I dropped my first real album last year, one that actually went up for sale to the masses. In the eyes of most people it would be seen as an absolute flop! But thats not how I seen it, and it’s still not how I see to this day. I put a lot of work into writing the songs, a pretty good amount into making the beat and told a few friends to check it out. Thats really all I did. With virtually no promotion, unmastered and horribly mixed songs, I made sales from day 1 until they were taken down from the stores. I am not including the copies I or anyone I knew purchased. I didn’t make a whole lot of money but it was just encouraging to have someone check out my song and like it enough to buy it. I sold mostly single songs but a few people actually purchased my entire album. I feel a lot of people put in this situation would pack it up and say they had a nice try, but my thoughts are completely different. I see it as I didn’t know what I was doing, the product was bad, and virtually no one knew about it and I still managed to make a profit off of it. I know I don’t have everything figured out but I certainly know some things not to do this next go around. The product is going to be much better and I am going to put much much more time and effort into letting the world know about Greenhouse865. No more of this I want to reach 1 Million people by next Tuesday. Instead I want to reach the next true Greenhouse865 fan.
For every one out there chasing their dreams, I just want you to know TRUE hard work pays off. I work two jobs only to come home and work on my third, my music. I have worked hard on my music for some time now, but never harder than I have over about the past nine months. Putting in the extra time has really made a tremendous difference and I feel I am learning and growing everyday. My music sounds leaps and bounds better than it did just six months ago. I feel like people are really starting to take notice. I am getting more interactions on social media, more people want to work with me now, and a lot more people are being a lot more encouraging as of late. I have never been a lazy person, but my efforts in some areas of the music making process have been severely lacking. I put a lot of effort into writing a song, but not as much on making the beat. I would just throw something together in literally 5 minutes and record over that beat. After recording I would post it up tell my friends about it. At this point I would wait for my music to go viral. I am still waiting for this to happen. One day after listening to music I heard one of my song played sandwiched between to pretty popular songs and I realized how awful mine sounded quality wise. This is the big kick in the butt I needed. From that point forward I have been a man on a mission. I have leaned about music production and came along way with creating beats. I have stopped trying to use smoke and mirror promoting techniques and started the real grind of growing my fan base one fan at a time. This transformation has me feeling so much better as a do it yourself music creator. I feel people are really starting to feel the vibe of Greenhouse. I ask people to check out one song and they listen to two. These same people are now recommending it to their friends, where in the past this wasn’t the case.
Most everyone has heard the saying “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” I believe this to be true. I have modified this slightly and it is something that really keeps me going. I feel it is better to have dreams and chase them rather than not to chase them. I wake up every morning with this in mind. I feel everyone has dreams and the thing that stands in most people’s dream is themselves. If I don’t make it in life I know it certainly won’t be from not trying. I stay on my grind constantly trying to learn all I can, not only about music but about life in general. I wake up every morning looking to learn something new and improve upon my craft. From a young age I learned to hustle and make things happen. For what I lack in budget I make up for in sweat. Sometimes I have to work smart and hard, get creative with the resources I have to make up for other things I dont. Just by keeping my head in the game I have learned a lot, not all have been friendly lessons. I have been burned before, wasted time and money on things I shouldn’t have. In the end it has been worth every penny and every bit of time, because it has ultimately steered me in the right direction. I grind hard everyday to win the small battles and if things keep looking the way they are than I am on my way to win this war.
Over the past 6-7 months I have not came out with to much new stuff, my social media activity was pretty much non existent. The reason for this is because I have taken the time to study up and learn the art of mixing. I used to just make a beat, record the vocals over top and call it a day. It sounded muddy, things were uneven, it just didn’t sound anything how I expected it to sound. I did some research and it led me to mixing. So over a period of about 6 months learned the fundamentals of mixing and how different things work and invested in more equipment. Boy was it worth it, the music I do myself with no outside help is better 10 fold. I know the mixing is only going to get better with time. The next things I really want to get a grasp on is making better beats and song mastering. I will do that along the way, while still creating new music, more so than the past 6 months.
I have been making music for 10 plus years now and man have I came a long way! I still have a ways to go but I sometimes find it hard to believe how different things are now. I started out recording with a computer desk mic using a Fruity Loops demo and the program Goldwave. At that time recording was tough because I would have to go through an entire song without messing up and hoping I wouldn’t pick up other noise such as footsteps or a knock on the door. I started off recording over other artist instrumentals, but soon started to make my own beats. At the time I thought they were amazing, but now my opinion has changed dramatically. I sometimes listen and laugh at how simplistic they were, but they also remind me of how it all began. My beats are not the greatest now but they are much much better than what they used to be. I currently have much more sophisticated equipment. I use FL Studio Producer Edition and Pro tools when recording and making beats. I now have studio monitors, studio headphones, mixers, and multiple condenser mics.