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- The Daily Draft Club Breakdown
A few months ago I came across a story about how Duke Dumont writes music.
His system was simple: make 30 drafts in 30 days. Then take a month off, revisit everything, and pick the best ones to finish.
That idea stuck with me.
I have plans to drop a new house influenced Grey Zone DJ mix this year and I want all the tracks to be either “Brenmar” remixes, edits, or originals but I’ve been moving slow.
Like real slow.
So I made a decision…
Instead of trying to fix my pace, I created a forcing function:
I’d run my own version of Duke’s method.
And if anyone else wanted to join, cool. I’d open it up.
On a whim, I mentioned it in this newsletter and on socials.
$79 to join. No fancy funnel. No website. No testimonials.
Just a simple promise:
“30 drafts in 30 days. Beat overthinking and overworking tracks. Make more music in a month than you might in a year.”
9 producers signed up.
“Oh shit,” I thought. “This just got real.”
I called it The Daily Draft Club.
But would it actually work?
I thought everyone would drop off after Week 2.
I figured people would start strong but lose momentum over time.
They didn’t.
Everyone showed up. Week after week.
By the end of the sprint most of the producers confirmed that this was the most music they had created in such a short amount of time.
What surprised me most wasn’t just the volume of ideas but this…
Almost everyone realized they had been overworking average ideas and pouring hours into tracks that probably weren’t worth finishing.
This sprint flipped that.
By focusing on speed, constraint, and quantity…people finally gave themselves permission to just make.
To explore. To play.
No pressure to finish.
No pressure to impress.
Just raw creative output.
The 2-Hour Draft Rule
Each week was broken up by certain lessons extracted from my 20+ years of producing music.
One rule I shared and encouraged others to try was this:
Two hours max per draft. Then stop.
It didn’t matter if the track was amazing or blah, at the two-hour mark, you bounce the draft and drop it into the Discord.
This limit did two things:
It forced decisiveness. You learn to find the vibe quickly and commit to it.
It killed perfectionism. You can’t endlessly tweak.
And here’s the real secret:
Two hours is usually enough.
If you can’t feel the core of the idea by then, it’s probably time to move on.
If you can feel it, it’s already doing its job. You’ve got something potentially worth coming back to.
Now that the sprint is over, I’m sitting on a collection of 15 drafts.
(Shout out to Starya and half.hour for hitting 23!)
Some of the drafts I love.
Some I don’t.
But all of them were necessary and there are many I can’t wait to finish.
So… will I run this again?
I’ve had a few people ask.
Honestly, I don’t know.
Running this cohort was dope, but it was also a commitment.
Outside of personal life goals mentioned in last weeks newsletter…I want to refine some of these drafts and work on my new Grey Zone mix.
That said, this process worked.
The community was real.
The constraints unlocked creativity.
The draft tracker kept us accountable.
And everyone left with proof that they’re capable of more than they thought.
So maybe this is just the beginning.
Or maybe this was a one-off experiment.
Time will tell.
Brenmar
PS: If you'd want to be notified in case I ever run The Daily Draft Club again, just reply and let me know. No pressure.
• Shoutout to Bruckner to putting me onto this dope site for your unreleased music.
• Really interesting use of A.I. for music production. I’m going to try it.
• If you’re feeling “blocked” in certain areas of you life, this video might help.
