Quantity vs quality - which is better?

In music production there is often a debate about Quality vs. Quantity in your tracks.

Some say you should focus on Quality.

Others say Quantity.

Which is it?

In reality, the answer depends on your current skills as a producer and what your goals are.

Here’s my take on it:

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Quantity Should Be The “Default” Mode For Any Producer. Here’s Why:

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1. Quantity Brings Quality:

You’ve probably heard this story before, but it’s worth re-sharing.

A pottery teacher divides their class into two groups.

Group 1 is tasked with finishing as many pots as possible.

Group 2 is tasked with finishing one pot of the highest quality possible.

The outcome?

Group 1 not only had many more pots to display but also resulted in certain pots that were of higher quality than Group 2.

The lesson is clear: Quantity leads to Quality.

But why?

It’s because you can only understand what “quality” is, or how to get there, through the repetition of finishing works.

Every time you finish a work, it gives your brain the ability to reflect and wonder how you could have done it better.

You can then apply these lessons to the next track.

Do this over and over, and eventually you are making quality… while still making quantity.

Which leads to point 2.

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2. Quantity Builds Your Portfolio of Work, Which Is Your #1 Asset:

As you finish, there will be tracks that stand out more than others.

As you progress in skill through finishing, these tracks will happen more and more often.

These tracks then go into your portfolio of work - and your portfolio of work is everything as a producer.

It is the gasoline in your engine of progress. You use it to:

Grow Your Fanbase: If you don’t have a growing body of work to listen to, what reason would someone have to be your fan or follow you?
Secure Placements: How can you build an income through placements if you don’t have a portfolio of work to pitch?
Attract Clients: If someone can’t hear your previous work and what you are capable of, why would they hire or collaborate with you?
Repurpose into Content: What you finish has so many nuggets inside to share in multiple forms of content.
Measure Your Progress: How do you know if you are improving if you don’t have anything to look back on?
Give Yourself or Your Family a Gift As You Age: This one you realize after you’ve been creating for many years. As you listen back to music you made, it’s easy to get emotional and realize how far you’ve come, or appreciate what you were making at that time, no matter what it sounds like. It’s also something you get to leave to your family, who can always remember or connect with you through the work that was uniquely yours - no matter what its “quality” was.

Which leads to point 3.

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3. Quality Is Subjective and Hard to Define - Quantity Isn’t

At first thought, it’s easy to think that “Quality” is just whatever we are hearing in the most popular playlists at the moment.

And this is one metric of quality.

But it’s not always the best measuring stick for two important reasons.

If what you are hearing in these playlists is something you cannot hope to create with your current skills, then shooting for that level of “quality” is a self-defeating task. You are setting a trap for yourself where you will go in loops, wading in the slums of self-doubt and overwhelm while finishing almost nothing.
Quality is subjective on so many levels:
1. First, it is subjective based on your own current skills. Learn to aim for what is quality for you based on your current body of work and goals.
2. Second, everyone has a different definition of “quality.” Your weirdest, worst-sounding tracks might be the ones you look back on with the most affection - and your most commercial-sounding, successful tracks might be the ones you roll your eyes at as boring and derivative. So which track was the “quality” one? It depends on who you ask.

So instead of shooting for quality, I suggest simply finding ways to reliably inspire yourself and better articulate what you hear in your head into the DAW.

Then do it over and over again, leaving a prolific trail of works behind you as you go.

Once again, the path of quantity.

Because quantity is easy to define - it goes “up” with every finished track, which gives us a clear progress marker.

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But When Do We Make The Case For “Quality?”

Only when we have a specific definition of what that means, based on the outcome we want from the track.

Here are three examples:

If you are making music for someone, and they have given you a clear reference with goals they want to achieve, we can now assign this sound and these goals as the metric of “quality.” Great, let’s shoot for the highest quality possible, using this as our measuring stick.
If you are making an album of music that will be used for a specific end goal - like action music for sports shows - you have a clear goal and outcome. You can now use this emotion and other similar tracks that have been successfully used for this purpose as your metric of “quality.”
You’ve made so many tracks - or have deepened your connection with music so much - that you now have a clear sense of what you want to achieve or say in your music. This is now your own personal compass of quality. To me, this is what realized artists do. They have developed this internal compass and the skills to realize the vision often through their previous practice of quantity.

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In Reality, Quantity vs. Quality is a Sliding Scale

In the beginning, you should focus much more on quantity.

Quantity will develop your skills more than anything else and give you that body of work to use for many reasons.

As you get better, you can shift more towards quality because you will have better ways to clearly define what that is based on your goals.

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In the end, don’t trick yourself into thinking it is ultimately one or the other. ****

It is both.

Just ask yourself which is more important for you at this moment of your development and with your current goals.

And if in doubt… I suggest you go for quantity.