Collaboration , community and consistency the three C's refining your mixing skills . Join me each week for expert interviews , practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry . Let's dive in . Hello , folks , and welcome to Inside the Mix . Welcome back if you are a returning listener .
So this is another episode where myself and Tim aka9 are answering your questions . Before we dig into this , if you do have a question you would like to throw our way , click on that speak pipe link and you can record up to 30 seconds . Hey , mark and Tim , my question is xyz . You can find me out . Give yourself a shout out .
Maybe you've got a release coming up , something along those lines , and you don't need an account or a specific setup . You can just use your mobile phone . It's like sending me a whatsapp message . Alternatively , reach out to me on instagram at inside the mix podcast and you can send it via text if audio isn't your thing . Tim , welcome back .
How are you today ?
I'm good man and yourself .
Yes , I'm very well . Thank you , I'm very well . My fiance just messaged me saying that she is making pasta de natas , which is a Portuguese sweet delicacy . Now , I may have pronounced it incorrectly there , but either way , I think people will know what they are . But yes , she is moving into that realm .
So I'm gonna get home and there'll be loads ready to go and coconut macaroons as well . Yeah , I'm looking forward to those . What are you drinking there ? Is that x more gold ?
x more gold . Yeah , yeah , the drink of somerset .
Well , when they're not drinking cider , you know yeah , I don't kind of remember how long you've been in somerset now , but do you have a favourite cider yet ?
I like Sheppies , sheppies is quite nice . But yeah , I'm not really a cider drinker . I mean past . I like cider but it doesn't like me . It's just if I drink too much of it I pay for it . But you know Thatcher's and shepys and like oh , there's another one , oh , some sort of nun thing , I can't remember what it is like .
You know some , oh , orchard , oh there's a few , aren't there , there's many , there are some some coffin thing as well thing .
Yeah , there's a whole load . There are just so many down at um uh which you've got to come drinking at Pebbles sometime . Pebbles is such a fantastic place and they just have guest ciders all the time , so I never know .
And I do get a cider in there once in a while and they're great , but more than one cider , yeah , it's not the best idea for me , absolutely yeah , I absolutely love cider and sheppies is delicious uh it is brilliant stuff .
I remember , um , I've been from somerset myself and I remember my dad would often go to the local cider farm and come back with these sort of two , three liter bottles . Yeah , the scrumpy sediment in the bottom . I have to give it a shake and that was like make your eyes , make you squint when you drink it .
It can be evil on your tummy that stuff if you're not used to it though , but it tastes great , doesn't it ?
I do love it .
Yeah , we , that was .
My mum came from the west country and I remember like used to sort of cruise around on holiday or whatever , come down and see my nan or whatever , and um , and I remember like for one point they they just bought this sort of thing of like cider from like some you know sort of um farm or whatever local , and and you know I seem to remember they let me
drink some so I don't know what age I was at that point Obviously just to taste some . I'd never tasted anything like that before , but I seem to remember it made everyone ill .
Also another thing , mentioning that , then , going back to my childhood , I remember we used to have the ice cream van , as we called it . We'd drive around A gentleman by the name of Giovanni RAP . Nice bloke but cider lollies . I remember buying those .
I don't know if you've got those anywhere else cider lollies absolutely delicious . I have the mission here . I won't go into too much of one of my tales here , but I was actually an ice cream man for six weeks I was mr softy well , I'm sure mr soft wasn't .
He didn't he like , wasn't that a sweet ?
I'm sure that was , yeah , mr softy , yeah , yeah , I was yeah , yeah , mr softy , the ice cream man there , Mr Softee the ice cream man . Yeah , that was the name of the ice cream thing the company that . I worked for and it was the most dodgy outfit you've ever seen .
It was like behind someone's little bungalow in this sort of suburban kind of place in Ash , and you went behind there and there was just a whole like fleet of ice cream vans and it was all run by some bloke , antonio somebody , or rather who was I don't know .
All right , it sounds ridiculous this , but there were cars , black cars that used to drive up and various italian folk and people got out of it and talked about things and disappeared again . It was all very hush hush and everyone and you got paid everything in cash . It was the most dodgy setup , is all I'll say .
I have no idea what was going on there , but there were ice cream wars and someone got stabbed with the top of a plastic cone from a van .
Wow , I can imagine . I can see that , though I can imagine it's very territorial very territorial it was . Yeah , yeah , do you ever have a chip van ?
We used to have chip fans come around and it was one of those where you could buy uh tobacco as well , like um , they would do it like a tobacco run across the channel come back and sell them via the chip , but I'm not going to name names for this chip van .
But yeah , did you ever experience a chip van Tobacco ? No , excellent . No , I don't actually remember a chip van no . No , no , I mean , I lived across the road from a chippy , but I never had a chip van no .
Yeah , yeah , the chip van . I remember it turning up and then the kids sort of shouting Mum , dad , the chip van's here , do you want any backy ?
They bought it from the chip van . Oh , dear , those were the days . Eh yeah , that is the West Country . I was Mr Softy , but no more , you know what I cannot wait for inside a joke here .
I cannot wait for Carl to listen to this and then respond to that . Uh , right so let's , let's , dig into this question today . So this is submitted by uh , anonymous , um , and the question is how do you market yourself as an indie producer , independent producer rather so independent producer artist and writer , uh , especially when you create across multiple genres ?
so this is going to be an interesting one , right , okay ?
uh . So this is a challenge many independent producers face . So in this episode we're going to break down some strategies that might help , some stuff we've done along the way , maybe some also some pitfalls to be aware of as well . So it's going to be an interesting one .
Now just a uh disclaimer on this so no means sort of marketing experts is more going to be along the lines of what we've experienced and what has worked well , what maybe hasn't worked well .
So I think , with regards to being a producer , there's multiple genres is an interesting one because immediately in my head I'm thinking focus on one genre before multiple genres before moving out to others .
That's my important , well , my , my thought process to begin with , but I suppose that comes down to artistic identity , yeah , really , and finding that unique selling point . So my head and I say this and I probably contradict it in that I I've released music in multiple genres .
I come from the heavy metal background and I've done R&B and then I've done the synth pop , synth wave . Now I'm moving into sort of house , old school house , progressive house , all these different genres . So I'm probably in a glass house throwing stones , saying focus on one genre .
But in my head I think when you're starting out , that's probably a good thing to do is get known in a particular genre or known for a particular sound and working within that sound before they're moving out into other genres , and I think that also works . I guess yourself coming from a recording studio background as well . Um , what are your thoughts tonight ?
I mean , in particular , when you were in the recording studio as well ? Were you doing multiple genres , or did you eventually find that you were attracting similar artists as time ?
progressed . I mean , when I was in the studio it was a lot , a lot of the time it was literally whoever turned up and whatever they wanted to do would walk through the door .
But I did find that I felt I did , from a producer's point of view , as a producer to hire me , I was going to be better at doing certain genres , genres that I understood that I connected with . So I would say , from a producer standpoint , you want to , you know , try and promote yourself to the things that you're best at doing .
So I found I was good at doing singer-songwriters and working with singer-songwriters .
Um , that was a genre that I , I think , particularly because I play guitar , bass , keys to a degree , drums , you know , sort of I could , I , I I could get someone who sort of say , was a songwriter with guitar and vocals and I was a good person to come to because I could kind of construct the whole track around them very quickly and , um , also , I
understood the genre . I think I , I liked a lot of singer-songwriters and still do um , but like , so I got that and I could do it well .
Um , I also found like the kind of more pop rock , um , you know , sort of uh , yeah , you know I liked rock music and I mean my rock music goes to sort of fairly heavy stuff but like I got that definitely classic sort of rock and blues and that sort of stuff I got .
I didn't really get sort of extreme genres like metal , because I didn't listen to it enough . I like some metal , but I just wasn't enough inside of that . So I think , yeah , market yourself to the stuff you know you can make . Well , I mean , these days obviously I do something quite different with synth and synth pop and synth way but like .
But I wasn't doing that so much then or wasn't concentrating on that so much . Plus , I wasn't getting so many people coming into the studio that were really into doing that . I did get some dance music genres again .
I found those quite difficult when people would come in and they were really into two-step garage or they're really into that sort of thing , because it wasn't really my thing at the time and I found it a bit like oh right , I remember doing some goes really into Hard House and I would work with him .
But eventually I think he moved over to somebody else and it was because he wanted a real particular sound and I was not the man to do that , because I didn't really know the hardhouse sort of genre that well and I still don't , and I'm happy yes , don't blame me , it's just yeah it was not my genre , I couldn't listen to it mercilessly for a whole day , so
yeah , it was a bit .
Yeah , neither could I , and I think it's . It's interesting that I think you do need to sort of play to your strengths and know where your strengths are before branching out into other genres , become known for a particular sound or genre or working with a particular group of artists and whatnot .
I think it's quite difficult to not fall into the trap of FOMO and fear of missing out thinking that , if I don't offer my services as a producer , or if I'm yeah , basically , or whatever service you provide , you think you're missing out , but I think , ultimately you not that you're harming yourself by any stretch well , maybe I suppose you could be in a way ,
because you might be wasting time um , whereas you could be working in or working with artists that you really do gel with and you know that particular sound really well .
So I think , going back to the original question , which was marketing yourself as an independent producer , especially when you create across multiple genres , I would I mean again , not an expert by any means I would probably focus on one , maybe one genre to begin with , or a particular sound , and really dial that in before them , sort of sidestepping to others again
, it depends , I suppose as well , if you're talking about a producer , where you're , you're trying to get people coming to you and you're going to help them get their sound and , uh , get their record sounding great and and that that side of things that might be different than the sort of artist producer which I mean I find myself doing .
That's what I do with r9 is I am the artist producer . I am the artist and produce my own stuff , but people sometimes call that , you know , um , artist and producer become the same thing , don't they ?
And there I would say very much that it can be really difficult if you just chop and change genres and nobody knows what , what you , that particular artist is . So if they don't know what aisle nine is , I think you know it's going to be hard to market that to people and say , look , come and listen to my music .
Oh , it's a bit of this , it's a bit of that , oh , I don't really , you know . I mean , again , it can be like I think you can have different influences within your music , but it's got to . Maybe sit within a genre .
I mean , it's like there's the synth wave that's kind of really heavily sort of rock and metal influenced , and the synthwave that's very dance music influence and hip-hop influence , but it's synthwave , it sits in a genre , it sits within there enough and you identify enough within that with the aesthetic and everything else that you fit in with it .
But like , yeah , I think the other thing is you can always diversify and create separate artists , identities , can't . You can , yeah , release under different artist names . It's so easy to do that . Now , that might dilute your time , though , as you were saying , time that's the key , isn't it ?
yeah , I , I think , um what you said , that's really interesting because it's something that I fall foul of myself , and this goes back to what I said earlier about being in a glass house throwing stones .
In that I've produced , so I'm now that producer , artist and I've released in various different genres and you sort of I've noticed that in doing that I kind of then have to establish myself with that particular group of people every time that I do it .
And I'm on this run now of doing more electronic dance , sort of edm house stuff , and now I'm having to re-establish myself and find that sort of watering hole in air quotes of people , um , although it does cross into , because because my it goes back to what you said there about , um , your influences .
So my influences in are still in there with regards to like synth wave , synth pop , and then there's the darker side of sort of like rock and metal , not as obvious but I think , in terms of like the , the aesthetics and the and , in particular , breakdowns and stuff .
But I find it more difficult I think like it goes back to what you said there if someone were to say , oh , kind of um , what do you , what do you produce , what music you release ? And then I generally probably have said what you said . I was a bit of bit of this and a bit of that and everything in between which doesn't in an elevator pitch .
That's going to leave someone scratching their head and thinking , well , what is what does this guy actually do ? So I find that I'm sort of having to take . I'm taking two steps forward , one step back in terms of then getting my music out there and the name out there again and building that again .
so , yeah , something I'm going through myself at the moment which is quite interesting yeah , I mean , I think it's good idea to um try and build community with whatever you're doing and and that's I don't know if that comes into a more points that you might raise on this question further but , like , I think that that's the biggest thing that I found has really
helped me , and it's actually from way back even , like whether , when I was doing the studio there , there I was more connecting with a local community and a local musicians going to open mic nights , going to gigs and that kind of it was a grassroots type of thing and they were the people who would turn up at the studio and want to record with me because
they'd met me at a gig I'd , I'd seen them performing an open mic , whatever . They knew who I was and , um , there was a connection there . But , like um , nowadays I've I've got kind of a quite strong sort of online community that I've connected with within synthwave and synthpop sort of thing and that helps sort of produce some work from that community .
Really , you know , but yeah , I think it's important to both as an artist and maybe as a producer . You've got to find community with other people and that doesn't mean you're just touting what you do all the time and going on about what you do . In fact , it probably means the opposite .
It actually means that you're more into promoting other people and trying to sort of take part in the community , and then that will have good effect on you , I think . I think if you do a good job with your own music , it comes back because people sort of are interested in what you do and interested in promoting you .
so it's I , I agree , I think community's huge in particular , and I noticed this , uh , with the podcast and building a community around the podcast and uh , and it continues to grow through that community and that , that word of mouth and and finding new listeners and whatnot , which is amazing .
And we were discussing off air and I was saying to Tim how the podcast , in terms of growth , at no point has it plateaued , which is amazing .
I say that now , touch wood for the rest of 2025 , it will plateau , but hopefully it doesn't , but it just continues to grow , which is amazing , just continues to to grow , uh , which is amazing , um , and it kind of leans on to the next part , really , which is about , uh , focusing marketing efforts and I think what you mentioned there is really important about
the community aspect of it and finding that community , and I mentioned just now about watering hole , which is kind of a similar thing and just being an active participant in that community and like echoing what you said there as well is you don't want to go straight in there and be like hey , I'm a producer , I do this , this and this , um , let me produce
your music , um , I think that's the worst thing you could possibly possibly do definitely in a community , but social media is an interesting one . Again , not an expert on social media , but one thing I have found that has helped me with the podcast in particular is I I don't know about you , but I used to be uh omnipresent .
I was on instagram , tiktok , youtube x it was twitter at the time . Uh , facebook as well .
I had facebook community group , and then it got to the point where one day I was just like this cross-platform posting too much , and now it is Instagram and YouTube and then by default it goes out to Facebook because it is automatically cross-posting , and ever since doing that , that has , I think , been one of the contributing factors to the podcast growth , in
that it has freed up my time to invest in the quality of the podcast and just the development of it , because I'm not spreading myself so thin across these different platforms . Others might say this goes again what I said earlier about FOMO fear of missing out . If I'm not on that platform , am I missing out on a potential audience ?
And from my experience with the podcast in particular , I would say no .
So I think , like you can , I suppose you could spend like 30 days or so trialing different platforms , see which one you get the most engagement on and then just lean into that and then run with it , because I know , for example , yourself , because I'm part of the synth family , and we met up recently with some other Southwest synth enthusiasts in Bristol , which
was fantastic , fantastic day . Yeah , indeed , south west synth enthusiasts in bristol , which was uh , which was fantastic , fantastic . Yeah , indeed , and that is uh , and that's your instagram and the most , most engagement . I get quite a bit on youtube as well and it's mixed , uh , but that that's quite an interesting one .
But I mean yourself , right , how has are you still ? Do you still have the same approach to social media marketing that you had when you first started R9 , or has it changed as time's gone on ?
I think I've recognised that the algorithm changes which is a slightly difficult thing with social media marketing that as soon as you think , oh , this is working well , the algorithm is likely to change and you're going to find that it doesn't work quite as well as you thought , and you mustn't give up at that point , I think .
But I found something really good with Instagram , for instance . I mean , it all comes back to community for me , actually , which is a word I tend to buzz around on a few things . I even put hashtag community at times .
Buzz around on a few things , I even put hashtag community at times , because I I find like um , that something like um , doing collaborative posts is really good .
um , I'll do collaborative posts with myself sometimes if I haven't got anyone else , because I've got my , I've got a few different accounts and so I'll put them all on , but like it doesn't really matter , but like it's great to do it with other artists , it's great to do it with other people , and like sort of say , right , I've got you know , we're all sort
of you know on . I mean , it was great when we did outrun the sun , which was this charitable album which was really fantastic , raised a load of money for an artist in real problems , real trouble , and yet we got sort of 50-plus artists involved in this and it was a lot of work but it was great for everyone . I don't think there were any losers .
It produced a really great album with loads of great music on , but it got all of the artists a bit of publicity and it raised money for the um artist who was , uh , in trouble . So like , um , you know I , I just sort of think something like that , where it can be so good for everyone involved .
And , um , yeah , I sort of took it on myself a bit to organize that and you know , but I didn't do it for the marketing , but it has a knock-on good effect these things and I think sometimes just getting involved can have a really positive effect with your own music and your own producing production .
I think , collaboration , what you mentioned there is something I want to do more of . Collaboration . What you mentioned there is yeah , it's incredible , it's something I want to do more of uh , in particular with uh releases , uh , and actually reducing releasing music in terms of collaboration do a lot of collaborations ourselves .
Yeah , we have indeed uh lost and found , uh , one of my most popular tracks still my ads . Um , I do a lot of collaborations with the podcast and I do see the benefits of it , like with cross-posting , like you mentioned . Then an artist guest comes on on Instagram um , invites a collaborator .
Works really well and it's something I want to do more of with regards to releases , because I can see the benefits there as well you have to watch it sometimes because you can get sucked into collaborations that just you can't . You know they're going to take a lot of time out .
Yeah , and just do it , for don't just say yes to everything and everyone . I know that sounds a bit harsh , but sometimes you have to go . Is this right for me ? Is this collaboration going to be good for me and good for the other artists ? Maybe I'm just getting tied up into spending a lot of time doing this ?
You've got to be a little bit cautious , I think you know I agree .
I was going to say then , uh , collaboration , community , and I was trying to think of another c ?
um , but I yeah , I can think of one uh collaboration , community , um , but I can't if audience listening .
If you can think of another C that is relative to the conversation at hand , with regards to being an independent producer , artist across multiple genres , do let us know . I'd like to complete that three C's somehow , but I see we're approaching the end here , so hopefully there's some useful stuff in there , I think .
To summarise , really , it's sort of like finding your niche , finding what you're good at , focusing in on that , leaning into that , becoming known for it , building that community .
I've got this , I've got the c . Oh yeah , go for it .
Consistency oh , I love it . Yes , yes , yes .
Community collaboration collaboration and consistency . It's been a long day . Yeah , yeah , I like it communication it wasn't communication . Was it communication ?
it wasn't community collaboration and consistency . Consistency , communication's good . You can add a fourth in there as well make sure you're able to communicate , which I can't do right now because I can't come up with three C's .
But consistency is one that we didn't actually talk about , which I think is really important , and I'm doing this myself now with this release cadence . I'm trying , I know I say trying , I am going to maintain and I'm trying , I know I say trying , I am going to maintain and I'm posting online as well .
And it's it's tricky because , in particular with this release I'm doing at the moment , I'm trying to post daily for about 30 days and it's you swing and you miss sort of thing to see how it's , how it goes .
But I think with anything like the podcast is a prime example , just this is a prime example this is episode 192 , and it's weekly and that consistency and doing that and showing up every week means that it continues to grow . So I like that consistency .
And I think it's consistency in your marketing and all that kind of strategy and getting your aesthetic and keeping to that and that sort of thing , but also the quality that you put out .
If you're putting music out , kind of strategy and getting your aesthetic and keeping to that and that sort of thing , but also the quality that you put out if you're putting music out is is keeping consistency across your marketing but also your the quality of what you do .
Um is really important um , but like I know , like people I've seen really really grow like like Synth Principal and Dan I mean you know , he's grown hugely through working constantly on his music and his music's great and the consistency of that and , you know , the quality he puts out is fantastic .
But also he's been fantastically consistent with his social media , like content and the way he puts it together . And , you know , and that has made his I mean his social media like yeah , yeah , content and the way he puts it together and , uh , you know , and that has made his , so I mean his social media has gone crazy .
But , like you know , over time and and then he's he's followed as an artist as well , like with constantly putting out and releasing , as we're trying to do , um , like keep to a release schedule . You know , yeah yeah , that's consistency again .
So yeah , there we go folks collaboration , community and consistency three c's maybe I'll get a t-shirt . Sounds like a really shit band , doesn't ?
it . Yeah , yeah , definitely the case .
So audience listening if you have a question that you would like Tim and us to hash out on an episode again , click that speak pipe link . Leave us an audio message . Hey , mark and Tim , my question is blah blah , blah . You can find me at whatever it is , or just inside the mix podcast on instagram .
Send me a dm with your text and , as with this episode , you can be anonymous if you want . You don't have to have your name read out if you'd rather not , just let me know . More than happy to do that . Uh , tim , it has been a pleasure . I didn't do this on the previous episode , but have you got anything you would like to share with the audience ?
I should probably do this at the end of every episode . To be honest , any releases that might be out at this point , what point will this be out ? Yeah , it's a good question . Let's have a look . 192 . This is the 29th of April .
Oh , it will just no no .
It will have come out before then .
But I should have . If I stick to my release schedule , we're looking at the end of april I will have a single coming out , no doubt . But , um , yeah , you will have . You will have already gone past this , but at the end of you know , um , I've got a single going to be coming out in a week or so from from now , but that'll be out .
So , yeah , you know , um , yeah , yeah , I'm trying to stick to my consistent release schedule something coming out at the end of each one . So infinite ocean is uh next , or , but that will already be out by the time you hear this episode great , great song as well .
Uh , folks listening , do do go check that out . Um , I will put a link to that in this episode description and , in theory , if I carry on the way I am , I'll have a song released as well yeah , no idea I've started it .
I've no idea what it's going to be called and , uh , the one I sent you the other day I've now yeah , yeah , something else cold war related bolshevism or something I don don't know . And then , yeah , I'll have another one released and , yeah , hold me to that as well . Anyway , folks , I'm waffling now . It has been a pleasure , tim .
Until the next time , enjoy your X more gold .