#92: Unleash Your Musical Potential: Get Ready to Level Up with the FREE Producer Growth Scorecard!

In this episode, I'm going to take you on a journey as I recap my recent adventures at the Podcast Show 2023 and my fun-filled mini-break in beautiful Brighton. Trust me, you don't want to miss out on the incredible experiences I had!

But that's not all—I've got some fantastic news to share with you. We're going to dive into the world of Facebook Community groups and talk about the new admin features that have been rolled out. If you're a podcaster like me, I'll also be discussing the unwavering support of our incredible podcast subscribers. Seriously, you guys are amazing!

And guess what? It's giveaway time! I'm thrilled to announce the inaugural podcast prize giveaway, where you'll have a chance to win some awesome goodies. Make sure you stick around till the end to find out how to participate and get a shot at these exclusive prizes.

But wait, there's more! In this episode, we'll be exploring the revolutionary Producer Growth Scorecard. It's a game-changing 28-day scorecard meticulously designed to gamify your music production and songwriting journey. With this tool, you'll be able to track your progress and watch yourself transform into the artist you've always dreamed of becoming. It's an absolute must-have for any aspiring musician or songwriter out there!

So, buckle up and get ready for an action-packed episode filled with travel adventures, exciting announcements, and incredible tools for your creative journey. 

CLICK HERE to download the FREE Producer Growth Scorecard: https://www.synthmusicmastering.com/free

Chapters

• 0:00 The Podcast Show 2023 and more
• 14:03 Unleash Your Musical Potential: Get Ready to Level Up with the FREE Producer Growth Scorecard

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:35

You are listening to the Inside The Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you wanna know more about your favorite synth music artist, music, engineering, and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years, and I wanna share what I've learned with you. Hello folks, and welcome back to The Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener, welcome and don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you are a returning listener. Welcome back. So this is episode 91. It's dropping on a Friday and it is a bonus episode. I like to do this every now and again, and this episode is dedicated to the producer Growth Scorecard, so gamifying your songwriting in production. And it's also an opportunity for me just to give an update on what's really happening with the podcast before we dig into the producer growth scorecard to me. I've recently had some, uh, I had a week off actually, so I went to Brighton for a few days with, uh, my girlfriend and, um, we rummaged around in Brighton for two or three days. It was s Swelter Hot as well, and it's very busy there. It's the first time I've ever been to Brighton and um, I did like it. I've gotta say I did enjoy it. The town center, maybe less so, but that's obviously you've got all your chain, various shops and whatnot. But there's a place called The Lanes, which I went in, which was really cool. And we actually went to a pub called the Drew It's Head, which is the most haunted pub in Brighton. It's a Green King pub, so it's part of a chain. But that was pretty cool. I also managed to pick up some pretty cool, um, I say cool a lot on this, some really good, uh, artwork for the studio as well. So I've got an aliens. Or alien rather, posters. If you're watching this on YouTube, uh, you can see it. I'm gonna hold it up to the camera here. I've got an alien one. I've got, uh, a lost Boys one, which I'm holding up to the camera again, and I've also got a, hopefully, hopefully you can see this on, uh, On YouTube and I've got a Texas Chainsaw Massacre one as well. Uh, one of my favorite films, I've gotta say I'm a bit of a, a horror nuts. So that was good. Before that, in this week off, I actually went to the podcast show 2023. So I traveled all the way across the south of England to that. So I got a nice and early five 30, drove across, got, uh, hounds, low East Station. If you are ever traveling to London from the Southwest or maybe. Well anyway. Really, and you don't wanna drive into Central London cuz it's a pain and you've got the emissions charge. Hounds low East is six pounds all day for parking, uh, which was amazing. I found ITpedia, uh, which I hadn't used in ages, but yeah, six pounds and then you just get the tube in. It's about 45 minutes on the tube. So, yeah, I went a podcast show 2023. Was it worth my travel? Ah, I'm, I'm gonna be honest folks, I'm gonna say no I don't think it was. I got there and, um, It's one of those ones I've been in previous job roles in previous lives and stuff, uh, to the sort of sales event. I went to one from Microsoft at the Excel Center a few years back, and uh, it just felt like a sales floor to me. There was a lot of people there trying to sell you various podcast editing equipment. So I signed up actually with Sure to see if I could win a legendary. A legendary a, um, What'd you call it? It was, uh, a limited edition. That's what I'm looking for. Uh, limited edition SM seven B microphone. So I signed up for that and ultimately I'm probably not gonna win, but I did it anyway. And yeah, it just felt like a bit of a sales story. You kind of wander around. Um, a few people tried to sell me various editing suites. There were sort of podcast agencies and marketers there. Yeah, once again, I dunno if it was worth my travel. I gotta meet up with a fellow podcast there called Mark who, uh, fronts the noises were made podcast. So that was pretty cool. So shout out to Mark Dugo. Check out that podcast noises were made. And yeah, there were, there were some other bits and pieces there as well. So they had like seminars. You could go in and learn tricks and tips on how to sort of promote your podcast and how to, if you wanna monetize your podcast, how to sort of nurture relationships with your audience and stuff, which was interesting and really, really useful actually. But the, once again, the downside folks was that you, you, you queue up and then. The queues were, I mean, in, for the British audience here listening, we, we do love a queue in, in the uk, and you would queue up and then they would start letting people in and they'd be like, that's it. Now we can't let anyone else in. You'd be like, well, where, where did the queue start? Where did it end? So I missed out on a couple really interesting talks purely on the basis start the, uh, the queuing system wasn't quite right, but that's a very British way of thinking. But I got to see some others, which were really, really useful. So, Podcast show 2023 summary. Um, would I go again? Probably not. If I were in London then yes, but would I travel all that way? I, I don't think I would. I don't think I would. Um, unless I had a free ticket. Maybe if I had a free ticket, maybe, maybe I would. Or there if there was someone there in particular that I really wanted to go and see, but, um, it was worth the travel for this fact finding mission to see whether or not it was worth doing. Cuz it's one of those things, you know, you think. Do I want to, do I not? And I was 50 50 and I'm glad I did PU cuz I know now. Otherwise I, it's one of those ones where afterwards you're thinking, ah, I wish I'd gone just to see, you know? So, That, that, that was, that folks, I took a world, some sort of well-deserved time off from doing anything music related. Obviously I was still po posting for the podcast and, and promoting that, but it was all sort of scheduled posts. Um, so another thing as well that we've got going on, so the Facebook community group, albeit I, I won't lie folks, there's been less input from me there because I've been dedicating my time elsewhere in terms of growing the podcast in various other bits and pieces. But I've thankfully, uh, Blockhouse Nick has taken on the admin for the Facebook group. So a big shout out to Blockhouse. Did go check out his music as well. He did actually feature on the, the Producer's Pub. I think it was episode 89. Um, so a big shout out to him. Uh, uh, and inside the Mix podcast mug is gonna be winging its way to Nick. Um, But yeah, big thanks there. So hopefully we're gonna see some more engagements, more stuff going on in the podcast community group on Facebook. So if you're not already a part or already, um, if you're not already in that group, do go check it out. Just search inside the Mix podcast community on Facebook and you'll find it. Um, now in conversations with various people, I've been asked, is there a discord? I did set it up, but I haven't done anything with it purely because. I would then have another group, and then it's more admin. So it's kind of like, I mean, which one do you do? Which one do you not do, sort of thing. It's kinda like with YouTube as well. So I'm also looking at where the podcast is situated and platforms now I use a, a platform called Buzz Sprout to, um, get the podcast out there, so it's available on all podcast platforms and it's also on YouTube as well. But I'm still talking with the idea of whether or not I'm gonna continue with YouTube, whether or not it's worth doing. It'd be interesting to know your thoughts. So if you're watching this on YouTube and you think it should continue on YouTube, please do, like, leave a comment. Um, for or against whether or not you think it should continue, I don't know. But once again, it's one of those ones where you gotta look at your time folks and where you dedicate your time and is the time spent creating the, the, the video and then uploading it to YouTube. Is it worth that time doing it? What am I getting in return? Sorry, I'm sort of evaluating that at the moment. I'm trying, it's the 80 20 principle folks. I'm trying to figure out what's working, what's helping me sort of push the podcast and the music and the various other bits and pieces that I do. Uh, what am I doing that's not really moving the proverbial needle. And, um, there's a few, I've, I've shaved a few things off in terms of what I'm doing, and it's, it's gradually I'm seeing, seeing the benefit from that. So if you don't do that yourself, a really good thing to do is if, whether it's music production, mixing or promoting your own services or, or like eating healthily or anything like that. It's to track what you are doing for like 28 days, and then you'll start to see patterns, and then you can see what you can get rid of and what moves the needle, what doesn't. Uh, it's a really useful exercise. I've done it a lot, um, not necessarily with the podcast, but with loads of other things. Um, there was a few years ago when I was in the band and, uh, I put on a bit of timber and we were having a photo shoot, or is it, it might have been a music video. And I was like, Ooh, ooh, I'm looking a bit bigger than usual folks. There are some, there's probably some photos on my own personal Facebook page in the, the deep recesses of my personal one, which I never use. Um, so my apologies if you add me as a friend on Facebook, you don't get responses. It's because I never use my personal one. Um, but anyway, where else I going with that? Yeah. Yeah. So, and uh, I noticed I was getting, I was getting a bit poorly, let's say and um, I then just started tracking what I was eating and I quickly just shaved off like four or five kilograms, and this was years ago. But that started my whole tracking of what I'm doing in the idea that I could then look at what's working and what's not working and improve. So I digress slightly with what I'm saying here, but what I'm saying is, Like if you are struggling or you've hit a rut with what you're doing or you feel overwhelmed, just start tracking stuff and then you can, you can soon sort of like mitigate, delegate, or eradicate. There's a specific terminology for it, but, um, that's what I do a lot. So once again, to summarize, a big shout out to Craig and broadcast. We're taking on the Facebook group. Uh, we've got some subscribers as well to the podcast is supporting via subscription model, which is amazing because once again, it helps me. Create and gives me the opportunity to create more content. Um, it, it sort of helps with the, I know not everything's about money, but it does help with regards to the hosting of the podcast on the, on the Busbar platform. So a big shout out to Esia car and Emma. For their subscription there. Um, and also another shout out to Craig PackMan who won the inaugural prize giveaway for the podcast. So a couple weeks ago, it might be three weeks ago. At the point of this going live, I, uh, did a live draw on Instagram and um, It was about 14, 15 people and Craig's name was, uh, well, Craig won basically, let's say, I'm trying to think of a really good way of putting it. So he was sent a t-shirt and you, if you follow on Instagram, you would've seen Craig in this T-shirt. So big shout out to him. His support's amazing. I was so glad he won the first one as well. So, big shout out to Craig. Um, he muchly deserved and when he posted it as well, you could see like there was loads of people commenting on commenting on his post with it. Just saying much deserved and stuff. So he's, he's, um, held in very high regard within this sort of synth and synth music community, which is amazing. So there's gonna be another one. So at the time this goes live, it would have, the draw would have been done. So this is going live on Friday, the 16th, I think of June. If I got my timings, oh my date's right. So the draw for the inside the mix podcast mug is beauty right here. If you're watching on YouTube, it's so shiny. It's such nice, I've not even used it cuz I, I, I don't wanna dirty it folks. Um, but it's a great mark. So that draw has been done. Um, and I shout out to whoever won. I wish I could see the future by can. Um, actually, would I want to, would I wanna be able to see into the future? I'm not sure. I'm not sure I would, could you'd see things and I'd rather just not know, you know. Uh, but that's a whole nother, maybe we'll dedicate an episode to that. Maybe I'll do like a spinoff series of just random thoughts. Cause I always get 'em throughout the day. As I'm sure you do as well. But anyway, I digress. So yeah, that's gonna go. The second draw's gonna have been done on the Wednesday prior to this episode going live. So shout out to whoever won that mug. Um, all you need to do folks to enter these competitions is you'll see me bang on about it on the, on Instagram. It's, you need to tag, comment, or share an Instagram post. So that's tag someone on one of the posts, um, on the Instagram, the Facebook, sorry, on the podcast Instagram page or tag someone in your own post. And then tag the podcast. Maybe with your favorite episode, just share a post. All you need to do is just share it in a story and you get entered. And what was the other one? Comment. So just comment on one of the posts. It has to be on Instagram. It's only on that platform. Cause I'm dedicating my time to that platform. And um, yeah, you can enter the competition to win. What will it be next time? We'll, we'll see. I think it might be, we might do a t-shirt, a mug. Um, maybe a hoodie. We'll see how, um, gregarious I'm feeling at the time, but there'll be a July draw, so that'll be the third one. So do look out for that. This draw that has just gone on the Wednesday prior to this has the most numbers. So at the time of this being recorded, so this is Saturday the 10th. There's about 24, 25 people rent into it, which is amazing. So a big shout out to everyone who has sort of got involved with that competition. So that's, there you go folks. I think this is quite nice to do every now and again, just a bit of an update for you with what's going on with me and the podcast and just music in general. Um, another thing to add as well is I'm, I'm. Going through the process now of writing an ep. I've got four or five. I've got loads of tracks to be honest, but I've got four or five tracks that I'm gonna put on this ep. I've mixed one. It's a mix. It's gonna be, I'm gonna go into revising that mix now. So shout out to everyone who's helped me on that. The podcast episode, episode 91, the Producer's Pub. You can hear a snippet of that. So do go check it out. Um, So shout out to R nine and Neon Highway for the feedback on that, which is amazing. Um, I'm also now mixing at the point of recording this, a collab with R nine as well, which I'm super stoked about. Um, he's laid down his amazing, uh, guitar work on that. He's been dubbed by me unofficially as, as the Dave Gilmore of watch it. Um, so big shout out to R nine for that one as well. And then I've got a couple other other tracks that I'm working on too, so hopefully that'll be out there soon. And this sort of segues nicely into the producer growth scorecard, which is what this episode's about. Apart from the sort of update folks, and, um, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can now see this. So the scorecard basically, It's a way of gamifying your music production, your mixing. And I created this because at the turn of the year, like early 2023, I was in a bit of a rut with regards to my songwriting. I'd do it every now and again. I'd sort of be like, oh, I'll do a couple hours now. And then I wouldn't do anything for ages, and I just, I just wasn't seeing like any music being created by me and also having the conversations I had leading up to December, there was one in particular with the safety word and um, We were talking about how just doing like five or 10 minutes a day can make a difference, and it really does. So this scorecard in particular, I put together and there's, what you have is, it's a Google Sheet doc, so it's nothing special, and you can grab a copy of it just by clicking it on the link in the description for this episode. Or you can go to the podcast website inside the mix podcast.podium.com. If you're watching this in the future, or rather if you're listening to this further down the line, it may way may well have changed to just inside the mix podcast.com. Um, it's gonna change at some point. It's all, it all comes down to finances folks, and, um, I'm, I'm sort of putting the, the investment into the podcast where it's gonna have the, the most impact. So, yeah, it is. This is just gamifying. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see, and I'll describe it to you. There are 4 22, there are 18 different notes, sorry. 17 different categories within the podcast scorecard within the producer growth. Producer Growth Scorecard rather. And it ranges from like releasing a new album to a new ep, songwriting, creating an eight bar loop practice, a new mixing technique, finish your composition, complete a mix. And they all have different points basically. For example, a new album release has 15 points and ask an audio professional for advice at two points based on the fact that it's in theory. More time consuming, more effort. I don't like using the word effort cuz it sounds like you're having to put the effort in. It just takes longer to release an album so you get more points and the idea is over 28 days, you then record the points every day for what you do. And then, There is an example week here as well, which can show you. So on average, I find that between 40 to 50 points a week seems to work quite well. And then there's a progress tracker as well. So every 28 days, it goes in cycles one through 12. And you can write your producer growth scorecard total, and then you can also put in there, because everybody likes to have goals, I've put a goal or targets in there for create at least three eight bar loops per week is the first goal. Second goal, release at least one single per month. Goal three, release one, EP goal four, release one full length album. So you've got milestones you can hit there, and then there's like top single day point, top seven day point. So you're really gamifying it for yourself. And it works really well. I did something similar for the podcast and this is why I then created this producer Growth Scorecard one cause I had a podcast Growth scorecard. Um, shout out to Adam Shibly for this cuz it was amazing and I started using this, this scorecard around this time last year, maybe sort of. April, may, and like the growth of the podcast is the hockey stick curve. It just went nuts. It went, so it was, it was, it was incredible. So I thought surely it was gonna work for music production and mixing, and it really does. So I started doing this at the beginning of the year, every day, Monday to Friday for half an hour, at least Before I do anything else, I just write a song, I write, do something, I'm, I'm songwriting. So I did that from January to. I think around April and I had so many ideas coming out and now it's changed. So every morning I'm now mixing, cause I've got this EP I'm working on. So I'm dedicating at least half hour every morning to mixing. And in doing so, I then have what, what have we got on here? Practice a new mixing technique is five points. So just by doing that, I mean if I'm practicing a new mixing technique, five points every day, what have we got? Seven, fives, 35, 35 points. So you can quite e easily pick up those points. I wanna give a shout out here to Dream Commander Eric Young, by apologies if I pronounce your surname correctly, who's using this scorecard, and he actually commented it in the Facebook group and said that he's adapted it and added some more to it. So it was just music production. So it is not a hard and fast scorecard. You can add and adapt depending on your workflow. And I'm always interested in what you guys do with the scorecard. Cause I know there's about 40 or 50 of you using it at the moment, which is amazing. So please do feedback. What you think is, have I got the points right? I don't know. I sent this out to a few producers to getting their feedback and if you think the points are sort of not in the right place, or they're maybe not in the right places the wrong word, but they're not. The score isn't correct, let me know. Or if you think, actually, mark, that doesn't really fit in with the producer Grace Scorecard, what I've got on here. Um, just change it. And also feedback to me because this is like iteration one of the scorecard and I'm more than happy to go in and change it iteration two and, and whatnot. So when you do sign up for this scorecard, there's a video to watch first as well. So just detailing what in more depth of what you can do with the scorecard and how you should use it. And also folks, you do need to make a copy. You do need to make a copy of it. If for whatever reason you sign up and you can't make a copy, just email me back or, or DM me on Instagram and I'll send you a copy, an Excel spreadsheet. You can do it that way. But it's great. It like just gamifying, just little and often these little bits and pieces. For example, I signed up for a, a course, I can't remember what the course was now, and it was, I think it might have been like next level mastering or something along those lines, cuz I'm always learning and reflecting in my own practices and I don't think you can ever turn around and say you've mastered something. So I'm always doing that and just doing that, like that's an extra five points a day. Just in terms of. Watching, digesting and learning content. And I can guarantee you for using it. It will, it will make a difference. So if you are stuck in a rut with your music production, songwriting, um, mixing, mastering, try out the scorecard for 28 days and see how it goes. And then let me know how it goes. Or if, you know, someone who is struggling really struggles with like, motivation to get going, share this with them. It's, um, it really does work. So folks, as I say, you can download this scorecard from the podcast website inside the mix podcast podium.com, further down the line inside the mix podcast.com. Or you can just click on the link in the episode description and you'll see it in there as well. So give it a go. Sign up. It's totally free. There's no obligation to use it. And um, I'd love to know your thoughts, so check it out. The Producer Growth Scorecard. And that's it for me. And this, this bonus episode, I've really enjoyed doing this actually just, just talking and getting 'em ideas out there. I've got like a list of five things I wanted to cover here, which I've done, and then I just sort of rambled on. Um, as always, let me know your thoughts on, on these episodes. It's new. Actually there was one other thing I didn't I fail to mention. So we actually ran the, um, audience growth. Accelerator mini-series a few weeks back. It was like a five part series and there were pros and cons to doing it. It was a lot more work for me, I won't lie, but I wanted to see if it was worth doing and I think it was, I did enjoy doing it and it's something I'm gonna do again in the future. And I, it's something I'm, I'm thinking of doing like a mastering one later in the year, which I think would be really, really good. Like a mastering five days masterclass or something. And I might even. In fact, I'm just, I'm thinking off the top of my head now, get some other mastering engineers involved and maybe have a guest or a ghost episode where they deliver an episode. Maybe each episode could be where another engineer comes on and then delivers their take on a particular part of mastering. Ah, that's a really good idea. Um, ah, that's a fantastic idea. I'm gonna make a note of that, folks. Anyway, I'm gonna go away and do that. So, Once again, it's uh, it's like a stock take episode for the podcast. This one here, cuz we're episode 92 now and we are right along, along to episode 100, which is amazing. Think it back to two and a half years ago. And I thought a hundred episodes looked like a long, long way away. And, um, it's almost here, which is amazing. So a big shout to everyone who follows, supports the podcast. You're all amazing and I've got much love for you all. And, um, yeah, that's it for me now folks, so, um, I'll catch you at the next episode.