My 10th FAWM is over and once again I've (somehow) managed to do 14+ songs in 28 days (technically 16 in 27 this year). Every year I wonder if I can do it. The self-doubt never goes away, even after writing over 150 songs in those 10 years, all during a February, I still have that little voice of doubt inside.
Now that it's all but over, I've been thinking of the things I still don't know how to do and focusing on that, because I have constant imposter syndrome and (when it comes right down to it) never think anything I do is good enough. So massive thanks to @caseewilson for posing the question, "What did you learn?"
There are a lot of great answers on that thread. I'm not sure how many active FAWMers there are this year, or how many manage to "win" (do 14+ songs), but that forum post shows you that there are artists from all different styles, locations, and levels of experience, and we're all learning. Luckily, that's my favorite thing in the world.
So here's what I learned. I learned to:
FOCUS.
The vast majority of my tracks fall into the downtempo / chill out genre this time. Still a few that fall outside of those boundaries but I've made probably the most cohesive album of the 10 years I've done this.
EDIT.
Pretty much all my stuff this time around is 4-5 minutes, and while it could still use some editing here and there, I feel most tracks are tighter than normal.
STEAL.
I'm not good enough to steal properly, which is probably why it sounds different than what I'm ripping off, but then it's not stealing I guess?
PATCH.
I got into modular synthesis almost two years ago but "dancing on fire" is the first song I've done that's 100% modular (all but drums were sequenced in Ableton but that's about it).
MASTER.
Better than before at least. Gotten much better with using compression / a limiter, still not great with EQ.
BE PATIENT.
To echo @cblack - yes. This was the hardest of all. I always put a *lot* of time into my first track but after that, there might be one or two that I give that much attention to how it sounds at the end (mostly mixing / mastering). This year, starting with my second song, I realized if I just put one or two more hours into every track, it would make a huge difference. This resulted in me spending arguably more time than ever before in the studio, 27 days straight with an average of about 4 hours a day working on or listening to others' tracks.
And I honestly learned to love what I do (and the ones who enable me to do it) just a little more.
