One of the biggest things holding me back right now is actually finishing and letting go of my music. If I write a song that I genuinely believe could be really good, I start thinking: what if I’m much better at production, mixing and mastering six months from now? How much better could this song have been if I’d waited? And what if I’ve wasted a great song — something that could actually have gone somewhere — simply because I wasn’t good enough yet to do the idea justice? I know this can easily become a reason to never finish anything. There will probably always be something I could do better six months from now. And if I’m completely honest, even writing that I should “make a decision, commit to it, finish the song and learn from it” creates some fear in me. Because committing means accepting that I might be letting go of something before I’ve reached my full potential with it. That’s probably exactly the fear I need to challenge. So my commitment is not to somehow get rid of that fear first. It’s to keep learning, practicing and developing my ears, but also push myself to finish music despite it. I want to get better at trusting the decisions I can make today, accepting that they won’t always be perfect, and understanding that actually finishing music is part of becoming the producer I’ll be six months or a year from now. Maybe the goal isn’t to make today’s song as good as the future version of me could make it. Maybe it’s to make it the best I can today — finish it, learn from it, and allow the next song to be better

Hi! I’m Marcus from Sweden. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. For me, there’s something pretty amazing about starting with a simple idea or a few chords on an acoustic guitar and eventually hearing it turn into a finished production. I’m currently producing my own music, mainly melodic/progressive house and EDM/pop. I usually write on acoustic guitar first and then build the production in Ableton Live. One workflow I’m moving towards is using Ableton for the production stage and then committing to the production and moving everything over to Logic Pro for mixing and mastering. I really like the idea of having that clear transition — making a conscious decision that the production is finished and switching from a creative/production mindset to focusing purely on the mix, and eventually the master. As far as my skill level goes, I definitely still have a lot to learn. I understand the basic concepts behind things like EQ, compression, saturation, limiting etc., but I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the tools yet. I’ve also fallen into the plugin trap that I suspect quite a few of us have — I’ve bought a lot of plugins, probably more than I really need, when I’d likely benefit much more from properly learning the tools I already have! That’s something I’m hoping to change. I’m always happy to help where I can, particularly with Ableton, MIDI, production workflows and the more technical/computer side of music production. What I’m hoping to get from Mastering Intensive is to improve my ears and really understand why I’m making a decision rather than just knowing which plugin or technique I’m supposed to use. I want to get better at hearing a problem, understanding what’s causing it and knowing what to do about it instead of guessing. My main goal is to get my own productions to a professional release standard. Further down the road, I’m also interested in the possibility of mastering music for other artists, so I’m excited to see where this takes me. Really looking forward to learning with everyone over the next six weeks!

Looking forward to the this