Why is speed so important for producers?

Speed sounds like a producer's vanity metric, the sort of thing people mention when they want you to know how prolific they are. In practice it matters for a much duller reason: the industry runs on windows, and windows close.

An artist is working on a project for a defined stretch. An A&R is looking for a specific thing this month and something else next month. A reference request that lands on Tuesday is often worth nothing by the following Tuesday, not because the work got worse but because the session it was for already happened. Being the best option two weeks late is identical, from where they sit, to not answering.

Why it compounds

The second reason is compounding. A producer who finishes ideas quickly accumulates far more finished material per year, and finished material is the only kind that can be sent anywhere. Two producers of equal ability where one finishes twice as often do not end up twice as far apart, they end up much further, because every finished beat is another chance to be in the right inbox at the right moment.

This is not an argument for rushing

None of this is an argument for rushing the work. It is an argument for removing everything in the process that is not the work, which for most producers starts with how long it takes to find something to start from.

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