Consistency and Authenticity with Mikas of We Make Dance Music - Music Production Podcast #369

 

 

Mikas is the creator of We Make Dance Music, a site of music resources for producers. On his podcast, Live Electronic Music Tutorials with Mikas, he creates tracks in real-time, sharing tips and techniques along the way. The result of each episode becomes a template viewers can purchase on WeMakeDanceMusic.com. 

This is the second time Mikas and I spoke on the Music Production Podcast. Immediately I was reminded of his passion and impressive work ethic. As a new father, Mikas discussed the importance of staying consistent and scheduling time to work on his music career. He spoke about how we can take small actions regularly to complete major goals. Mikas also had some powerful thoughts on authenticity and honesty in art and how that can lead to deeper connections with your audience.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube

Takeaways:

  • Consistency and dedication are key in pursuing creative endeavors.

  • Limited time can increase productivity and focus.

  • Focusing on strengths while working on weaknesses can lead to better results.

  • Learning and growing as an artist is important, regardless of experience.

  • Daily practice and challenges like Jamuary can lead to significant progress.

  • Platforms like We Make Dance Music provide opportunities for musicians to make a living.

  • Community and collaboration are important in the music industry. Success is the result of intentional action and consistent effort.

  • Putting in the work and showing up consistently is more important than waiting for inspiration or relying on luck.

  • Building relationships and connections requires effort and vulnerability, but it can lead to meaningful experiences and personal growth.

  • Real, tangible experiences are important in a world dominated by technology.

  • Taking breaks and engaging in physical activities can help maintain focus and perspective.

  • Honesty, authenticity, and providing value to others are key in building meaningful relationships.

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Consistency & Authenticity: How Mikas of We Make Dance Music Finishes More Tracks

In this episode of Brian Funk’s Music Production Podcast, Mikas — founder of WeMakeDanceMusic.com and host of the “Live Electronic Music Tutorials” series, where he builds full tracks in real time — returns to talk about the part of production nobody plugs in: the workflow, rituals, and mindset that actually get music finished. Across 345 live episodes he has turned consistency into a system, and here he breaks down how he does it.

What you’ll learn

  • How to schedule a session in advance and commit to a specific genre before you sit down
  • The pre-session ritual Mikas uses to drop into a creative flow state
  • Running a daily-track challenge (Jamuary) as deliberate practice
  • Playing to your strengths in composition, sound design, mixing, and arrangement while shoring up weak spots
  • Stepping outside your home genre on purpose to grow as a producer
  • Using breaks and movement to protect focus and finish more music

1. Schedule the session and lock the genre

Mikas treats production like a job with an appointment. He writes the session into his calendar in advance and commits to a specific genre — “today I’m going to make a minimal techno track.” He prefers writing it on paper, because once the intention is concrete it starts forming in the background of his mind before he ever opens the DAW. The idea has to exist on paper first; then it germinates like a seed.

2. Build a pre-session ritual

Before he records, Mikas runs a deliberate ritual: he listens to a few reference tracks in the target genre to absorb the instrumentation and chord vocabulary, then takes a shower, gets dressed, and focuses on exactly what the track will need. The point is to concretize the elements — drums, pads, percussion, a synth or two — before composing, so that when he finally plays the keys the ideas flow instead of stalling.

3. Let it flow, but only after the prep

Once the session starts, Mikas drops the agenda and lets the track come out almost subconsciously. He’s clear this is not magic — it took hundreds of episodes of practice before he could reliably land a usable idea inside 30 minutes. The flow state is earned by the ritual and the reps, not waited for.

4. Run a daily-track challenge

Both Mikas and Brian credit daily practice — the “Jamuary” style challenge of making one piece of music every single day — as the single biggest driver of progress. There’s no quality bar; you just show up and produce something. Mikas did 70 podcast episodes in a row and made what he calls immense musical progress, precisely because some days are throwaway experiments where you trust your instincts and see what happens.

5. Play to your strengths, patch your weaknesses

Mikas frames a finished track as the sum of four skills: composition, sound design, mixing/engineering, and arrangement. His strengths are sound design and mixing; composition came slower. The trick is to lean on what you do well to carry a track while you steadily improve the weaker areas — or collaborate with someone who covers your gap. He also stresses a reliable monitoring setup with decent acoustics so you can trust what you’re hearing.

6. Leave your genre on purpose

After going deeper and deeper into progressive trance, Mikas made a full ambient album out of the blue — and it became one of his most successful releases. Deliberately venturing into a different style and then returning to your home genre, he argues, unlocks ideas you’d never have found otherwise. Growth also means staying a beginner: 24 years into producing, he started formal music-theory lessons to add richer chord movement and emotion to his writing.

7. Choose intention over inspiration

The recurring theme is that big things are built from many small, intentional actions. Mikas doesn’t wait to be struck by lightning — he schedules the work, prepares, shows up, and does his best, treating the audience’s reaction as secondary to the work itself. Like getting on base three times out of ten in baseball, a few good tracks out of every ten attempts is a strong hit rate when you keep swinging.

8. Take breaks to protect the work

Focused production is mentally intensive, and Mikas caps deep sessions before fatigue starts degrading earlier decisions — roughly the ninety-minute mark, often sooner. He breaks the session with movement: a few sets at the gym next door, gardening, or a walk. Stepping away resets perspective so you return to the track from the other side of the problem.

Want to make tracks like this? This conversation is about process rather than a single template, but Mikas builds finished project files in his live tutorial series — explore the full library of templates and sample packs at WeMakeDanceMusic.com to start producing along.