Are you ready to make the music you were born to make? 90 days. 13 lessons. One finished album. The advanced Producer Dojo playbook, taught by ill.Gates.
Taught by ill.Gates · 60M+ streams · 275 tracks · 1,000+ shows
Listen: I’ve been there. I’ve struggled and failed, I’ve procrastinated and missed deadlines, I’ve been depressed and confused and alone. This is a normal part of learning how to make music and to some extent it’s inevitable. It doesn’t have to go on forever. The rough part only takes as long as you let it take. It can take the rest of your life, or it can end today.
You know there is music in you. You hear it in your head while you’re awake and you dream about it when you’re asleep. You love listening to music and can’t imagine life without it. It lifts you up when you’re down and brings you highs better than any drug.
But when you try to finish your own music, that passion starts turning sour. You compare your work to the work of your heroes and you wonder why you even bother.
Sessions sound amazing the night before but sound awful in the morning.
Plugins and sample packs sound awesome on YouTube but once you load them up they fall flat. Your expensive gear is collecting dust. Your hard drive is full of tools you never use. And your WIP folder is splitting at the seams.
“I’ll never be THAT good, maybe I should just give up?”
That was me. For years.
Here’s the truth nobody wants to tell you.
But without the right system, you’re spinning your wheels.
This is IT, our finest hour has ARRIVED. The Crucible is the fully private, elite-level course I’ve been DYING to make since the Dojo started. No more holding back or slowing down to accommodate the rookies. This one is JUST for US.
Record daily jams. Play the DAW like a modular synthesizer. Generate happy accidents you’ll harvest later. By the end of month one, you have raw material. You also have a daily habit. Let the music write itself.
Compose 14 song ideas in 28 days. No joke. The Crucible pulls the songs right out of you. Month 2 is all-new advanced Dojo recipes. Taste the forbidden knowledge I’ve been holding back.
One full month dedicated to Mixing, Mastering, and Finishing. The skills every producer avoids. You leave Crucible with a body of finished work, not another WIP folder.
What good is going down the rabbit hole if you never escape?
Finishing is everyone’s weak point. The Crucible dedicates one full month to Mixing, Mastering, and Finishing.
You’ll get everything you need to finish the album.
An album.
The kind you can point someone to at a party and say “yeah, I made that.”
You are your habits. The only way you can be a musician is if you’re in the habit of making music. These 13 lessons exist to install that habit. From the first raw jam to the final master, week by week, grouped into three phases: Jamming, Creating, Finishing. By Week 12, you’re releasing.
Set up your daily-jam habit. Record now, judge later. The habit is the system.
Turn every sound in your life into raw material. The world becomes your sample library.
Play the DAW like a modular synth. Happy accidents on tap.
Breathe life into static loops. Motion is the secret that makes music feel alive.
From loop to song idea. The bridge most producers never cross.
Which ideas live, which ones die. Kill your darlings fast.
Make three completely different versions of a stuck project by remixing yourself. Speed-remixing ‘stuck’ tracks means easy gains and dubs forever.
Advanced arrangement moves. The forbidden recipes I save for students who are ready.
Get it over the line and under the clock.
The OG Dry Mixing technique that spawned ‘Clip to Zero’.
EQ and saturation as instruments, not repair tools.
Reverb, delay, stereo. The 3D of a mix.
Master, finalize, release. Album done. Album shipped.
Every download ill.Gates personally uses. Load them up and you're working with the same toolkit used on tracks with 60M+ streams.
Every week comes with a project file, an assignment, and written feedback in the community. The work is the point.
Here's what Crucible grads are saying about their 90 days in the fire.
"My WIP folder used to be pathological. 90 days later I had a finished album."
"Sessions used to sound amazing at night and awful in the morning. Crucible fixed that. Now I trust my ears."
"The weekly assignments killed my 'I'll work on it later.' Friday deadlines every week for 13 weeks. Can't unsee the pattern now."
"I'd tried three other online courses. Crucible is the first one where I actually finished what I started."
"Dylan and the senseis met me where I was. I came in advanced and they still taught me things I didn't know I didn't know."
Who's in your corner.
Your success is ill.Gates's success.
The Producer Dojo system has worked thousands of times before. Your album is next.
20 years · 60+M streams · 275 tracks · 1,000+ shows
My name is ill.Gates and I'm like the opposite of a Gatekeeper. Unlocking and sharing musical secrets is what I do.
I've racked up 58 million plays on over 300 songs, including collaborations with the winners of 10 Grammys, and made music for Star Wars and GTA5. My past students and collaborators include Apashe, G Jones, Illenium, Mr. Bill, Beats Antique, Eprom, Pretty Lights, Daily Bread, and Dr Fresch. Grammy nominee Damian Taylor (producer of Bjork, The Prodigy, The Killers, and Arcade Fire) even used my Moog sub multisamples on all his Grammy-nominated albums.
I've been DJing since I was 13. Performing is what I do. What I've always done. What I will never stop doing. Music runs through my veins. It's what fuels me. 1,000+ shows on 5 continents, still slayin' it on the daily.
I also teach. Built the world's first Ableton DJ Templates in 2006. Invented 'Mudpies' in 2008. Built '128s' in 2010. Founded Producer Dojo in 2016 with one mission: launch 1,000 music careers. 300+ consecutive weeks of live classes since. No breaks. No vacations. Guest lectures at Berklee College of Music, NYU, the Ableton Education Summit, and Ableton's 'One Thing'. Over 1,000 producers trained. My 128s-style wavetables ship with Serum 2, the world's most popular synth.
I spent 20 years designing the Dojo to be the most engaging, most effective, and most efficient home base for producers. The place I wish I'd had coming up.
The Crucible is the 90-day album making challenge. 13 lessons. 3 phases. One album, finished.
I've worked with the best of the best, and I saw where the rest went astray. I studied both failure and success, tested method after method, and designed this course in collaboration with real musicians just like you.
Now it's your turn.
Featured producers from the Dojo who came up through the system. The roster you’re training alongside.
House and Techno producer who approaches music as an Audio Alchemist. Calibrate and create. Here for the teachable student who wants to work hard.
Ableton
An Ableton Maestro specializing in Composition, Arrangement, Mixing, Layering, and Detailing. Fast-paced lessons that teach speed, control, and fluency in the DAW.
Ableton
Ten years producing across genres, mostly bass music for the last four. Helps you grow as an experimental bass producer and add creative, tasteful intention to your arrangements.
Ableton
Jungle, footwork, glitch-hop, halftime. Released with Hospital Records, Black Marble Collective, and Producer Dojo. Helps students clarify intentions and distill goals into repeatable methods.
Ableton
Over 30 years producing. Learn from his mistakes. Covers cutting-edge production AND the psychological side of making music, so you stay productive AND positive.
Ableton
Former physicist, now makes and teaches music. Loves nerdy technicals (sound design, modular, theory) AND the abstract (inspiration, workflow).
Ableton
Featured by EDM.com, Electric Hawk, Conscious Electronic. Heavy and uplifting bass music. Helps you find the quickest, easiest ways to get what's inside, out.
FL Studio
Passionate about leveling up producers who know their tools to express themselves freely. DAW-agnostic approach focused on why/when to apply techniques. Can also deep-dive Ableton shortcuts.
AbletonHere’s the thing I geek out on: people who transform their lives. It’s inspiring.
It reminds us we have the power to change our lives at almost every level. That’s the beauty of free will. You have the power to make a decision and remix your own life.
But we don’t make decisions rationally. We make them emotionally.
We all have a metaphorical demon inside. It gives us terrible advice all day and makes us say things about ourselves we would NEVER be mean enough to say to another person. This demon feeds on fear and shits poison.
Your job is to slay it by choosing love. Love for the music. Love for the process. Love for the person you’re becoming. Face every choice as a choice between fear and love, and it gets a lot easier to see through the demon.
There’s a book by hospice nurse Bronnie Ware called The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying. She asked dying patients what they regretted. You’d assume they’d regret the things they’d done. They didn’t.
They regretted the things they hadn’t done. Much more acutely. It’s easier to forgive ourselves for making mistakes than it is to forgive the lack of initiative.
No more holding back. No more slowing down for the rookies. This one is for producers who are done dabbling.
Single payment. No subscription. No hidden upsells after checkout.
$499 ÷ 90 days = ~$5.54 a day. Less than your morning coffee.
And you keep it forever. No subscription. Free updates for life.
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. If The Crucible isn't everything I promise, email support and get a full refund. No hoops.
Show up. Watch the classes. Do the assignments. If 30 days in, The Crucible isn't delivering what I promised, email support and get every dollar back. No phone calls. No hassle. No weird cancellation hoops.
The Crucible is hard. Finishing an album in 90 days is on you. But the system itself, the workshops, the recipes, the community, the feedback? That I can guarantee. If it isn't here, neither is your money.
The only risk is staying stuck.
Every course in the Producer Dojo catalog is available individually. Or get everything with an Annual Membership.
Finish music you’re proud of.
Beginner
Find your style.
Intermediate
Sound like yourself.
Intermediate
Get your sound pro.
IntermediateThe Album Challenge.
Advanced5 courses × $499 = $2,495 individually.
Or get everything with an Annual Membership.
SAVE $996 with Annual · that’s EXTRA 40% OFF
Every course, every tool, every resource. For less than the price of three courses bought separately.
IMAGINE how it's going to feel when you cross those goals off the calendar on your wall.
IMAGINE how you'll feel when your friends hear your progress and say, "Damn. What have you been DOING?"
IMAGINE how you'll feel knowing you're living a life authentic to your OWN values, setting your own rules, and living up to your own measure.
IMAGINE how you'll feel when someone at a party asks what you do and you can point them to a sick artist page filled with all of your awesome new music.
I'm asking you to bet on yourself. It's not a risky bet. The Dojo recipe has worked thousands of times before. You have 30 days to get a full refund if you change your mind. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. The only way you lose this bet is by not making music or showing up for the work.
Two paths. One choice.
Another six months of the same WIP folder. Another six months of sessions that sound good at night and awful in the morning. Another six months telling yourself you'll start someday. The calendar keeps turning. The album doesn't.
90 days from today, you have a finished album. You have a daily habit. You have a body of work you're proud to send your friends. You joined a team that trained together, finished together, and celebrated together. You bet on yourself. You won.
Miss it and you’re waiting until the next round. There are no extensions and no exceptions. When the cohort starts, the door closes.
P.S. Nietzsche had a thought experiment: imagine living this same life on infinite repeat. Could you do it? If not, what would you change? Every day you put it off is a day the version of you who finished the album moves further away. 90 days from now, you either wake up with a finished album, or you wake up wondering what could have been. I built The Crucible so you don’t have to wonder. Are you ready?
GREAT. THEN I'LL SEE YOU IN THE DOJO.