickly creating sounds
from scratch, there is the issue that the quality of your sounds won’t be as good as the people and
companies who are doing this for a living. You know, the guys that do this professionally.

There are professionals and companies out there that are really good at this one particular skill set. so
it’s really hard, even if you got became proficient at this, to even remotely compete with the
companies that are doing this on the highest level.

So the fact of the matter is, you won’t be able to get an amazing sounding patch created from scratch
as good as the professionals, unless you spend the majority of your time, designing sounds and
doing nothing else, which would leave things like composition, mixing, mastering, and of course,
finishing music by the wayside.
ABUNDANCE OF PRESETS
Now the positive thing that comes out of all of this, is that there is a huge abundance of presets, with
super high-quality sounds that you can be using. You don’t need to make them from scratch, in fact,
you shouldn’t make them from scratch — you can just go get them and you should really take pride
in that process. You should take pride in finding the best quality sounds, samples and sound banks
out there, because that will be your lifeblood — and that will be the best way to consistently make
high quality sounding music. Start with amazing sounds, and you make the overall process a lot easier
for yourself.

SUMMARY

Spending your time doing nothing but getting good at sound design takes away from the main
goal, which is finishing music.

Even if you were able to become very talented at designing sounds, you most likely will fall short
of the quality that professionals & companies are able to achieve.

There is an insane abundance of presets with super-high quality sounds that are affordable and
easy to get access to that are better than anything you’ll make completely from scratch.

"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
– Maya Angelou
 SECRET #4
MINIMIZE DISTRACTIONS AT ALL COSTS

This may seem somewhat basic, but I’m always surprised at how few people actually do this. Anyone
who is successful in this industry has to learn to minimize distractions. They have to learn to focus.

For me, this means turning off my wifi when I’m composing or mixing. And it also means making my
phone out of arm's reach. If I have to move away from the computer just to check my messages or
emails or socials — I will become hyper-aware of how often I’m sabotaging my workflow because I’ll
keep walking away from the actual work. This is a perfect example of training yourself to apply and
keep productive habits in your day to day.

And just to add to this, collaboration is a nice little bonus inside of the minimizing distraction idea
here. What ends up happening, assuming the other person your work is also generally focused, is that
you will not allow your monkey-brain to run wild with distractions. Think about it, if someone is sitting
next to you, the societal pressure of that person being there alone will stop you from tweaking a snare
for 46 minutes and 22 seconds.

SUMMARY

Turn off your wifi when working, put your phone in another room and make sure to not isolate
yourself as this stagnate your growth.

Also, make sure to collaborate. Nothing will stagnate your growth more than isolation.
 SECRET #5
GET ORGANIZED LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

This isn’t meant to satisfy your inner OCD or anything, this is so that you can minimize the mental effort
necessary to accomplish each and every tiny little production decision you’ll be making throughout a
track.

It can become mentally exhausting to make thousands of little decisions every time you make a song.
Which is why, if you’re organized, you’ll be able to save that mental capacity to tackle more important
problems.

CREATE & MAINTAIN A FAVORITES FOLDER

The absolute best thing you can possibly do for yourself is create a favorites folder for your samples.
The only thing you put in here (and I repeat, the ONLY thing) is your absolute favorite, best sounding
samples.

A great way to start this is to go through some of your recent songs, and just pull out anything you
plan on reusing again. My general rule of thumb, if I have done something more than 2-3 times, it
belongs in my favorites folder.

This means that when you want to get a song going quickly, you won’t break the flow state that you’re
in just to go sample hunting.
SAVE PRESETS & CHANNEL STRIPS FOR LATER USE
Saving presets, similarly to the favorites folder, is an absolute must-have when it comes to your
workflow. This will help define your sound because you’ll start to reuse specific patches and stop
resorting to something completely new and different every time you make a track.

How you go about organizing this is up to you, just make sure it’s sustainable and something you can
keep up with. For me, I found it was easiest to save presets inside of my DAW instead of inside of each
individual synth — I kept my soundbanks organized in each synth, but I actually pulled out my favorite
patches in the DAW so they were more easily accessible. But again, this is dependent on what you like
most.

On top of that, you can also create channel strips of entire processing chains you find yourself using
often. You can even set certain plugins to default to a certain setting every time you open them, so if
you almost always do something with a given plugin or synth, just set that setting as a default and
you’ll save yourself loads of time every single instance you open a specific synth or plugin because it
will be in your ideal starting position.

UTILIZE TEMPLATES
I don’t believe templates are a saving grace or anything, but again, when it comes to getting started,
the few minutes you save at the start of each track by using a template can be ridiculously valuable for
the process of capitalizing on inspiration.

I like to keep templates simple. My composition template has a synth, a piano, and an empty audio
track ready to go, with my sidechain trigger already set up, and a few reverbs and effects already
bussed out. That’s it. Anything beyond that I have found to be overkill.

SUMMARY

Create & maintain a favorites folder of your absolute best sounds. Make sure to save presets and
channel strips for future use. Utilize templates, but don’t overdo it.

Make sure to save presets and channel strips for future use.

Utilize templates to help quick-start your productions, but don’t rely too much on templates — this
can actually hinder creativity.

“If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a
hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original..."
– Gary Panter
 SECRET #6
BORROW OR STEAL ARRANGEMENTS

I know the word ‘steal’ is a super loaded word, but if it helps, think of it as borrowing, or stealing that
no one will ever know about.

Because when it comes to arrangements and song structure, there is no better way to stop that 8-bar
looping phase (which some people call Loopitis, you know — when you create an idea and play it on
repeat and never progress the song) than to simply drop a track from that inspiration bin (secret #1)
directly into your DAW.

And once you’ve done that, you can map your song directly to the reference track. This allows the
reference track to become a guide for what is going to happen in your song.

And naturally, that will create a lot of gaps in your production, and that’s a good thing because it will
force you to fill those gaps until the song is complete. You’ll have transitionary gaps, entire sections
like breaks or pre-choruses or intros and outros...and again because you now have a guide or a map
to what your song will become, you will be working towards solving that specific problem or need
instead of aimlessly looping your music. And please, please, PLEASE — don’t worry about plagiarism
or stealing when using reference tracks as structure guides — no one will ever pick up on this. There’s
just so many other things to worry about in music production, and this shouldn’t be one of them.

SUMMARY

Drop reference track into the DAW, map your song to the reference, and fill in the gaps!
 SECRET #7
LEARN SHORTCUTS FOR SPEED

When it comes to speed, you simply can’t get around the fact that nothing will dramatically quicken
your workflow more than shortcuts.

I’m not even talking advanced Jedi professor stuff, I’m talking about simple, easy to learn shortcuts
that will dramatically improve your workflow.

Each DAW has specific shortcuts (I’ve included the manuals of each of the most popular DAWs for
your reference below) so I’m not going to get into the technicalities here, but simple things like a
shortcut for saving your project file, shortcuts for duplicating audio files, or copying automation, or
switching between your DAWs mixer vs. arrangement window, or even correcting midi, duplicating
midi, or moving midi around — this will go very, very far in improving your day to day workflow.

SPEND A DAY OF YOUR LIFE LEARNING YOUR PIANO ROLL

That said, you are going to be spending a TON of time inside of your DAW working in midi. There’s
just no avoiding it. That’s the reality of the situation. And because of that, it’s probably worth spending
one full day of your life learning everything there is to know about midi editing in your DAW. That one
day will pay off for years to come.
SPEND A DAY OF YOUR LIFE LEARNING AUDIO EDITING
And on that same note, do the same for audio editing. You’ll be manipulating, warping, chopping,
cutting, and stretching audio relentlessly when making music, so you might as well know how to do
all that like the back of your hand. Spend another full day doing nothing but learning shortcuts and
audio editing techniques. Luckily, it’s relatively simple to execute this stuff, but a lot of producers
never learn it because they didn’t take the time out of their first few months or even years to get to
know the basics.

SUMMARY

Learn your DAWs most important shortcuts. Spend one day of your life learning the piano roll
shortcuts. Spend one day of your life learning audio editing shortcuts.

For easy reference, we’ve included links to the manuals for each of the most popular DAWs
Ableton Shortcuts Manual | Search Shortcuts
Logic X Manual | Search Key Commands
FL Studio Manual | Search Shortcuts

"Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or
hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."
– Andy Warhol
 SECRET #8
GET GOOD AT ENTERING A FLOW STATE

A flow state is also referred to as ‘being in the zone’ or ‘a creative flow’ but the best definition that I
could come up with is this: A mental state of relaxed, high performance, a mental state of energized
focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process. Quite honestly, it’s really the most rewarding
part of creating music, hands down.

What’s most interesting about a flow state is that we only a enter a flow state when two conditions are
met:
1. When the work we’re doing is challenging enough to keep our minds occupied and busy.
2. When the work we’re doing is easy enough to avoid frustration and boredom.

And that’s a really important point because that means that in order to consistently achieve or enter a
“flow state”, you need to arm yourself with the proper tools and education to not get bogged down
by all the difficulties music producers face.

You literally need to have enough technical knowledge to be able to challenge yourself in your next
composition, sound design session, mixdown or master (or whatever facets you plan on tackling
next).

This means that the formula for entering a flow state is:
Learn Something + Apply & Practice + Rest

And then rinse and repeat.

It’s important to always be learning and always be fueling your mind with new information. But
whatever you do, don’t become that person that literally never does anything other than learn. Take
in some new information, apply it, practice it, but most importantly — use it. Then, and only then,
should you rest and repeat :-)

SUMMARY

To enter a flow state, the formula is simple. Learn something, apply and practice it, make sure to rest,
and then repeat the process. Make no mistake, flow states are THE goal we’re seeking. And it also
happens to be the most fun and rewarding part of the musical process.

"What separates the superstars from the average? They seek criticism, and actually listen to it..."
– Alex Alvarez
HYPERBITS HYPERBITS HYPERBITS HYPERBITS HYPERBITS

www .hyperbitsmusic.com