being "retired" though not officially until nov at 66 and a half nearly, i have had time last 5 years due to covid shutting down uk retail music shop where i worked 20 years. Took redundancy and decided really needed to get back into music making, grandson took up music so Tuned up the piano gave him my touring EP casio and viola! Found Mastering com and Kompoz.com and the amount of tracks I have contributed to was approx 60 per year starting jan 2024. Some made it weirdly onto streaming platforms but that is not my aim. Being classcial trained piano I "orchestrate" = "production"? I hear a track I may want to contribute to, and immediate hear the instrumetns and sections and riffs! If not I move on.

also managed to turn some of my poetry into sort of lyrics and compose some classical and "pop" tunes as well. Keenly follw the FTm freebies on mastering and learn so much.

i have sampletank amplitube modo bass drums tracks and a basic free resing one (though never used)k fender cs. There is better than miroslav orch though

try kompoz.com is free tier to join but can only uploade mp3 to projects which you can join unlimited ones. your own is limited to 3 per year unless you go to first paid tier. That is more credits to creat a track and you can upload wav files. Loads of very good musicians out there and some really great USA vocalists anywher from nashville country sound onward, clean smooth vox etc. We have a radio page for publishing internally so you see what goes on in every genre. Sometimes they get out onto streaming as well!

@Eric LaRue world wide Literally! I work with usa south america europe africa australia new zealand singapore japan from my desktop. As I said above free to join. u get 3 free porjects to make yourself but limited to mp3 upload. Post help wanted ie bass drums etc and you will get submissions as wavs. You can join unlimite other ppls collabs by submitting tracks. if paid member you uploade wavs not just mp3.

4th gen 2i2 works great my nord 6 electro stereo in but also have midi in for that as well as midi in for rolad xp10 synth. Use cakewalk sonar free version and use focal pro for recording and ollo x1 mis master

From a classical trained piano and school teacher, "producing" is sort of like orchestration ie what intstruments when and where in the orchestra or "classical" sound anything from bach, beethoven chopin to modern comp using theremin and ondes martenot jean michel jarre like. I hear instrumentation on tracks when I listen to a track looking for keys strings or anything etc. Expanding my range fromo honky tonk scott joplin, sound tracks, metal hard rock, country gospel so it really pushes my boundaries! even writing lyrics and some songs myself