Three minute reads for artists and producers
who want to make better records

By Thomas Dulin

Hello, longtime subscribers, thanks for your patience while I've been away. If you’re new-ish, welcome!

I'm going to try to get back to sending on Wednesdays. As always, my inbox is always open to replies.

If you don't remember signing up for this weekly email, feel free to unsubscribe here. No hard feelings.

TAKE ONE: QUICK LINKS

• ​Safari Pedals has an "All Access" subscription that is actually worth looking at. That's rare for me to say.
• ​A brilliant review/deep dive of Universal Audio's new "A-Type" plugin.
• ​Vochlea have announced Dubnote, a new voice memos style app made specficially for music creators.

TAKE TWO: WORK COMES IN CYCLES

6 months ago, business was pretty slow for me.

I would get to the studio in the morning, answer a few emails, talk with a few potential clients who were thinking about doing a project, and spend the rest of the day oscillating between thoughts like:

• Maybe I’m just really terrible at this job.
• Should I sell all this stuff? How much stuff do I have?
• I could probably get a job at a bank or something?
• Maybe I’ll look at my phone for a minute for inspiration.
• Okay yeah, everyone is doing better than I am.

I was definitely in a slump. Also, I had undiagnosed adult ADHD (maybe I will write more on this later).

Now and then I’d have a good day and muster up the will to be proactive and go after the clients that I wanted. Most of the projects I'm working on now are the results of days like those!

You could make the argument that I went a little too hard on going after new clients, or at least scheduling them too close together to start this year. Now I'm kind of stressed about having too much work.

But this is the cycle I always find myself in, and I tend to never learn from it. There are waves of being busy and being slow. And no matter how many times I go through this cycle, I always think that whatever stage I’m in currently will last forever.

I realize this is reading more like a journal entry than a newsletter, but I wanted to be honest and vulnerable about how I experience this cycle because I have a feeling that we all go through it. Producers, artists, and anyone who is self-employed knows what I’m talking about.

I feel like I could write an entire newsletter series on this topic, but in the interest of keeping this a "3 minute read" I'll just say from my own experience that the first step to making this part of the job tolerable is to accept it. It's normal, it happens to us all, and there's nothing wrong with you.

When you're in a slow season, you're probably not as bad as you think you are. Conversely, when your calendar is full, you may not be as awesome as you think are you are, either.

Whatever stage you’re in currently, my message to you (and to myself!) is to remember that it’s not likely to be like this forever. I hope that's a helpful message to some of you.

TAKE THREE: A QUESTION

One of the things I’ve missed most about the emails is that A LOT of people respond to them, and I love reading the replies.

My question this time is:

• Do you experience this cycle like I do? Any tips for handling it, either logistically or mentally?

(I'm trying out this new poll feature. If you vote, it should show you the results of the poll.)

Hit reply and let me know, I may share some responses anonymously next time.

Until next week, happy music making, Reader.

P.S. If for any reason you do not want to receive this,

Thomas Dulin Producer / Engineer / Mixer Nashville, TN