He wasn't doing anything I couldn't have picked up off YouTube. He'd just been doing it for ten years longer.
A few years ago I got the chance to work with one of my favourite producers — a guy whose tracks I'd been playing in my sets for ten years. I was buzzing for the session, because I thought I was about to learn some next-level secrets. The stuff that takes you to Jedi producer level.
So I get in, we start working, and I'm watching everything he does. Properly paying attention, because I thought this is where it happens — this is where I learn the secret.
And after a few hours it hit me. There were no secrets. He wasn't doing anything crazy. Nothing I couldn't have picked up off YouTube. He was producing pretty much exactly the way I do every day: try a load of stuff, see what works, keep anything that sounds good.
At first I was gutted. I thought I was about to unlock something massive and I hadn't. But then the real lesson landed.
One of the best producers in the genre isn't doing anything I'm not already doing. He's just been doing it for so much longer. The same trial and error — until his experienced ears tell him it's right, and he trusts that, because he's done it a thousand times.
Which means you and me, we've already got the same tools. There's nothing stopping you. There's nothing stopping me. The difference is just scale — how long you're willing to keep going without quitting.
