hmmm there's a lot that i agree with here and some that i don't.

i don't think it's fair to say that Pop music is this always corporate thing made for the masses (i know you said most pop). first of all, every so often i hear 'curveball' pop tracks on the radio that make me think "wow this is a bold move for people to consume in mass". you know them when you hear them because they don't sound so cookie cutter and formulaic (either in production, vocal processing, lyrical content, etc). i could give examples if you want... secondly, if a truly creative individual becomes a pop sensation you can't simply discredit their rise or their future works based on the fact that they're being listened to by millions. just wanted to make that clear to start off.

i've always liked the notion that songs i LOVE might do absolutely nothing for other people. i think it's really interesting and a cool reflection on our different influences. but when the magic happens to me is when i discover that my friends love the same artist or song as i do. and it doesn't have to be this crazy underground artist either! it can be a mainstream thing and that's beautiful too! i love the social aspect of music and if one song happens to bring millions together then that's kind of a miracle in and of itself--even if the track isn't deep as we conventionally think, it's serving this very specific purpose which i feel is necessary.

there will always be counterculture and i think that's healthy to a degree. but i think denying enjoyment of something because of popularity is silly. people talk about 'guilty pleasures'... no need for the guilt! it's okay to both enjoy a pop track and also get into the subtle artistry of new, creative, underground music. these aren't mutually exclusive it's just that one may feel safe, predictable, and social while the other one speaks to a deeper part of you.

it's late and i'm not sure this post is completely cohesive but i wanted to mention quickly that, of course, nobody works in a vacuum and i feel that almost everything is borrowed. chords, melodies, rhythms, effects--to me the most successful artists are the ones that capture a relevant spirit or mood with a collage of borrowed elements (which can sometimes feel COMPLETELY novel...even if you zoom out and still hear a 12 tone scale, familiar instrumentation, etc).

as artists we should strive to look forward and be novel, but i never feel the urge to deny what i like just for the sake of avoiding copying people.

great post @auvic i love that you're getting deep into it here and would love to continue the discussion hope this doesn't seem overly adversarial

Sleep schedule is the most important to me. If I wake up too late I already feel anxious about how much time I have left in the day. And even if I get enough sleep my whole circadian rhythm is all messed up if I sleep from 4AM-Noon or whatever. My body rewards regularity.

As for focusing, one thing I like to do is use the desktop app Self Control to blacklist websites that don't help me with making music (Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, etc). You can set it to whatever time you want (15 minutes, an hour, etc) and it won't let you go to those sites no matter what. I usually set it to 1 or 2 hours so that I can take a break and relax for a bit.

Let me just add my two cents because I think it's worth re-emphasizing (others have mentioned) that with floating point architectures most DAWs don't allow clipping (above 0dB/in the red) to actually result in distortion. This is just how the digital environment works. In specifically fact in Logic I think the default if you're clipping on your master is for the bounced/exported file to simply be turned down to avoid nasty digital clip distortion.

That being said you CAN still overload/clip in some plugins! The Sound Toys plugins for instance will clip/distort slightly within the plugin because they aren't really programmed to output values above 0dB. That's just the way they're programmed which is why I always like to leave lots of headroom so that I have moderate level gain going into plugins like that. That's also why Sound Toys usually gives input/output gain knobs in their plugins as well. Either way if you like the way the distortion sounds then by all means go for it!

So this might seem a bit strange but I use this track that I call 'room noise' as a layer in some of my tracks. Especially with more ambient, chill, or minimal tracks having this bit of fuzz in my track really enhances the warmth to me. It's not always something you explicitly hear but you definitely feel it adding to the track. I put it up on my Soundcloud free for download (as an AIFF) and use so pop it into your tracks and give it a try! Would love to know what you think.

https://soundcloud.com/baircave/room-noise/s-X6D2J

EDIT: I HAD SHARED THE WRONG LINK SORRY! The above link should now work for everyone sorry about the confusion

i think it's worth mentioning in this thread since we're talking about removing 'problem' frequencies... I sometimes use a de-esser to tame a problem frequency only when it pops out. This allows me to keep that harmonic content in there most of the time but tame it when necessary. Don't be afraid to use de-essers as threshold sensitive EQs! They're VERY helpful

So when I think about a track's mix sounding polished it often comes down to making space for everything. I think conventionally speaking an arrangement that has a ton of mid-rangey elements like say, synth chords, guitar, vocal, and piano or something, needs to be managed carefully in the mixing process. You usually want to keep your main elements (like vocals, kick, snare, or leads) in the middle but I know a lot of mixes that will pan or hard pan many elements successfully! Don't be afraid to try moving stuff out of the middle, it'll make your mixes feel way more interesting. Something I like to do is have arpeggiating elements or hi-hats oscillating from left to right so that they provide bit of left/right motion. If things are sounding a bit dense in a bad way it might not be a bad idea to try panning, even just slightly. Obviously you can EQ to help make space as well but we're talking about panning rn.

Last thing I wanted to mention is that you don't always have to have something panned right just because you panned something left. There's no hard rules! And asymmetry is cool sometimes