Are you a producer or musician? Productivity is an integral part of your life, because it can make or break your career. Having so many distractions and a fast-paced lifestyle, devoting enough time to all the things that need attention can be challenging.
Here are 8 productivity tools and tips for producers and musicians that will help you get back on track!
1. TheoryBoard
A TheoryBoard is a MIDI controller that teaches you music theory and helps create compositions by combining the magic of color and sound. With these functions, your musical life will be easy to manage, no matter what level of experience you have with playing music.
The tool has been designed to simplify the process for beginners and experts who need some assistance writing new songs or learning more about scales used in different genres. Not only can users select from any scale required, but they also gain full access to every note and chord within that particular scale, which makes things even easier.
The TheoryBoard is also a perfect tool for both music producers and music composers who are either learning or polishing their skills. Learning more about music theory, generating new ideas, and polishing your skills can help you boost productivity in any musical field.
2. Saent
Saent is a smart device and application for macOS that helps you focus on your work. It blocks distractions at the click of a button, while also encouraging realistic goals to build effective habits and improve productivity in general.
With the Focus button, you can set a time period of uninterrupted work. It will block distractions like applications and websites for this amount of time to help your productivity. It also produces bright light to warn people around you not to distract you.
The Saent application learns about your work life and rhythm with frequent usage, making it more efficient with subsequent use. If you cannot get rid of distractions in the studio, this gadget might be your productivity savior.
Download: Saent for Mac (Free)
3. Evernote
Evernote is a free note-taking application that collects and stores everything you might think of, including texts, pictures, videos, and audio recordings. This application can help you track gig notes, music changes, lyrics, song ideas, and collaborations in the studio.
It backs up all your notes to the cloud, allowing you to access them from anywhere. In addition, it offers you a tagging system for easy search, and most importantly, it helps you connect to other applications like Gmail, Instagram, and Twitter, to mention a few.
The ease of use, accessibility, and integration capabilities offered by Evernote will boost your productivity and keep you organized in the studio.
Download: Evernote for PC | Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
4. Editor’s Keys
Producers cannot function without editing keyboards. You can get Editor’s keyboards in both wired and wireless versions. Also, some come with a removable rubber overlay, a perfect choice for you if you are always on the move.
The right choice of this gadget will improve your productivity tenfold because it is available in different versions with graphics, videos, and photos related to editing suitable for producers with varying levels of creativity.
5. Sheet Music Scanner
Sheet music is music notation on a sheet of paper used by musicians or producers as a record or guide on how to perform a piece of music. If you don't know how to read music notation or are constantly using sheet music, you can make your work easier by using an application called “sheet music scanner” that scans and plays the music for you.
After downloading the application, scan the sheet music, and it plays the music for you at your preferred speed and accompanying instrument. What’s more, this application recognizes PDFs and photos of sheet music.
Download: Sheet Music Scanner for iOS ($3.99) | Android ($4.49)
6. ToneDen
ToneDen is an automated social media marketing platform that allows you to reach new customers, build long-lasting relationships and get more sales. With the power of social media today, it is important to leverage all opportunities to market your music, and most importantly, to the right audience. ToneDen helps you achieve this.
You can use TonDen to help with advertising and access a number of powerful tools, including dynamic events, RSVP campaigns, and Google Ads integration for events on search. This lets users combine different strategies, such as Facebook pre-saves and Messenger activation.
7. Trello
Trello is a ‘highly visual’ work management application for planning your work and collaborating with your teammates. It's designed to track team projects in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way. Using Trello, you can highlight upcoming tasks, show who they are assigned to, and track its progress towards completion.
Trello uses boards, lists, and cards. Within each board are several lists that can be marked as to do, in progress, and done. Individual cards within each list hold the details of a specific task and can be moved from one list to the other. A big part of Trello’s appeal is its easy-to-use versatility when integrating with other applications such as Slack or Gmail directly from Trello.
Trello is useful for creating detailed to-do lists for your next big idea, upcoming tours, or your next album release. You can also choose to organize personal tasks or collaborate with your team in real-time.
8. Vitamin-R
Vitamin-R is a productivity application that helps you focus on completing your work in time.
It works by first describing your task, then eliminating any distractions by setting which apps to close or hide while you are working. Finally, you select a time for the job, called a ‘time slice’ depending on how long the task needs to get done. Once the task is completed, you can either start a new job or go on a break.
At the end of a week or month, you can view your progress and achievements, thus helping you build a strong work ethic in time and project management. It's available for $14.95 from the developer or the Mac App Store and is easy to use. It also has a 30-days free trial version with a money-back guarantee.
Download: Vitamin-R for ($27.95)
Become More Productive Today
With so many distractions around us, it is easy to visit the studio and then go home without achieving anything. This might be because you wasted your day on social media, were fatigued, could not read the sheet music, or could not figure out what to do!
However, you can set realistic goals and get things done within the right time frame amid all these challenges with these tools.
