80/20 rule
Hi there EDM creators, you are all inspiring making this music and it’s truly appreciated any tips you give me. Have you heard of the 80/20 rule?
I ask sincerely what 20% matters the most when making EDM? If I could focus 80% of my limited time to learn how to make EDM (my most desired hobby) …what is the top 20% that would be beneficial that I focus on?
I appreciate this very much no matter how late you read this even months later. Keep doing what you do!
Focus your time on song writing, structure, and sound design. If you put the time into these efforts, then it will be easier to mix your song.
As for mixing. The thing that helped me the most is to mix in mono. IMHO mixing in mono forces you to make different mixing decisions to improve the mix, make space for different sounds, and alters your choice of processing since you are hearing only sounds that are equally playing in the left and right channel. Stereo can trick you in to believing certain sounds are more loud/quiet than they actually are in mono and since you have the stereo field to fill, you pay less attention to cutting/boosting space for your sounds in the mid channel.
I don’t just slap a utility on the master channel and set to mono. I put an Ableton utility at the very end of each channel set to mono. I do all my eq, compression, and fx such as delay, reverb all in mono before the mono utility. Then afterwards, when my mix sounds Excellent, I put a stereo delay and/or reverb or other stereo modulation fix after the mono utility on each channel. Now my dialed in mono signal is filling the stereo field in a controlled manner. I use very little wet/dry on the stereo delay/reverb. A little goes a long way since all channels are in mono and the stereo field is empty. Makes it much easier to get an amazing sounding mix this way. Easier to balance levels, eq, compress, and dial in exactly what I want in the stereo field.
There are two things I like to keep in mind:
Just get something down, don't worry about it being perfect straight away. You can make adjustments later.
Stay on track with your objectives as best you can - if you've gone into your project to work on the bassline, then work on the bassline. Of course you might come across other elements that need attention but don't let that be too great a distraction and stop you from sorting what you set out to achieve in that session.
I think you are taking this rule a little too literally. In a nutshell , it's basically a lesson about how most things that you create will be at a fairly decent standard early on in the process, and if you want to improve the quality after that, the effort it will take to do that increases by a large amount. So don't sweat the little details and things that aren't important, focus on the vibe and overall impact of your track instead.
20% of the work will get you 80% of the impact.
But getting to a 100% "pro" sounding track will take you a further 4x time/energy investment. i.e. the last 20% takes a further 80% of the total effort taken to get to 100% pro sounding track...
Lets say you are brand new. And want to get towards 80% of the pros. You need to start with getting the basics down across a lot of different skills.
Now you will be able to make a track that is 80% of the quality of a pro track and better than 80% of people you would meet on the street but you will still have a long learning journey ahead of you if you want to sound closer to 100% of a pro.
If you have the basics down, then I would say improving your mixing knowledge and skills will one of the biggest steps you can take between sounding amateur (80% of pro) and pro.
The challenge is that the goalposts are always moving, the pros are getting better and better and it is tough to keep up! There is always more to learn and improve
Arrangement imo. Yeah it won't sound the best at first until you mix properly but there is no point in learning to perfectly EQ and add effects to a hi hat if you can't put basic concepts of intro, verse, chorus, break, outro together.
Never heard about this rule...
i’ve heard of it as: do 20% of the work that gets you 80% of the way done first. for me, that means getting the ideas down and not being hung up on mixing as i go
It's mostly true. I can get the drums, melodies, lyrics and full arrangement done in an hour. The next 4 hours I make the track pump, push back things that are in the background and bring other things to the focus, mastering etc. shit that non-producers won't even notice.
80 percent perfecting kick and bass
20 percent other elements 🤣
OK this is a joke..
Or is it???
Guilty
Arrangement is everything, all the other stuff is a secondary skill to basic songwriting and arrangement which includes sound design and selection
This, when I was a beginner i used to struggle to make mixes work for hours and hours untill i realized the arrangement was terrible and it was impossible to make a mix out of that
Exactly, I spent a long time thinking layers and spacial FX was what made stuff sound fat but really they just bury good sound quickly. When I switched to using very few sounds instead that all start super clean and then just saturate them to hell and back, my productions instantly sounded 100x better no joke lol
Depends on the genre, a lot of arrangement evolves through the writing, chord progression, and melody
Of course it evolves as you work on it but people think they don’t know how to write melodies or mix or whatever else when the truth is their arrangements are just doodoo lol
It’s not even about advanced music theory or anything like that either, countless bangers are literally the dumbest shit ever. Especially with EDM it’s just knowing how to make a song flow and create dynamics.
And in a lot of EDM you are working with random atonal sounds or one note riffs, that ultra basic kind of stuff that actually hits the hardest
I think you’re saying what I’m saying but in a different way. Like a lot of dope edm is just playing the same melody over and over again with different sound design. Which is what I meant by evolving through it.
It's definitely a real thing, but you gotta find your own 80/20. For me it's kinda like this:
What get's 80% of my results (if not more):
• Just open my DAW and work on my track. That. Is. It. Nothing else should fucking exist!
What gets me 20% of my results (but takes up 80% of my time):
• Making content for social media
• Watching Tutorials
• Fucking around with other genres
• Reading & chatting on Reddit
• Fucking around making videos
• Doing (and prepping for) DJ gigs, then posting pics and videos about that (see #1, above)
• Fucking around with hardware jams and DAWless bullshit
• Researching DAWless/hardware gear
• Researching all kinds of random shit
• Watching all kinds of videos about everything on Earth
Anytime I focus on the TOP list there, I'm finishing tracks and I'm happy. Anytime I'm bogged down in the bottom list, I'm sad and hating life. Writing this reply.... I'm not working on my current track. FML.
Imagine if I spent 100% of my time working in my DAW. Wow. I'd have 10x the finished tracks by now.
Learn from my mistakes (and successes). Go forth.
I interpreted this as 80% = dedicated to trial and error. Just play around, release tracks, unfinished or finished, just to get valuable experience, and 20% = dedicated to the time you actually spend watching tutorials, and getting tips from the experts.
I say this because this is how I learned to polish my work. Sure, my tracks are still considered amateur-ish, but if you compare my tracks to the ones I made during my first year, it's night and day. And I actually spent about 80% of my time just dicking around, learning default VSTs from FL Studio 12, making mediocre tracks no one listens to on Soundcloud. It is only when I was already familiar with the basics that I was able to understand what these dudes on yt were talking about regarding mixing, automations, and different processes.
8 years into my amateur EDM production, this is only when I've learned how to formant shift! You learn something new errday, my guy.
80% finishing your tracks
20% everything else
That 20% is the motivation to finish the track
80% oomf oomf oomf
20% various people reminding the listener to "dance"
Get off reddit and make music 😉
Maybe just 80% of the time...
80% on remaking other people's tracks. This will incorporate many of the other skills like sound design, arrangement, finishing tracks.
People don't like to do this because it's boring but it builds up your chops.
Just like any other instrument you start by playing existing songs. Not making your own.
You may think you know what the music is supposed to sound like but this is different once you start writing it down. you'll notice patterns. Like a common thing is a reverse high hat right before the clap. You don't think about these things when you're just listening to what you think a track sounds like but it's there.
I don't find it boring at all. It's not my "thing", but whenever I try to remake something, it's very rewarding. And yes - I learn something new EVERY time. Totally worth the time. I'm not sure I'd say 80%, but part of the recipe for sure.
How do you even remake tracks? Like I’ve learned saxophone and you start with really basic shit and then eventually move on to fucking insanely complex stuff. My reason being, how would you ever figure out that a reverse high hat comes before the clap? Do you just have to read what they did?
Also, would you recommend trying to recreate the synth sounds/ other sounds used on the track?
Most EDM tracks are pretty sparse and simple tbh. I wouldn’t focus on an exact recreation cuz this genre is full of convoluted sound design tech that you will never fully replicate but just get the general vibe and structure, remaking the basic rhythm and sounds while following all the fills and stuff
Same with what you just said. Start with simple songs, ones which you can easily listen to and identify the elements. Minimal house, for instance. The more you do it, you get better at identifying other parts of more complex songs. Using analyzers, spectrograms, ets can help give you a visual clue for different elements in other songs.
I've gotten better at it but when I started I'd just put the track I'm copying into the DAW as a wav file at the right BPM. And just go through each bar looping until I got it to sound the same.
You will definitely have to create synth sounds. You figure things out through sound design and wondering how they got it to sound a certain way when yours doesn't!
Patience and an ear for detail, both of which are skills that will be honed over time.
And yes I would generally recommend recreating synths from the track you're recreating, that's how you build sound design skills.
Just what I needed to see, thanks!
To me, it’s opening up my daw, the same time every day, whether I want to or not. Also having some sort of agenda(finishing the mix on this track, churning out a new 8 bar dubstep loop every 30 minutes, arrange these 2 sections to a whole track, etc). Getting regular feedback from folks better than me. Also, making sure I don’t find my way to my phone or YouTube during that time.
This is great advice. Getting in there every day and throwing something down, whether it’s good or not, will help you get better very quickly. I usually don’t listen back to what I make for a few days, listen again with fresh ears and decide what adjustments I need to make going forward. If it’s good, I’ll flesh it out, if it sucks, I’ll move on to the next project.
This is called the Pareto Principle :)
I had to look it up a few weeks ago.
This is a general principle and doesn’t suggest you should only focus your energy on specific areas. You might spring 20% in mixing and call it done, or you might spend hours and hours mixing (80%) and not make much progress.
My 20/80 moment was simply changing the kick sample, by doing that it really changed the whole track I was working on IMO.
My takeaway is to have an idea, attempt that idea and if it’s not turning how I imagined I cross it off and try something else. Too many times have I gone down the rabbit hole of spending hours and hours doing something only to feel that my time could have been spent better elsewhere. I’m definitely an over thinker and doing my best to just do things and not think about them endlessly.
I'm learning that you can never spend too much time on the kick in EDM.
Nah just throw something in there and smash it with the compression and saturation, as long as it’s a vaguely decent sample and there’s some good bassline under it that shit will sound sick within 2-3 sample layers
Favorite kick? lol Mine is from a song I was working on back in 2013 for some dubstep and I lost the sample when I switched computers. Like I must have just no copied the sample over an I hate myself for it 😂
Ahh well... dang. LOL It's like someone who isn't that great at something: "Oh, he's good at other things." .. "The kick? Yeah... other parts of your music are good."
As others have said, the 20% is finishing tracks. The 80% is learning new skills and applying them. Actually making music is indispensable and serves to contextualize the things you learn. It’s hard to justify using a fancy technique when you haven’t run into the problem it’s meant to solve. By making music, you will run into a LOT of specific problems. Cross the bridge when you get to it, but keep crossing bridges.
It's kind of a fractal. You dive in. 80% of your time is figuring out what the heck you're even trying to do. You hit a block. You spend 80% of your energy trying to get through that block. Along the way, you hit another thing. Zeno's paradox takes over and you never finish a track. Then you have to zoom back out and spend 80% of your time trying to finish a track. But then you hit a snag with the phase of the kick and it's down the fractal hole once again. LOL
Melody, Drum beat, & bass line will get you 80% of the way there
The 20% is actual musicality- melodies, chord progressions, harmonies, (the notes of ) basslines
Exactly. The rest are... fillers, but they need to be fitting. Which is not too hard to do since 80% is already there. Actual musicality itself in not an easy thing to achieve, it takes years if not decades, but it is so worth it.
The way ill Gates said it when I took his course was create as much as possible. 80% of what you make will be OK but not great, and the other 20% will be "hits", "bangers" and what you have been truly trying to achieve. Takes 80% of crap to make 20% gold
IMO the 80% should be spent in the DAW (or whatever hardware / hybrid setup you may have) actually messing around and making music -- then the 20% (or less - depending on where you are in your journey) should be on 'upskilling' - learning new techniques, watching tutorials / producer content, mixing/mastering processes, sound design, bit of theory (if making anything melodic), referencing other artists, etc.
If you spend all of your time making music but never bother to invest some time in learning anything new it'll be harder to improve.
On the other hand if you spend all of your time in the rabbit hole of Youtube content you'll learn about a lot of cool tricks but won't be able to incorporate the things you learn into your production.
Thanks so much for the thorough response.
Agreed with him, I’m a semi professional artist and it’s the same concept across multiple mediums - 80/20 is a golden rule that disney artists follow religiously.
While this is a pretty broad answer, I 100% agree. The specifics vary from person to person, song to song, etc, but generally speaking it's so beneficial to just show up & take everything one step at a time - and keep stepping them steps!
It's a harder balance initially, to just use the few things you know/understand and not get caught up in every little side quest.. it becomes less hard the more you know and develop
mixing/mastering. a bad song can sound good with a solid mix and a good song can sound terrible with a bad mix.
Even after polishing a turd it’s still a turd
you’d be surprised. plenty of turds out there that sound better with a professional master than well composed and arranged tracks made by a producer that doesn’t know what a compressor is.
Good point
some of my favorite tracks were made by producers who don't know what a compressor is.
Disagree. A good mix cannot make a bad song sound good. A bad mix can make a good song sound mediocre.
you’re entitled to your opinion but it’s wrong. imagine what a 2012 afrojack song would’ve sounded like completely unmixed.
chaos trash. actually 60% of big room house of that era is trash without a mix but it was the biggest music in edm of that era.
More people think your opinion is wrong than think mine is wrong.
All I'm saying is that a good mix can't turn a shittly-composed song into a good song. You're actually wrong on that one.
A well-composed song can be made worse/mediocre by a shitty mix.
Sure, a 2012 afrojack song would likely sound chaotic unmixed. Can some random bedroom producer turn out a banger of a song as long as they send it to a professional mixing and mastering engineer? I think you know the answer to that one.
yeah i do. it’s yes. break down what most big room songs were back in the day.
an 808 kick, a simple stabby square wave playing a nursery rhyme melody or a super high pitched single saw, and a pryda snare.
what actually turned it into mainstage edc music?
heavy compression, huge reverb, lots of stereo imaging, and slamming everything through a limiter.
i’m just using big room as the most obvious example because the composition was usually trash, there was no actual rhythm, and an entire climax could be made with 3 channels.
nothing about it is good musically and with no mixing effects at all, or mixing effects done sloppy, it will literally always sound like trash.
if it weren’t so late and i wasn’t so lazy i would hop into my studio right now and make a real world example.
an 808 kick, a simple stabby square wave playing a nursery rhyme melody or a super high pitched single saw, and a pryda snare.
what actually turned it into mainstage edc music?
heavy compression, huge reverb, lots of stereo imaging, and slamming everything through a limiter.
You're oversimplifying what created mainstage edc music back then. Creating compelling chord progressions and melodies is way more important than adding a bunch of heavy compression and slamming it through a limiter.
nothing about it is good musically and with no mixing effects at all, or mixing effects done sloppy, it will literally always sound like trash.
What you're wrong about here is that it takes competence and at least having a good ear to write a compelling melody and chord progression. There's a reason that Avicii was Avicii. Please give a little more credit to those that created some epic music. It wasn't because they just had good mixing and mastering engineers. Songwriting comes before all of that and is arguably more important.
if it weren’t so late and i wasn’t so lazy i would hop into my studio right now and make a real world example.
Why don't you make a banger tomorrow and have it be played at festivals this summer? You have the formula stated above so it should be easy right?
oh and also, you’re accusing me of downplaying how hard it is to play the notes to ‘itsy bitsy spider’ in a different order with a sylenth preset over an 808, but you’re giving that more credit than the 20 hours it takes of mixing to make that sound like a hit?
I mean, you can go ahead and see if 20 hours of mixing will make itsy bitsy spider in a different order over an 808 a hit. If you can find that different order that's iconic, that's the hard part. Obviously sound selection/design is important here too. Oh and drums. And arrangement. You totally could make a banger I'm sure. The mixing is an important part of the process, it's the final and one of the hardest steps for sure because it takes an incredible amount of patience and attention to detail.
But see - you're already talking about the importance of composition with the need to put itsy bitsy spider in a different order. Is a trap remix of Hot Crossed Buns going to be a hit just because it has an awesome mix? No, there are many other elements involved.
well for example, ‘animals’ was originally a scrapped project idea martin garrix made when he was like, 14 or something? then one day had writers block and started screwing around with it because, i think he showed it to axwell and he liked it?
then if i remember correctly his family spent like $50k to promote that song for him, and he was involved with all the other dutch guys so they spread it around, and boom. iconic hit.
almost none of this stuff happens organically. you’re in for a long rough ride if you’re hoping for a limelight career based on nothing but skill. you have to be stupid rich or stupid connected to give yourself a real fighting chance.
as far as a career in music? money aside, networking is the most important thing.
i never said those artists weren’t talented and couldn’t write songs. i’m saying there’s plenty of songs that are objectively not interesting not well thought out and not difficult that sound absolutely massive only because of the mix.
if you’re asking why i can’t just make a banger and have it played at all the major festivals, then i have to assume you haven’t been making music for a long time. even if i made the hottest drop of 2024 tomorrow, without major label support or a super lucky viral break out, it’ll get me a few thousand plays on soundcloud and forgotten by saturday.
there’s 500 hottest drops of 2024 dropping daily in every genre.
the dutch house wave happened because they have a super tight community so when one of them broke out, they took all their friends to the top with them. that’s why like every major dj was dutch from like 2010-2014.
i had my signed and touring producer career 10-15 years ago, and i just started fucking around and making music again a few months ago after 7 years off.
i wouldn’t put myself in the same league as basically any of the legends, but i was always decent at songwriting but didn’t get good at mixing and mastering til like 2 years in.
my structure and songwriting didn’t change much in my old trance career, but no one liked my music until i learned how to mix it.
and i also used to also crank out low effort 16 bar mastered loops just for quick instagram content and licensing for youtubers and twitch streamers.
the whole art of music production started with the mix.
without major label support or a super lucky viral break out, it’ll get me a few thousand plays on soundcloud and forgotten by saturday.
I won't deny that labels have influence and can definitely push tracks, but the environment has never been more conducive to a random DJ breaking out with a track with the way the platforms are set up. If your song is truly good, it will break out. DJs will want to play it in their sets, it will get played in mixes, and it will spread around. A legit song will spread far and wide on soundcloud if it's iconic. I've been deep on soundcloud for over a decade and have seen tons of success stories on there - Kygo, The Chainsmokers, Griz. They all gave their music out for free on SoundCloud and it spread like wildfire. Was their music mixed well? Yes, well enough to sound good to both producers and the average person. Community and pushing each other's music obviously helps. But Kygo was a random dude from Norway who knew how to make really catchy tropical house. He's obviously expanded since, but it was his good songwriting and theory that really got him anywhere. The mix mattered, but it wasn't the most important thing. Creating quality music obviously takes the right combination of everything - songwriting, arranging, sound design, mixing, mastering etc.
But I'll definitely die on the hill of songwriting/composition being the most important thing. This varies a bit by genre of course. A boring melody and chord progression cannot be saved by a good mix. The short that you shared had some iconic drops. Were some of them simplistic? Sure, but they were catchy, compelling, and provocative, they got the people going. A cheesy riff would not have done that just because it was mixed and mastered well.
The whole art of music production started with compositions being played by symphonies. It evolved from there and being able to create music with a computer accelerated that evolution at an exponential rate. The mix became an important aspect. It's all about balancing out the frequency spectrum. But I'll say it one last time and we can just agree to disagree on this - the composition/underlying theory comes first before the mix.
if your song is truly good it has a CHANCE to break out.
thousands of really talented producers release amazing tracks daily.
assuming one of those tracks has to break out and none of those producers have famous friends or major label backing, then the odds of that track being yours are still one in thousands.
i’m not saying i ever made anything worthy of a break out hit, and i generally agree with you that the most important thing as a music producer is making quality music (thus our debate right now as quality music can’t exist without a quality mix)
actually breaking out to an international level, assuming you do it totally organically without buying your way in like most major artists, or busting your ass networking forever, puts you at about the same odds as winning the lottery.
Thank you
Finishing tracks & songwriting skills.
If you get that down, you can make magic - music people enjoy - even while lacking much in the way of production/mixing skill.
Fellow artists often lazer-focus on mixing and sound design, both in what we listen to and what we talk about among each other. This is good overall, because it keeps those aspects of the art moving forward. But if you write music people enjoy using presets for synths/pads/bass and mostly loops for your beats, you've still got it. It's just that doing this well usually requires either some musical training or solid theory knowledge, or at the very least, time and effort put into learning an instrument.
FWIW, I've gotten arguably worse at making music since becoming a dramatically "better" producer in the technical sense. It's been almost 20 years, and at this point I seldom, if ever, find myself hearing a sound that I don't have the skills to whip up. That was the holy grail for me when I started out, and, woohoo, yay, I've got it now. But in focusing on that, I strayed away from writing interesting arrangements and melodies, and finishing as much music. Now, maybe, I'd be better suited as a sound design teacher at an audio school, than as an actual artist. If you want to do the latter, I'd stay focused on the latter, and not try not too get too focused on the gritty production details. That's my take, from my experience. YMMV and there are a million right answers to your question, and each person's production style is going to be different.
Thank you so much for your response. I’m a singer and have been writing my whole life so this resonates with me.
I resonate with this so much! Focus on songwriting!! Stop focusing on learning production techniques and focus on learning how to structure a song and make it connect with people emotionally
Yep. I listen to my old music and mainly feel two things:
Damn, this is actually really cool and different and totally uniquely me, why don't I make this anymore?
Holy smokes this is mixed badly, how was I this bad at making my drums sound good, and, just, where is the mid range!? etc...
My hope is that I can get back to where I was in terms of creativity and craft and songwriting, but now with the ability to make it sound good before I spend 40+ hours pointlessly tweaking things that actually make it worse, and then get bored and either release something terrible or just shelve the project. That's what I'm working on right now.
Who cares about these percentages just make music and then make more
Intentional actions based off tried and true principles I would argue would make one a far better producer than just making music. If you want to get your songs sounding like the pros, you gotta have the skills and knowledge they have. You may scoff at Parettos Principle but to what end? Is the 10,000 hr rule of thumb dumb? How about the Fibonacci sequence used by Tool and others?
I’m just saying because op said it’s a hobby lol I have tried everything to improve my sound over the years and nothing has been as successful as sitting at the daw and making shit even if it blows. That’s also how you learn what to work on…I’m not gonna schedule my production learning or use percentages to determine what to work on lol now if I wanted to be famous then yeah maybe but I’m a hobbyist so who cares…I make music so I can listen to it and dance in my car. My shit sucks I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who likes it hahahaha
You have valid points for sure. I just wanted to add my disclaimer about learning new stuff to better your game, which is easier with planning and execution. But if you love your shit and that’s all that matters, then rock on. Ultimately that’s what we all strive for, right? If you don’t care what other people think, then dope. If you do, then I stand by what I said
It means you give 80% of your income to someone else then give the other 20% to the tax man 😁
Ya fck the 20% or more like 1% owning the 99% of resources. I feel you.
it means it takes 20%of the work to get the first 80%of the song done. It takes the other. It takes 80% of the time to get that last 20% done.
This is so true for me. If I have a good idea and my sound design and selection goes smooth, I can bang out the arrangement in a couple of sessions. The fine-tuning, second-guessing, rearranging, accidentally fucking up, getting frustrated and rewriting a section, mixing, and mastering is definitely 80% of my effort going into 20% of the details, that probably 90% of listeners won't even care about.
Imo the best two answers. So the question should be what to focus on in the beginning (80/20) and which pitfalls to try to avoid at the end (20/80) in order to minimise this described second guessing. So your track is finished but not perfect (does not exist) after 20 % of the time or just a little more but not five times more.
Thanks for your input
While I can’t link these videos because of subreddit policy, if you search “the 80/20 of _____” you will find a series of such videos on YouTube designed specifically for music producers ;)
Mixing, sound design, finishing music.
I can do another topic or two for you if you like.
Great I’ll do this thanks!
the 20% that matters most is loading up a DAW regularly, making music, and finishing tracks.
everything else is supplementary
Thank you
Yep. Start a track and finish.
Oh you hate it now and think it sucks? Finish it anyways.
You learn things, you get faster and better. That way when you start a track and actually like it, it's just "muscle memory" to go through the rest of the process and finish the track you like.
If you finish a track and hate it, put it in a project folder called "Backburners" and let it simmer for a while. Next time you are frustrated with another project, or looking for something to do, just go through your backburners and see what sparks an interest.
A track I am finishing up right now is just a slightly re-written backburner project that I didn't like a couple years ago. Now it's shaping up to be one of the highest quality tracks I've made.
Great idea thank you
No problem. :)
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Good old 80/20, every management consultant's favorite!
If you're just starting out, I would say:
High value 20%:
The other 80%:
Ultimately, the more songs you complete from 0 - 100%, the better you'll get, and being able to move through the whole process A-Z without getting stuck and banging your head against a wall, then starting over and incorporating what you've learned so the next song is 5-10% better will lead to fast improvement.
Once you're effectively and consistently churning out decent sounding tracks , you can get into the other 80% of more hardware, plugins, sounds, etc. as well as polishing the details but you'll know exactly what you actually need and your search will be targeted.