Why ask this timeless question? Well I produce hip-hop, and rnb, and pop along with house. Mostly trap and rnb, but I've consulted with producers who have placements and they all say quality matters more overall.

Then there's others who stress if your consistent, making beats or melodies daily, and can a lot of them you'll in turn have quality as a producer since you were able to get all the filth out to make the diamonds.

I kind of think it's a mix of both, but wanted everyone's opinion on this to end the debate. I feel if you want to make it in the music industry (non hobbyist), daily "exercises" are necessary but also, focusing on quality, the details, rhythm ,chords, catchiness, structure and singing or rapping over the song to see if an artist can actually use it or if it stands by itself.

Obviously its hard to focus on quantity if your trying to make a commercial record, since you'd mix and add in little details or process vocals for days or weeks. But I've seen even guys at the top (like ian kirkpatrick) teach killing your darlings, making a lot of shitty songs, and releasing your best.

 

If you want to achieve any kind of career, quality always comes first, as it does in any part of life.

 

Ask your wife

 

First to answer your question: class over mass or quality over quantity. The danger of overexploiting and overtaxing oneself exists especially with young people, with some young people who think they have endless energy it sometimes ends in burnouts.

Some drink coffee and Red Bull and push themselves up the whole day. Sleep disorders and stress are the consequences of too much caffeine and sugar. Remember you are not a robot but a human being.

Humans can make a big difference and be very creative. If you are talented and especially if you love what you do, you can be or become successful. Every musician should do in the evening exactly the opposite of what you do during the day.

So if you sit in front of the PC all day, you should go jogging or cycling in the evening, so you stay fit and also prevent diseases.

 

You got it all wrong, OP. And the way you put your question makes everyone else confuse it too.
Of course quality is what matters in the end. But to get quality, you have to practice. One can say, you have to put quantity in first. What you're asking about is not "either or".

 

The very best advice so far!
Actually, not living like that, over the years got me a lot of diseases (anxiety, sleep disorder etc) so, for sure I have lost the quality of life. And yet, still I am doing the same...
But for others, make music like your daily job, 8 hours of working, and then go away as far as you can from pc...
Working daily and nonstop, with all the stress this job can make, if you abuse it, at first place that will kill your creativity, so I must agree, always look for quality over quantity, because universe needs balance, so if you disbalance yourself now with the quantity, eventually that will mirror on all aspects of your life...

EDIT: @justwannadownload yes, the practice is a must, but overdoing it is dangerous. You can both do practice and do work in one go.... What I mean regarding practice, is that to get fast workflow, to get job done with ease and no stress. Sometimes, less is more, especially in music...

 

Last edited: May 6, 2022

Focused quantity leads to quality. But at some point when musicians get there their music often stagnates, they spend too much time in their comfort zones. Maybe the key skill is curiosity and experimenting with something new everytime you create something.

Joe Satriani has pretty much stagnated into his own style to my ears. Steve Vai has too but it seems he's constantly searching for something new - hence his new amazing three neck guitar. But like Satriani, his melodies never do much for me.

Melody is king.

 

I feel like there are parts of the production process that are kinda done on auto-pilot now that I've produced so many beats. I feel like it goes both ways where making more music will make it easier for you to grow with each song and explore new ideas now that you've figured out a lot. Even when it came to mixing, after having to mix so many songs, I found that mixing became less daunting the more I did it.

 

Quantity leads to quality,
https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramics-class-and-quantity-before-quality/

 

You cannot produce quality on the first try so in essence, it will take quantity to produce quality. My two cents anyway.

 

Klaus Schulze, in the liner notes to his Mirage album said,
"The artist is anyone who has something creative to show, perfection is only a question of quantity, not quality."
I always remembered that.
Since Klaus released much shit music after he stopped taking LSD he obviously followed his belief.

 

-- posted already --

 

Last edited: May 6, 2022

I would say quality. But the fact is, if you want to be a truly successful musician, then you need to be able to consistently produce a quantity of quality work. And that's where most of us fail.

 

you have to be able to do them both

 

if only i had one...

 

I try to upload 100 tracks a day to the streaming sites, hoping that I can make enough money to buy a McDonalds Cheeseburger.

 

Last edited: May 7, 2022

Why choose? I mean, if you're serious about music you'll need to be great at what you do no matter what, that takes time and a lot of effort. But then, when you're "good enough" you'll need to get a place on the market, and that means showing your good work to the world so they get to know you, that alone will probably take a lot of releases without much time in between, specially in the beginning of your career. The thing is, if you're already good at what you do, you'll be able to have a high level material even producing 2 tracks a week or so. Quality not necessarily needs a lot of time to get accomplished.

 

I'd like to add an example. The "Worlds best selling" author of fiction novels is James Patterson. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels such as Kiss The Girls, Along Came a Spider, and a bunch of others. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Patterson

So this guy, they had an interview with him (on 60 minutes, iirc); where he was showing manuscripts for books in a filing system. He probably has 20 of them going at any one point in time. He "Co-Authors" fiction novels, and pairs up with some other writer. Almost like "ghostwriting" in music, but he is taking half the credit and a majority of the business aspects of the whole show. And those novels are those writers' characters and stories; so they are either good or not. They crank them out. But, he also has his own characters with many books to them; and he almost specifically said those are his darlings and he wouldn't even dream of letting someone else screw with them.

They are producing. Like a factory now, just humming along cranking out whatever. But how did he get there to start? (obv hard work). Did he bury his agent with books of random quality to make a name for himself? Or deliver single super-high quality works first.... I do not know. How do you politely ask how much junk someone made before they had a hit? How much of that "junk" do you want uploaded to the internet? The agenda is what is important to figure out first.

 

Quality. Every. Single. Time.

The thought that practice makes perfect or quantity will equal quality is flawed logic. Not every type of practice leads to an improved ability. If you practice something wrong a thousand times, you're just getting better at being worse.

The best way to get better at something is through deliberate practice, in other words, doing things that are recommended by experts in the field (i.e. certainly not YouTube) and receiving feedback on ways to improve. Without that feedback, you'll never get anywhere no matter how many tracks you produce. It's why most trying to get somewhere in this field fail.

 

Buy textbooks - take courses - train - study - practice - learn.