Indie standards today.

Recently, my friend Nicola posted an article to her Facebook timeline. I think it was posted at Digital Music News, but I can't find it. So I have to write from scratch.

The article was tiled something like "10 reasons why nobody is listening to your music." One of the reasons was "You produce your own music."

I understand this. Most big-name artists have producers; few of them produce their own music.

However, I don't feel that I really have the choice but to produce my own music. I can't afford to hire somebody and I don't have a lifestyle that would make room for a record deal. I have a family to feed and a moderately paying job that keeps us just above water, financially. There's very little room to pay a producer to do production work. Not to mention time: between my job and family, there's no time to sit in a studio and use up money while I try to work with a producer.

The weird thing about it is, however, that there's no excuse but to sound professional today. Easy access to music production software means even high-school kids can make some pretty impressive recordings. Self-production, with a good ear and some technical knowhow, can produce some impressive-sounding music. There's no longer an excuse to sound sub-par.

This puts a lot of pressure on me, I think. If I hope these demos will function, I can't allow unnatural reverbs or weird compression levels. I don't think it's an option to sound unprofessional. Even self-produced demos can sound pretty awesome these days, considering what's available to everybody.

So it's a lot of pressure.

In the meantime, here's Nicola:

Nicola Linde