Ultimately, we all want our music to sound unequivocally like our music: immediately recognisable as produced by us, through its compositional themes, production style, implementation of genre tropes and so on. You might assume that achieving this goal is easier said than done, but in fact, when it comes to the arts, our inherent human inclination is towards uniqueness, and by keeping a few simple pointers in mind, you can allow that inclination to help you find and maintain your musical identity.

Do Your Thing…

Perhaps the best advice we can offer for developing your own sound is to simply be yourself – take that as an overriding principle that sits on top of all that follows. What we mean by ‘being yourself’ is having belief and trust in your creative instincts, rather than doing things just because you’ve heard or read that they should be done a certain way. To give a crude example, it might be received wisdom to keep the vocal central in the stereo field, but if you prefer it off to one side, don’t be afraid to put it there.

Equally importantly, get familiar with your inner critic. Often, you’ll know deep down that some compositional or production element in progress isn’t quite right and probably never will be, no matter how long you hammer away at it for. Instead of letting the offending part slide in the hope that it’ll somehow be alright in the mix, ditch it and do something else instead.

…But Let Your Influences Influence You

The notion of striving to be yourself, musically, but at the same time letting your artistic influences steer you might seem contradictory, but it really isn’t. We can’t help but be shaped by all the music we’ve loved throughout our lives, and its that confluence of inspiration that primarily establishes ‘your sound’. Obviously, we’re not for one moment suggesting that you should consciously and blatantly rip off any of your heroes, but don’t be resistant to their sway when you hear it emerging in your own work.

Make Lots Of Music

The more tracks you produce, the more refined and, indeed, defined your personal sound will become. This happens through a combination of technical improvement – enabling you to more easily and accurately transfer the sounds in your head to your DAW – and the long term, ongoing discovery of the sorts of themes, instrumentations and energies that naturally find their way into your tracks, based on your tastes and influences.

Also, rather than deleting projects that don’t work out, archive them on a spare hard drive (complete with rendered stems and/or individual tracks in case future DAW updates or missing plugins break compatibility with them). Listening back to pieces you made years ago can be a useful exercise, revealing how your sound has matured; and you might even come across something ripe for revisiting with your broadened skillset and fresh perspective.

Don’t Stress Over Genre Definitions

This one is mostly aimed at electronic and dance music producers who might find themselves befuddled by the seemingly infinite subgenres of house, bass music and all the rest of them, and consequently worried that their own tracks don’t fit neatly into any of them. Rather than allow this strange anxiety to get to you, why not let other people – your listeners – decide what category your tunes fit into? And if it turns out they truly are out in a field of their own, congratulations – you’re a trend setter!

Of course, it’s true that genre specifics can matter in terms of targeting media for editorial/advertising coverage and reviews, but if a given track feels like it sits at the centre of the Venn diagram for three or four styles, just approach the relevant outlets for all of them.

Let Your Gear Play Its Part

Whether you’re working in recording-based or purely electronic production, the equipment you use has a profound impact on your sound, so consider your choices in this area carefully. If you’re doing a lot of recording, experiment with as many different microphones, preamps, compressors and EQs as you can get your hands on, to find out which best suits the character of vocals, guitars, pianos, etc, that you’re looking to elicit. A carefully thought-out ‘signature’ channel strip will make a massive contribution to your overall sound.

For electronic music, don’t overwhelm yourself with plugin synths and effects – seek out a few of each that you really feel an affinity for, and get to know them inside out. And having suggested throwing genre boundaries to the wind earlier, if you’re making dance music, you will probably want to stay in the safe sound design space for the general style in which you’re operating, by and large: Serum and/or Massive for EDM, for example; Korg and Roland emulations for house and techno; an 808 of some kind for… well, pretty much everything these days!

Related to that, don’t forget to save your own synth and effects patches and racks out as discrete presets, rather than only storing them within the DAW projects for which they were originally created. That way, you’ll quickly build up a library of tones and sounds that you can proudly call your own.

Become A Master Of Mastering

For those who really want to take control of their sound, the ability to master your mixes yourself using highly effective software solutions such as iZotope Ozone 9 and IK Multimedia T-RackS is a godsend (Checkout our article How To Master A Song With Ozone 9) . Now you can be the sole producer and arbiter of your own music, from composition all the way to final master – as long as you know what you’re doing…

Yes, with great power comes great responsibility, and if you’re going to forego the proven benefits of hiring a professional mastering engineer, you’d better be fully confident in your skills. As with everything else in music production, getting good at mastering largely comes down to experience and practise, so take time to get to know your mastering software, run your developmental masters past other producers whose ears you trust, and, crucially, listen to their feedback, with the caveat that you don’t have to slavishly act on it if it compromises your particular sonic vision.

What do you do to ensure that your sound stays true to your artistic ideals? Let us know in the comments.

Photos by Techivation on Unsplash and Daniel Peters from Pixabay