Does anyone make good money doing this? Any tips?
I’ve been making electronic music for about 7-8 years now, and it’s totally my passion in every way- I love gear, sound design, composing, DJing, producing, recording- all of it. But I’ve still yet to make a single dollar from anything other than playing live shows and it’s really weighing down on me. I don’t hate my job, but everyday I’m here it feels frustrating that my music knowledge and skills aren’t being put to use at all, and I’m having a hard time working hard and doing my best, which sucks.
I always think about going down the “selling beats” path but my friends always tell me how hard it is, and that being a “commission artist” like that is very unsatisfying because you’re forced to make stuff you may or may not enjoy making.
As a musician, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not able to just pump out tracks on a release schedule type thing. That kind of pressure doesn’t work for me and ends up with bland cliched sounding tracks. The best part for me is experimenting and making new sounds.
So now I’m thinking, if I really start to work hard on making sample packs, I think it would be fun for me because that’s anyways what I do with making my own music- make banks of awesome sounds and loops. I think I’m a pretty proficient sound designer and have a good ear. So what’s the next step? I’m going to go home and put together a few “packs” and pitch them to some websites. What are the best websites to do this? Is there anyone looking for sound designers to where I can apply and send some demos? Is this an unrealistic endeavour? I suck at marketing and hyping myself up so that’s the scariest part for me.
Sorry to rant- feeling frustrated with life right now