The Anti-Loop Method vs The Writer’s Block

/in /by

Maybe you came here with the idea that I’d be discussing techniques to break the loop issue; I’m relating to the problem many have where they are stuck in a loop and can’t get out. As you can see, this comes on two levels. The first relates to working on a song, finding a loop you love, and deciding how to turn that into a song. Still, another level is a bit more meta, where your studio sessions feel like a loop as well, as you have the same habits forcing you to do the same things.

I often said that making music was the most therapeutic experience. I’m not referring to the fact that one might feel better after a session due to the release of endorphins generated by a productive studio exploration. Therapy, just like meditation, is not necessarily all about feeling good; it’s more about why you feel bad so that you can make room to feel better. When I gave some meditation workshops, there would always be someone who would say they couldn’t meditate or that they were meditating wrongly, to which I invited them to be curious about what successful meditation is. Interestingly, there is no right way to meditate (Mindfulness, MBSR). It’s more about being curious of what the brain does to you when you try to do it.

It’s the same analogy with music production/exploration. In a way, there is no right or wrong. The source of writer’s blocks and frustrations often come from your interpretation of what is a good session, as you’ll compare any session to that reference.

 

The enemy of productivity is your interpretation of what productivity/success is.

 

So far, this introduction might feel unsettling, and perhaps you’re wondering where I’m heading with this, but this is the basis of understanding the core of many issues regarding how one might get stuck with their music. While there are multiple approaches to getting out of a slump, you’ll always be pulled down towards your bad habits if you don’t attack the core of the problem.

 

Stepping back on your practice

 

If you’re experiencing a loop and are wondering whether your practice is trapped in habits, the first thing to ask yourself is whether it is. While this question may seem unrelated to music making at first, trust me that it is more accurate than you think. When I ask clients that question, I often witness them taking a long pause to think about it, and every time, they realize they are stuck.

Signs that one is stuck in their workflow can be:

  • Feeling there is no purpose to the studio session.
  • All the music one makes sounds terrible or has nothing to do with what they have in mind.
  • Procrastination.
  • Unable to finish songs or start new ones.
  • They have a loop, but something is always bothering them, so they constantly mutate it to another one.

 

As explained in a previous post about how one can use their studio time, most of the people who fall into a slump often do so due to a lack of understanding of their own workflow. This results in studio sessions that is mostly focused on making songs alone. Creating songs is exciting because there is tangible development where you see your project evolve and reach its end. It feels like something productive was done. But like I described in this article, it is more fruitful to organize your sessions into different activities so you’re not relying on the success of one activity to dictate how well your session was.

As someone who focuses on just a few activities in the studio, where making songs is the central one, it’s easy to conclude that you have been trapped in a series of habits that once worked for you, but it’s now time to review what you’ve mastered to give a few more options. This starts by breaking the loop.

 

Curiosity as your antidote

 

I came across a video with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who explains how we grow and evolve using cognitive scripts, which can be useful but can also lead to misguided slumps.

 

 

One element that caught my attention was the critical role of curiosity in overcoming a negative mindset. The video covers the Escapist, Cynic, and Perfectionist mindsets, which are common mindsets we can fall into while exploring music production. While those happen, triggered by an event or multiple ones, it remains possible to rely on curiosity to step out of the mindset. It’s easier said than done, and it’s not a blog article that will entirely change how your brain is wired. But I could propose some activities that can stimulate your curiosity.

But before I do, let’s see how the three negative mindsets might be present in the music producer. It’s important to understand that one common trigger that can bring these mindsets is more than often related to the feeling of uncertainty. If you’ve been making music for a little while and did some releases (or not),  you’ll be exposed to multiple confusing situations, such as whether people like the music or not, whether it sold, if people played it, and perhaps why no one is relaying it to social media. Pair that with the adversity of working with abusive streaming sites like Spotify or seeing pirate websites selling music illegally, and your mind will go down the rabbit hole. Our human mind doesn’t deal well with uncertainty.

 

  • Escapist: In this mode, the mind will try to numb the uncertainty either with substances (alcohol, weed, etc) or by removing oneself from what they’re supposed to be doing (ex. playing video games, inventing stories to not go to studio, not allowing important time to create, etc). However, the escapist can also manifest himself in other ways, such as by acquiring new tools, plugins, and hardware or watching tutorials without practicing (skill hoarding).
  • Cynic: As the saying goes, in this mode, the person falls into a zone of negativity and hopelessness, being highly critical of other people’s success, mocking some other artform, or scapegoating the industry’s actors as the cause of their lack of success (releases, gigs, exposure).
  • Perfectionist: You might recognize yourself, as many musicians fall into this category. This mode often relies on the thought, “If this is perfect, it will succeed.” Sadly, this is not true, and history has taught us that even some imperfect art can succeed. Also, perfection is arbitrary and while one might feel they’ve converted all the important points, then will come someone who can point out a “problem”, based on their perspective.

 

Part of the problem with uncertainty comes from the perspective that we expect success to be linear growth, while it is not. If we see someone having success, we are tempted to think they’ve been growing towards that, but we forget that this person went through cycles where there might have been more failures than happy moments for a while. Competition feeds the uncertainty.

 

Music-Making Mindset

 

Knowing all this, how can it affect one’s music-making sessions, or how can we step out of that cycle?

What makes someone get caught in the loop syndrome is that they spent time tweaking the loop to perfection, and now, with the idea to expand that to a song, it feels overwhelming: both in the time to pay and in the potential failure it could represent to turn something perfect into something less than ideal. It could be multiple other things, but in general, tweaking something small will narrow your understanding of how to make it bigger.

Quite often, some people come to me with a loop and ask me if it’s “good.” I always reply, “I need a structure to know how you want to develop that idea.” Loops aren’t songs. They’re small, self-contained ideas. Perhaps they are perfect as they are, but that doesn’t mean they are a song. I like the imagery that it’s similar to someone showing me a very nice tomato and asking me if it will be a nice salad; I’m missing a lot of data to understand, and I don’t have access to the person’s imagination.

As said previously, curiosity can help.

The first part is thinking of ideas in variations before making a loop that supports it. Thinking of a concept for the song will help break it over multiple minutes. For instance, perhaps you have the motif of a few notes over one bar, so start by finding variations and complementary elements that can appear, then think of a call and answer, chorus, breakdown… before you know it, you have a whole arrangement for a song that needs to be assembled. It’s not possible to just be caught in a loop anymore. Plugins like Scaler 3 now have scenes that can help you do this job by breaking down chord progression and suggesting potential variations. I also like Instacomposer if you’re on a budget.

I know it sounds simple, but thinking globally is the first part of coming out of a loop. In past articles, I also discussed using a reference track to understand its structure to populate your song with the elements. Song Sketch also does a nice job at this, covering different genres.

I also suggested studio activities here that you can do in rotation to keep yourself rolling.

But now, let’s dive into some activities to keep yourself curious.

Randomize & React

 

  • Use random LFOs or MIDI generators to modulate parameters on your loop. I love working with randomized midi patterns to come up with new ideas and in this mode, the idea is to act quickly where you search for ideas, resample everything and then just either layer clips all together.

  • Challenge: Commit to using whatever the system spits out for 1 minute of arrangement.

The result can be a little 2-minute blurb or a more extended improvisation. But where the fun is, this is up to you to figure out.

 

Oblique Techniques

 

  • Write down verbs like “stretch,” “reverse,” “break,” “filter,” “chop,” and “double” on separate pieces of paper. Pick randomly one of the words when in front of a specific sound.

  • You can also create a small deck of these as part of a creative toolkit. That can be used with plugins, effects, and techniques.

 

Deconstruct & Rebuild

 

  • Bounce your loop to audio and chop it into individual hits or micro-samples. Carsten Nicolai once made entire songs based on one sound. Perhaps explore that.

  • Create a new groove or section using only the bounced audio.

 

 

Create a Mini Sound Story

 

  • Imagine your loop as a scene. Ask:

    • “What happened before this?”

    • “What happens after?”

    • “What enters and what leaves?”

  • Let these questions shape the intro, build, or breakdown.

  • You can also write scenes on different pieces of paper and shuffle them in different orders to explore a new narration of your song.

 Speedrun Arrangement

 

  • Set a timer for 15 minutes. Copy your loop to fill out a whole 3-minute track.

  • Don’t worry about transitions—move elements around instinctively.

  • The speed forces you out of perfection mode and into playful discovery.

 Role Reversal

 

  • Make your drum loop the melody.

  • Use your melody to trigger drums.

  • Recast sounds in new roles to see the project from a new angle.

Use AI or External Input

 

  • Ask a friend to suggest a weird transition or send you a sound to work in.

  • Or use AI text prompts to ask, “What could happen after this loop?” Get abstract ideas, then interpret them musically.

 Play a Movie Scene Over It

 

  • Import a muted scene from a film or a short video and play your loop under it.

  • Let the visual action guide the arrangement—timing, tension, and release.

 

Parametric sequencing

 

This concept is a bit more advanced, but the idea is to use snapshots or parameter sets and then morph between them. This kind of exploration produces very different sounds than what you might usually do.

Sound design is an endless field of exploration if you’re curious. Whenever I feel out of inspiration, I go back to that sphere and rediscover myself.

 

Polymetric arrangements

 

Polyrhythms are a vast field of exploration. It can be in the way you program your beats, but it can also be in how you modulate. If your modulation doesn’t match the length of your loop, it will give the illusion that your loop evolves over what it’s set for, giving it automatic expansion.

 

Music Curation And Tastes

/in /by

I was working with a client, and after I went through the basics of making a song, which he picked up pretty quickly, he commented, “So, in the end, it all comes down to music tastes.” What he meant by that is that technicalities are always a part of what anyone can learn, but if you don’t have good tastes, your music can’t be saved. If you’ve been working with me, you will know that one thing I coach students with is to avoid using words like good, extraordinary, cool, weird, or anything else that is an arbitrary term to refer to a sound. Besides being arbitrary, I avoid those terms because they don’t point out what one refers to; is it the punch? The clarity? The width? What does the student find cool, exactly?

Returning to music tastes makes an artist make or break it. But perhaps it is a bit more complicated, too. It fuels conversations and debates online, such as why some artists whose music we intensely dislike get much attention and praise. Is the problem the masses or our tastes?

This raised the question: can tastes be shaped or developed? Can we still strive if our tastes don’t match what the average listener wants to hear?

Or should one’s tastes adapt to the mass and lose their individuality?

Let’s examine tastes, where they come from, and how musicians become who they are.

Where Do Music Tastes Come From?

 

Music taste is shaped by a mix of psychological, cultural, and neurological factors. It combines exposure, emotional associations, personal identity, and cognitive processing.

 

Exposure & Familiarity: The Mere Exposure Effect

 

The first point regarding tastes and how they develop comes from what you’re exposed to. As a kid, your parents will be your first influences, as will the context in which you grow up. Countries like Brazil have a strong musical culture because people practice and grow up with music. I remember going there and seeing people singing or constantly listening to music. As I grew up, it was common to have the radio turned on, and it would either be talking shows or music that would play. Wherever you’d go, music was pretty much coming from the radio, often in restaurants or in shops. This is less common now as streaming has changed our surroundings, with people deciding what to play in their commerce.

We tend to like what we hear often. The more we’re exposed to certain sounds, the more we prefer them. This method was an aggressive method by commercial radios that could play the same songs over a rotation of a few hours. If the radio plays, people will get used to the same songs, and new ones will be introduced shyly until they become popular.

In this system, people are dictated to what they should appreciate. If I think of the average person not intentionally exposing themselves to new music, their tastes would be pretty rigid, and venturing off wouldn’t be an option. It’s the same for some people who go to a club and expect a specific musical direction not to change too much, as predictability is an element that can be reassuring if you have particular tastes.

Since exposure breaks the taste, some songs one might not like can grow on them. As a label owner, there are songs that I automatically flag as something that can win me over after a moment, and I listen to them a few times before deciding if I like them.

 

TIP: If you’re a musician, exposing yourself to random radio stations and visiting clubs you usually never go to is undoubtedly necessary to help nurture the plasticity of your music tastes.

 

If you read this blog, you’ll know that one thing I share about what people are looking for in music is familiarity but with a novelty twist. It is related to how we consume music as well. When there is a craving for music, more than often, we have a go-to genre or song we will go for.

 

Emotional Associations & Memory

 

Like scents, music can teleport you back to the past, bringing back certain moments or events with which it was associated. It is known that the brain releases dopamine when we listen to music that emotionally moves us. If we relate to events, festivals, or clubs, we can become interested in a new genre or song when seeing it in context, surrounded by a crowd of people who all move to it, creating momentum.

I have enjoyed going to festivals and loving to dance to music in the company of friends. I have vivid memories of spending quality time with people. We look at each other and are excited by appreciating a special moment where the music fits the mood perfectly. While I’ve been going to the MUTEK for 25 years now, there are people I exclusively see there and have been seeing them for that long, every year. After you meet people a few times and enjoy the music in their company, there will be more sharing and getting to know them, which leads to deeper friendships than just listening to music.

It’s one of the reasons I love the music I love today, which is partly linked to memorable moments of joy. Nowadays, I like to see people Shazaming music at events. It tells me they want to know more of the exact song they wish to bring to their life afterwards.

 

TIP: One exercise I give people I coach is to keep a journal of music that brings back souvenirs and emotions. Being in touch with your musical world is a way of reconnecting with periods of one’s life. As a musician, you are the sum of all the moments you collected, music-wise. To have your own glossary is also a way of getting inspiration.

 

 

 

Cultural Influence & Social Identity

 

The urban tribal music of today could be punk/Goth, techno, hip-hop, or ambient, as they gather people for community events of celebration. Those events have their codes, sometimes their dressing standards and habits, which is a way of creating culture and developing identity. People want to find their way to find their purpose in the eco-system, either by wanting to create events, be musicians, have a venue or any other way to contribute.

Music is the common thread that brings everyone together, which means it needs specific characteristics to fit the codes. If one is not a contributor in some ways, they are music lovers who are there for the atmosphere and a certain quality of sound. Seeing your community appreciating the music can shape your tastes. Seeing the crowd enjoying the music is a form of validation that one can go for.

Since each community follows specific music directions, while two places might enjoy the same music, they might also have different appreciations. Imagine two clubs enjoying the same music but one having a more extensive, more precise sound system. It might educate the crowd to be more attentive to details. Some venues with lesser-quality sound might rely on the friendliness of the attendees as their community glue. Having lesser quality sound might mean that artists who are selectors of a specific type of sound might work better.

This shapes the culture of the clubgoer.

TIP: Are you aware of the places and venues you attend for music and what makes it unique? Sometimes, thinking about what you love about it can reveal much about your music needs.

Cognitive Processing & Pattern Recognition

 

How your brain functions can influence your tastes. Some people like complex music (jazz, prog rock, avant-garde electronic) because their brains enjoy deciphering intricate patterns. Being exposed to more challenging music can also mean that you’ve come across many expositions to music and need to be challenged more. Your brain can influence how you listen to music.

For instance, if challenging music is your thing, there are fewer chances that you will listen to complex music in the background. While one might consume music in that way, it might also be mushed entirely up because if played at a low volume, all the textures might disappear.

Others prefer simple, catchy structures because their brains prioritize immediate emotional connection. The “Predictability vs. Surprise” balance is key: we enjoy music that surprises us just enough without feeling completely random. Your understanding of music makes you appreciate different aspects of music that one who doesn’t know much about it might not perceive. This is the same for any art or food. The more you know, the deeper the connection can be.

 

Regarding the various levels of music listening, here are some that come to my mind:

 

Deep Listening  (Intentional, immersive, full attention)

  • Pauline Oliveros coined the term deep listening, which is about fully immersing yourself in sound and absorbing every detail with heightened awareness.
  • It involves active engagement with the sonic space, textures, and emotions.
  • Can be meditative, introspective, or analytical.

Technique for Musicians: Try “blind listening”—close your eyes, take notes on timbre, structure, dynamics, and spatial depth.

 

Critical Listening  (Technical, analytical, mix-focused)

  • Musicians, producers, and engineers use it to dissect music on a technical level.
  • Focuses on sound quality, mix balance, stereo field, EQ, dynamics, and production choices.
  • It often requires repeated listens to analyze details like compression, transients, or stereo width.

 

Analytical Listening  (Structural, theoretical, compositional)

  • It is more about music theory, form, and arrangement than mix engineering.
  • It involves breaking down chord progressions, melody, harmony, rhythm, and motif development.
  • Often used by composers, instrumentalists, and theorists.

 

Focused Listening   (Engaged, but not hyper-analytical)

  • A balance between pleasure and analysis—you’re paying attention but not dissecting every note.
  • Common among serious music fans, critics, and artists.
  • It’s more about experiencing the entire track rather than breaking it apart.

 

Background Listening  (Passive, environmental, secondary)

  • Music playing while doing another activity (working, cooking, reading, driving).
  • Less conscious attention, but still influences mood and perception.
  • Often, lyric-focused genres become blurred into ambiance.

 

Emotional Listening   (Nostalgic, mood-driven, cathartic)

  • Music is primarily felt rather than analyzed.
  • Associated with memories, experiences, and deep emotions.
  • Lyrics and storytelling play a substantial role.

 

Physical Listening 💃🔊 (Bodily, dance-oriented, rhythm-focused)

  • Music is experienced through movement—how sound interacts with the body.
  • Often bass-driven and rhythmic.
  • Common in clubs, raves, live performances.

 

Algorithmic Listening  (Streaming, AI-influenced, discovery-driven)

  • A new mode of listening driven by streaming platforms.
  • People let algorithms decide what plays next, shaping taste over time.
  • This can lead to passive consumption rather than active music engagement.

 

Ritualistic Listening  (Spiritual, ceremonial, trance-inducing)

  • It is used for meditation, religious ceremonies, shamanic rituals, and profound mental states.
  • Often repetitive and trance-like, focusing on sonic immersion rather than melody.
  • Ancient traditions have used drumming, drones, and overtone singing to induce altered states.

Personality & Mood

 

While how your brain works can influence your tastes, it is the same for your personality. It is almost cliche to relate to how specific demographics of people tend towards certain types of music, but you can also get a few hints of someone’s personality based on the music they enjoy. Based on your mood, you might be tempted to complement your emotional state by combining a specific genre.

Studies suggest that certain personality traits correlate with music taste:

    • Open-minded people are more likely to explore jazz, world music, and experimental genres. This is also a state of mind one might have on specific occasions.
    • Extroverts: Prefer high-energy, danceable music. Outgoing music is often pop, appealing to people’s general tastes. Easy-going music is often for extroverts to sing on.
    • Introverts Tend to enjoy more profound, more atmospheric music. They might feel a need to escape through music.
    • Neurodivergent minds: Often gravitate towards intricate, detailed sound design or repetitive, structured beats (e.g., techno, ambient, IDM). It can also be music that needs to get them interested with many sounds.

TIP: Is your music craving based on your current mood, or is it to induce yourself into a different one?

Since many musicians are neurodivergent, they tend to worry that people will be bored by their music. The truth is that they often overexpose themselves to their music, trying to fix anything that might be boring.

Sound & Timbre Preferences

 

Our ears get trained over time. Producers and engineers often develop a taste for sound design and mix quality. However, non-musicians might also develop an interest in music with a specific tone or aesthetic. A good example is dub techno, where the common thread is the washy pads and reverb.

Some people love EDM music for the intense sound design modulation on synths and the predictable drops. Eventually, some characteristics of one genre might cross over to another, which is one reason people might jump from one genre to another. Overexposure might also create aversion.

Also, If you spend years tweaking synths, you may become hypersensitive to modulation depth, harmonics, and spatialization, influencing what sounds “good” to you.

TIP: Developing your vocabulary on specific sounds that are interesting can help you understand these.

Algorithmic Influence & Reinforcement Loops

 

Streaming platforms (Spotify and YouTube) subtly shape our taste by reinforcing what we already like. Their recommendation engines push us toward similar sounds, reducing exposure to new styles. Some say that some YouTube channels are a modern take on what labels used to be because they might publish music from certain artists. One strategy these guys have is blending their music with the recommendations YouTube will propose to people, gaining more traction and followers. Each streaming sites

Some people “fight back” by deliberately seeking obscure or challenging music to avoid getting trapped in a musical bubble. The recent surge in the popularity of vinyl records is another way for people to drop out of the algorithmic influence.

🔹 Example: If you mainly listen to ambient techno, your recommendations will continue reinforcing that unless you intentionally explore different genres.

TIP: Releasing music is not the only option for your music. You could also simply give it to a Youtube channel.

Final tips

Your music tastes might be internally rooted or be influenced by your surroundings. Creating a community and attending music that offers music to your tastes are essential, as well as following people known to have unique tastes. BBC Radio 6 have selectors known for their tastes, but you can also count on some DJs who run radio shows or have been playing for a long time to be references and educators. For a while, I remember that when we would play sets, we would always test the crowd with challenging music between crowd-pleasers. We’d look at each other, saying, “That one is for the education.” If the crowd slowed down, we knew we were probably opening new interest, but it takes time.

Music Discussion: Iridescent by Pugilist & Pod

/in /by

This post marks the beginning of a new type of blog article. I’ve been missing the days when music journalists would take the time to listen and come up with an article about albums or songs. For musicians, getting validation is not something that can quickly be done. Some find it through being signed to a label, but even then, it doesn’t fill that need, primarily because of a lack of significative appreciation. One can appreciate your music, but does that mean the song is well-produced?

With the ever-coming release announcements, finding music we can relate to becomes harder. As an artist, there was a period when you’d find music in batches for a genre, and it would take a moment to create a new bunch. This would leave you time to appreciate and digest it. Nowadays, there is constant work to do, digging through the waves of published music and checking an artist’s back catalogue or a label to find more of a specific sound you can appreciate.

As an audio engineer, label owner and artist, I often feel overwhelmed by the music I’m exposed to. Some music I find fascinating is not getting any attention, while some music that gets all the media press leaves me unimpressed. What do I love in the end?

I decided to team up with my partner Jan (somebody3lse), who’s constantly digging and unearthing gems, exposing me to music that is not exactly what I would listen to at first but that I always appreciate. We decided to open music discussions on songs we like. I never understood why the media would negatively review some music; I feel it is missing the chance to expose us to music that needs to be heard, and while one person might not like an album, why do I need to hear about it? It’s not like they’re saving me from an eminent problem.

We also don’t feel like we want to do reviews, but more likely, open conversation about music we like from two different angles: from a DJ’s point of view vs an audio engineer/producer.

In 2024, we started an event in Montreal named Sweet Spot, where we’d invite artists to share a song they made to have a real-time feedback experience from people who would listen to it in a very attentive approach. The idea is also to give the artist a moment to share their knowledge of making the song so that non-producers can raise awareness towards that reality.

These days, when Spotify is abusing artists’ reality, and people are still using it, perhaps there’s a disconnection between the two realities. Somewhat similar to people buying clothes made by people who are making them in slave conditions; if we were closer to those sweatshops, we’d care more.

That was my long introduction to why I’m starting a new branch of posts on my blog. TLDR;

  • Opening conversation about music we love.
  • Give some artists a nudge of appreciation.
  • Bring back honest discussions and descriptions about music instead of generic promo texts.

 

Our first post.

 

Iridescent by Pugilist & Pod

 

Words by somebody3lse:

Iridescent is the title track from a debut collaborative LP by Australian producers Pugilist & Pod released in November 2024.  I chose this track to share with Pheek because it’s a bit different to what I usually play and I wanted to step outside each of our comfort zones to explore something new.  As a downtempo track its a lot slower than the majority of music I play for others.

There is a clear intention from the start, with a percussive movement joined by the kick after 16 bars. From a technical perspective I appreciate the definite intro that allows me to beat match. I feel a warmth in the dub sounds and a gentle drive giving energy and direction.

It builds into a transition point around 3 minutes, where the mood changes and takes on more of an edge. A metallic call that feels like a submarine alarm brings some urgency and shifts the pace. Just before the 5-minute mark, we lose percussion and get lost in a swirling underwater tide. When the kick comes back, it’s more metallic and feels like we’ve been scooped back up out of the ocean again.

The intensity decreases over the last minute or so, which makes for a smooth transition. It also breaks down elements that would close out a set nicely.

It is very well-phased and structured, not in an obvious way, making for a track that is kind to the DJ playing it.  I would love more opportunities to play slower, more expressive music like this.  I can imagine this played at a festival with the sun rising at an alternative stage where people seek refuge from the intensity of it all.

 

Pheek’s view (transcript from audio):

 

The texture starts cold to me regarding sounds, which I have a different feel than somebody3lse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this artist used the Elektron, the same machine I have. I could recognize the effect. So this is where I’m getting nerdy a little bit. I could hear that, and it was distracting me. As a producer, my mind constantly goes from listening to trying to understand how it was made. If I pinpoint how it was made, my mind relaxes a bit.

Anyway, the song felt nice because it was inspiring, and I liked it overall; I loved the track and bought it right after the first listen. Initially, I thought the arrangements were unsettling as I was a bit thrown off because he was using three voices, which is a bit of a risk. When you build a song, you start with your three voices; it can be challenging to keep them engaging. But the way he morphed and made the sound evolve, and alternate is very clever and flows well. It’s hypnotizing, and I like arrangements to be that way. I felt that the sounds were crunchy, but the stereo didn’t feel wide; it didn’t feel like it was open, but the frontal density worked as is, too. I guess it’s typical of that genre.

Some sounds fell before me, metallic and like those of Transformers. Moving and shaping are repetitive but constantly changing at the same time. It made it pleasant. The pace is slow and takes time; this is a slow tempo but intense mood. That’s not easy to execute in production because you might be tempted to go in one direction or another, resulting in flat results or overwhelming. They nailed the balance just right. Finding the right moment to play that kind of music as a DJ can also be challenging.

By the end, I couldn’t grasp an evident emotion out of it except for maybe something dark and mischievous but not in a playful way. It felt like there was a bit of danger or uneasiness. My synesthesia was not really triggered, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad or anything. Sometimes, when I hear music like that, I see geographic shapes and textures but in this case, it felt more like images, but blurry.

 

Conclusion:

We love this song because it’s well-crafted and builds energy, even if it’s slow. There’s a journey where we feel the direction is clear, and the journey to get there is emotive. The textures and sound design are lovely and aligned with our tastes because of the engaging craft put into them.

We’ve been thinking of making this into a podcast. Would this be something you’d be interested in?

 

My Favorite Sampling Techniques

/in /by

It’s quite ironic that after spending a year studying sound synthesis, I came back to becoming increasingly interested in sampling as one of my favourite ways to make music. But I need to say that while studying synthesis, we also looked into how sampling can be used in many ways to create simple to complex sound sources, so it is ironic that sampling came strong as an inspiration.

When I dove into music production and exploration in the late 90s, the first piece of hardware that became a favourite was the Yamaha SU700, a sampler with an internal sequencer. People like Gez Varley and Speedy J used it creatively to make music and for live performances. While its audio quality and converters were not the best, you could turn an austere sound into a synth-sounding source using the polyvalent internal LFOs. It was wild and would be pretty versatile when performing live by morphing simple sounds into melodic synth sequences. Someone told me it was a “mind-warping experience” after one of my sets.

With modern DAWs such as Ableton, sampling has been integrated thoroughly. Many have bells and whistles, with so many options that it can take a while to understand how to incorporate them into your music. I’ll cover some basics and more advanced ideas for you to explore.

 

Basic Sampling In Ableton Live

 

 

Let’s start by covering the definition of sampling.

 

Definition:

Sampling is taking a portion (or “sample”) of a sound recording—such as a drum beat, melody, vocal phrase, or any other sound—and reusing it as an element in a new composition. This technique can involve chopping, looping, pitch-shifting, or manipulating the sample to fit the new track. One tool that people who resample use is a “sampler.”

Initially developed in the late 1970s and popularized by hip-hop producers, sampling has become a core technique across various genres, such as electronic, pop, and experimental music.

The Most Basic Sampler

Whether you like it or not, dragging a sample or loop is a form of sampling but doesn’t involve a sampler. When you have imported a sample in Ableton, you’ll have access to some basic controls over that sound.

The goal of this post is not to be a tutorial for the basic features of Ableton, but for some people who are using the software, they tend to forget that a simple sample dragged in is wrapped into a limited sampler with features:

  • Loop: This will set if this loop, when played, will loop or not.
  • BPM: The Beat Per Minute speed at the sample was initially recorded. The division or multiplication button will shift the speed of the sample to one speed or another, altering the integrity of the sound.
  • Warp mode: If the loop is activated, Live will try to match it to the tempo of the current project based on the original tempo at which the sample was recorded. This means if the sample is at 133 BPM and my project’s at 120 BPM, it will slow it down, using the Warp mode. Depending on the mode, you’ll get different results. For instance, the Texture mode will reveal some details in complex sounds, while the Repitch will adjust the pitch up or down depending on the BPM adjustment.
  • Gain: Control over the amplitude of the sound (volume). I recommend using this to normalize the sound, which means getting it as close to zero dB as possible.
  • Pitch: To change it’s tonality (eg. note), which for harmonic samples, you will change it to another note, while inharmonic sound will feel higher or lower pitch
  • Direction: Reversed or Normal (Forward).
  • Transient control: This will detect the transient and cut out the tail of the sound detected. You can then make a longer sound shorter by reducing the amount applied.

One thing that is hardwired in the clip is the envelopes that allow you to change completely, through time, specific parameters, bringing the mangling possibilities to mind-boggling options.

I’m opening with these points to remind you that we can start with fundamental points and then complicate them. If these are clear enough, the rest of the other points will always point to them.

 

Resampling

 

This method, in general, whichever tool you use, implies that you’re going to sample (record) the output of your tool. An example of resampling would be that you have made a complex design for one sound and would like it to be recorded statically; you would resample it to be able to replay it as is each time. This is partially useful if your design is complex and gives you different results each time you trigger it, and you’d like your sounds to be more stable.

One use of resampling is to change a sound to personalize it to your tastes. In past posts, I often encouraged people to use premade samples, and this implies one risk: someone else might have used it before you, which means you might recognize it in other songs. Altering the sound and resampling it can help make the sound personal and unique.

Resampling is one of the first beloved techniques I’ve always used in every song. Sometimes, generating random material, resampling it, then slicing it, reusing it and resampling all over again. Another use would be to record myself tweaking a sound in real-time and recording the outcome, mainly the tweaking as a new file, which gives it odd modulation. I name this process “Generation,” where the first resampling is Generation 1 and when I resample again, it becomes a sample Generation 2, and so on. Complex-sounding samples are usually Generation 6 to 10 on most of my productions.

 

Other techniques

 

Micro-Sampling (Granular Approach)

What is Granular Sampling?

Granular synthesis is a sound processing technique that breaks an audio sample into tiny fragments called grains, typically ranging from 1 to 100 milliseconds in length. These grains can then be rearranged, layered, time-stretched, and pitch-shifted independently to create new textures, ambiences, or rhythmic patterns.

Unlike traditional sampling, which plays back audio linearly, granular synthesis allows you to manipulate sound non-linearly and fluidly, making it a potent tool for experimental and atmospheric music production. You can imagine it as a delay, looper, or real-time sampling.

Standard Controls in a Granular Sampler/Synthesizer

Most granular samplers include the following parameters:

  1. Grain Size – Determines the length of each grain.

    • Short grains create textured or glitchy effects.
    • Longer grains produce smoother, stretched sounds.

  2. Grain Density (Rate/Spray) – Controls how frequently grains are triggered.

    • High-density results in a continuous, lush texture.
    • Low density creates sparse, pointillistic sounds.

  3. Grain Position (Scan/Offset) – Sets the playback start position of grains within the sample.

    • Automating this creates evolving or rhythmic patterns.

  4. Pitch & Tuning – Changes the pitch of each grain independently.

    • Some granular synths allow randomization per grain for organic, shimmering effects.

  5. Time-stretching allows the sample to be slowed down or sped up without affecting the pitch, which is helpful for drone and ambient sound design.

  6. Envelope/Shape (Window Function) – Controls how each grain fades in and out.

    • A Gaussian shape produces a smooth, crossfaded texture.
    • A Rectangular shape makes the grains sound sharper and more rhythmic.

  7. Grain Spread (Stereo Width/Spatialization) – Determines how grains are panned across the stereo field.

    • High spread creates an immersive, wide stereo effect.
    • Mono settings keep the sound focused.

  8. Randomization (Jitter, Chaos, Modulation) – Introduces unpredictability in pitch, position, and timing for organic movement.

Tools: Ableton Simpler/Granulator II, Kontakt, Pigments, MGranular, Tasty Chips GR-1, Paul Stretch, GrainDad.

Use Cases in Sampling

  • Turning vocals into lush, evolving pads.
  • Creating glitchy, rhythmic textures from drums. It is also valuable for making drums fatter.
  • Transforming field recordings into cinematic soundscapes.
  • Stretching a short sound into an infinite drone.

Chopping & Rearranging

 

Historical Context: From Musique Concrète to Hip-Hop

The technique of chopping and rearranging samples can be traced back to Musique Concrète, a 1940s experimental music movement led by composers like Pierre Schaeffer. Musique Concrète manipulated recorded sounds (from everyday noises to orchestral instruments) by cutting, splicing, looping, and reassembling tape recordings in new, non-linear ways.

Fast-forward to the 1970s and 1980s. Hip-hop producers, particularly those working with samplers like the E-mu SP-1200 and Akai MPC series, revolutionized this idea by chopping drum breaks, basslines, and melodic phrases from vinyl records. Producers like DJ Premier, J Dilla, and RZA became known for their intricate chopping techniques, turning old jazz, soul, and funk records into new, rhythmically compelling beats.

Today, chopping and rearranging are standard sampling techniques across multiple genres, from hip-hop to electronic music, glitch, and experimental production.

How Chopping & Rearranging Works

At its core, chopping means slicing a sample into smaller segments and rearranging them to create something fresh. The process can involve:

  1. Slicing by Transients – Automatically cutting a sample at each transient hit (great for drum breaks).
  2. Manual Chopping – Selecting meaningful segments by ear, such as a particular note in a melody or a vocal phrase.
  3. Randomization & Reordering – Playing the chops in a different sequence to create unexpected grooves.
  4. Time-Stretching Individual Chops – Altering the speed of specific chops to add groove variations.

 

Case Scenarios: How to Use Chopping & Rearranging in Production

Recreating Classic Drum Breaks with New Energy

    • Chop a funk or soul breakbeat into drum hits (kick, snare, hi-hat).
    • Reassemble them in a new rhythm or shuffle pattern.
    • Layer with additional percussive sounds for uniqueness.
    • Example: Boom-bap drum programming using old jazz breaks.

 

Flipping a Melodic Sample

    • Take a piano or string loop from a vintage record.
    • Chop it into 4-8 smaller pieces and rearrange the order.
    • Add pitch modulation, reverb, or tape wobble for variation.
    • Example: J Dilla’s signature swing and off-grid melodic chops.

 

Chopping Vocals for a Unique Hook

    • Sample a spoken word or acapella phrase.
    • Chop it into syllables or individual words.
    • Rearrange the syllables rhythmically for an engaging groove.
    • Example: House and UK Garage vocal chops (Burial, Four Tet, Flume).

 

Glitch & IDM Experiments

    • Take a long synth pad or soundscape and slice it at random intervals.
    • Re-sequence the chops unpredictably, applying bit-crushing, reverses, and stutters.
    • Example: Autechre, Aphex Twin’s IDM approach.

 

Drum & Bass Rechopping (Jungle-Style)

    • Sample an Amen Break or similar drum groove.
    • Chop it into individual drum hits and rolls.
    • Re-sequence it with fast break edits to get rolling energy.
    • Example: Classic Jungle and Drum & Bass production (LTJ Bukem, Squarepusher, Photek).

Last year I bought the Digitakt II and this is a beast of a machine that I will write more about in the future but I now use it mostly for slicing.

 

Follow-Actions

 

One of my favourite ways of working with samples is to use the “Follow Actions” feature in Ableton. This method lets you chain multiple clips and give them “behavioural orders” for how they work. For instance, you could tell a clip to play, but jump to another clip once it’s at the end of the sample’s length. This allows you to duplicate the same clip multiple times, modify each clip with different parameters and then let the chain of effect jump between clips, perhaps randomly, to give you different sequences. But the fun happens when you play only parts of the clip, such as 1/4th of the clip and then jump to another random 1/4th, which is a way to deconstruct a clip into different patterns.

This is when you can use resampling to capture moments when random ideas propose new patterns, which can be used to create variations, fills, and happy accidents.

 

 

Layering for Hybrid Sounds

 

What is Timbre and Why Layering Matters?

Timbre (pronounced tam-ber) makes a sound unique, even when two notes have the same pitch and loudness. It’s a sound’s tone colour or character, shaped by its harmonic content, envelope, and dynamic response.

You are essentially sculpting a new timbre when layering samples by combining different sound sources. The goal is to create a hybrid sound with each layer’s best qualities while maintaining clarity and balance.

For example:

  • A punchy digital kick + an acoustic kick → Fat but organic-sounding drum
  • A plucked synth + a bell sample → Crisp, percussive, melodic sound
  • A cello layer + a synth pad → Orchestral-meets-electronic textures

 

Two Main Approaches to Layering

  1. Frequency Splitting Approach (Stacking by Frequency Ranges)

    • Each layer is designed to occupy a specific frequency range to avoid clashing.
    • Example:
      • Low layer → A sub bass for warmth and depth (20-150Hz)
      • Mid layer → A distorted bass or plucked synth for the body (150-800Hz)
      • High layer → A crispy top-end sound for presence (1kHz+)
    • Best use case: Creating massive bass sounds, rich pads, or full-bodied drum hits.
    • Tool to use: Multiband compressors, EQ separation.

  2. Envelope Shaping Approach (Stacking by Dynamics & Transients)

    • Each layer shapes the sound’s overall attack, sustain, decay, or release.
    • Example:
      • Sharp attack layer → Plucky or percussive sound to add bite.
      • Body layer → A midrange-rich sound for warmth.
      • Sustained layer → A pad or long-decay element to add depth.
    • Best use case: Designing hybrid instruments, tight basslines, or cinematic textures.
    • Tool to use: ADSR envelopes, transient designers.

Key Considerations When Layering (Common Mistakes to Avoid)

  1. Stereo Width Conflicts

    • Avoid stacking too many wide stereo layers—this can lead to phase cancellation.
    • Solution: Keep low-end elements in mono and let higher frequencies spread.

  2. Root Key & Tuning Issues

    • Ensure all layers are in the same key and tuning—some samples might be slightly sharp/flat.
    • Solution: Use auto-tune, pitch shifting, or fine-tuning for alignment.

  3. Frequency Masking (Clashing Frequencies)

    • Too many layers in the same range muddy the mix rather than enhancing it.
    • Solution: Use EQ to carve space for each layer.

  4. Envelope Mismatch (Cluttered Attack or Release)

    • Two layers with different attack speeds may not feel glued together.
    • Solution: Adjust ADSR envelopes to match transients smoothly.

  5. Overcompression (Killing Dynamics)

    • Layering too many compressed sounds can make the final sound lifeless.
    • Solution: Use parallel compression instead of full compression.

Recommended Tools for Layering

 

  • Ableton Live’s Instrument Rack → Stack multiple samples with macros.
  • Kontakt & Falcon → Multi-sample layering with advanced controls.
  • Serum & Pigments → Blend wavetables + samples for hybrid synthesis.
  • FabFilter Pro-Q 4 → Surgical EQ for avoiding masking issues.
  • Waves Vitamin → Multiband stereo width & harmonics control.

Creating New Instruments by Layering Samples

This technique is widely used to create unique, custom instruments that don’t exist in the real world. Some famous examples:

  • Hybrid Pianos (Real piano + Synth attack) → Adds warmth and futuristic textures.
  • Epic Trailer Percussion (Layered acoustic + synthetic impacts) → Powerful, cinematic drum sounds.
  • Organic-Sounding Synth Leads (Synth + real-world plucks) → Natural, expressive electronic sounds.

Practical Example: Layering a Hybrid Lead Sound

  1. Start with a plucky synth – This provides the attack and initial transient.
  2. Layer in a bell sample – Adds metallic harmonics for presence.
  3. Add a vocal chop – Gives the sound an organic, breathy texture.
  4. Blend a pad layer – Extends the tail for warmth and body.

 

 

Time-Stretching & Pitch Warping

 

Slowing down a vocal sample can transform it into an eerie pad, while extreme pitch modulation can create glitchy textures. You can pitch down your sounds and ideas by 2-3 octaves and then discover a whole new concept. Or down-pitch it randomly, and you’ll have the same idea but with a different key. This also works lovely on percussion if you want to unlock a dose of fatness and a feeling of old-school sounds. As explained above, another fun tool is the Paul Stretch plugin that slows down music to extreme levels, creating incredible scapes, odd melodies and textures.

Tools: Ableton Warp Modes, Ableton Shifter, Ableton Autoshift, MicroPitch, Elastique, and Pitchmap (for next-level ideas).

Vinyl & Cassette Resampling

 

Resample sounds by recording them onto a vinyl simulator or an old cassette tape. This adds warmth, pitch inconsistencies, and noise, giving the sample a nostalgic, lo-fi character. People have also been experimenting with VHS tapes, where they record their sounds externally to a tape and then resample them. This technique is a good way to convert your sounds into a new outcome, blurring the lines of digital perfection into a retro feeling. While this is not available for everyone, some plugins offer some emulation of that process. You can lower the sample rate and add some noises and inconsistencies, giving your sound a new edge. For some reason, when you take a sound that has received a Lofi treatment and pitch it down, you’ll automatically gain some ear-pleasing fuzziness (or at least, for me).

You can search on your local marketplace to find old tape players and explore some options.

Tools: RC-20 Retro Color, Super VHS, Klevgrand DAW Cassette, recording to the actual tape

Contextual Sampling (Field Recordings & Found Sounds)

 

You might have heard about field recordings before, or perhaps not, but that activity is a form of sampling. Picking up recordings of your environment is a fun hobby that has some valuable music uses. You can use field recordings to create lush pads, do percussion, or add a background to a dry song, but in any case, it will always bring an organic feel. But where things get fun is when you explore various types of microphones. Sennheiser MKH’s series offers high-end recording and picks up high frequencies you can’t hear. What’s the use, I hear you ask. You’ll listen to mysterious melodies and sounds if you down-pitch high frequencies.

Another type of microphone will pick up electromagnetic signals, discovering weird noises from your world.

There is also a microphone to pick up low sounds from the Earth with the Geophon.

Another type of microphone to explore is the contact microphone, which you can use to pick up little percussive sounds and turn a shoebox into a reverb space.

Tools: Zoom H5, Tascam DR-40, iPhone Voice Memo + FX processing

Music Mockups

/in /by

As I was recently revising a client’s workflow, I explained to them that mine had changed much in over twenty years. It has changed just a few times in the last few years, and if I were putting a number into my workflow, I think I would easily be at its 20th iteration. I recently realized the need for a phase in how I work on music. When working with clients, there is a part where we conceptualize an idea, and it becomes a bit tricky for them to imagine the end product. Perhaps my background as an engineer and label owner taught me to imagine how things should be in the end, so it’s never a problem to know where I’m heading when working on a song.

For a while, the phases of making a song would look like this:

With this new phase, I’m adding a part called Mockup. It’s similar to a mood board, but a song is closer to what it will be like. This is important in electronic music as we can access so many sounds and effects that a song could be anything. The concept itself is simple and pretty self-explanatory. The faster you know your destination, the easier it is to decide what to do to get there.

The advantages I’m experiencing when using mockups:

  • Understand quickly the potential of an idea.
  • See the flaws and lack of an arrangement.
  • Easier to self-validate your process.
  • Giving you an outlook of what the song is, you can sleep on it and test it in contexts.

 

By watching how people, clients, and friends work with music, I notice a lot of time invested in searching for sounds or trying to recreate something they heard in a song or their mind. This often leads to long sessions of unproductive noodling around, trying to figure out what is happening and how to make sense of it. There’s no direction or destination in mind, which I greatly encourage people to keep as a mindset. But this also has some downfalls, mainly for those new to music making. The lack of results makes it difficult to make decisions, and decision fatigue can impact energy and motivation.

I came up with a new phase because I needed to fix an issue with my production, which is about getting some results faster than just being explorative.

 

Research & Development of Ideas

 

There are two main modes for the early R&D (Research and Development) phase.

Explorative mode: Find some ideas, work and play around them to see how they develop. In this mode, the musician is invited to remain open and not try to control the outcome so much as it would limit the potential happy accident that can bring an unexpected twist. I usually encourage people to spend more time in this phase mode than in song-making. When you work on songs, you bring to term an idea that you thought made sense, and when that song is finished, it will be time to work on the next one. Since the ratio of gem ideas is very low, it is worth giving a lot of time to create new ones. Clients who consult me spend 90% of their time making songs and the rest on research, an unbalanced ratio that makes it tiring to keep going. Having exciting ideas makes it fulfilling to finish a song and work on the next one.

Goal-oriented: This state gives importance to finishing something. You’ll have a vision, and you will work in that direction. Sometimes, you might have compiled many sources or found something you love. I might want the desired outcome when working on an album or a specific project. Working with clients forces me to find precise ideas to fulfill their vision, so if I spend too much time in the explorative mode, I might not get anywhere, and if I only work towards a goal, I might lack originality. This is when the combination of both can bring some solid results.  You need to control this phase to feel like your ideas are being appropriately honoured.

 

While the R&D phase allows musicians to gather ideas freely without the pressure to finish or release them, you can come up with a hook, but this raises specific questions that one can’t quickly answer early on.

Is this idea catchy?

What does it need to be supported?

How many variations does it need to remain riveting through the song’s duration?

In my previous workflow, I’d go from R&D to Hook and then jump to Structure. Now, I bring in the Mockup phase between the Hook phase and the Structure. Working on the mockup can also replace the structure phase if that works.

 

Before diving into the how-to-mockup of your next song, I think it’s necessary to cover the search for hooks in more detail because we will rely on references and samples when working on mockups. We need to reflect on how we want to build a song with a prominent sound. Some songs have no hooks, and others have something similar to songs of the same genre.

I invite you to think about this because of the decision one might take regarding using a reference. Copying it would make your song a cover. There’s nothing wrong with that, as there are countless covers of popular songs. There are even covers of covers. In techno and house, some songs have the same structure and more or less the same sounds, which is quite the same for pop music. You can take all the hits of a year and find similar critical points.

If something works, someone will try to repeat the formula to get to the same place. It rarely achieves the same results. To see the viability of an idea, I’d encourage you to first make a miniature out of it. I covered the concept of miniature songs in this article, and to refresh your memory, the idea of a miniature comes from the principle of making a tiny song (30 seconds to 2 min) with one or two sounds alone. If your idea can work on its own as is, you know you have something you can develop into an elaborate idea.

 

Now, let’s see how we can streamline your next session.

 

1. Start with the Hook: Capture the Core Idea First

 

Prepare your mood board and load in a reference song to narrow down your direction and outcome.

 

Goal: Identify and record the central theme or hook quickly—this will anchor the rest of the Mockup.

How-to:

    • Determine the Key and Scale of your song. You can also check the details of your reference using a key detecting plugin.
    • Use a synth preset or a sampled sound that’s inspiring without worrying if it’s final. I usually start with sine oscillators for their natural tone and calming mood. They are close to the human voice and a solid foundation for your final sound.
    • Record a simple 4-bar loop that captures the mood or vibe you want. Analyze the hook of your reference in terms of the number of notes or the phrasing. You could start by mimicking that idea and tweaking it to taste.
    • Keep it raw—don’t worry about effects or mix balance yet.

 

Example:

  • Choose a preset in a stock synth, or try Pigments from Arturia for the number of presets available. Pick one that feels emotionally right.
  • Play and record a lead melody that has a catchy or memorable phrase. You can also start by placing one note (the fundamental) at all the places you want it to play, then add a different note. I also like just to place where I want notes to be in the phrase and then change their pitch while keeping the rhythmical position.
  • Loop it and move on—don’t waste time tweaking the sound yet.

 

2. Lay Down a Simple Rhythm: Establish the Groove

 

Your song’s groove relies on its accents, which determine its energy. Dilla would always say that the second note determines everything. This video here explores 5 different rhythms that you can also explore.

 

Goal: Create a basic drum pattern that gives the hook context and movement.

 

  • How-to:
    • Start by deciding the BPM of your song and the accents. There are usually 2 to 4 accents in a pattern, and I recommend starting with 2. You can validate the accents from your reference, if any, and do the same for the BPM if you can’t pick one. The accents are usually where kicks or snare/claps fall to.
    • Use pre-made drum loops or machines like XO or Playbeat to test patterns quickly. Why them? Because they come with a wide selection of patterns, you can swap samples quickly to get various flavours.
    • Focus on kick and snare for now—hats and percussion can come later.
    • Keep the pattern straightforward (4×4, half-time, breakbeat, etc.) to get a feel for the energy.

Example:

  • Drag a loop from Splice or sequence a basic kick-snare pattern in Ableton’s Drum Rack. I have a folder with a few snare patterns as well as kicks. I usually grab some from that folder as a placeholder.
  • Keep the BPM flexible—adjust based on how the hook feels.

 

3. Build Harmonic Support: Bassline and Pads

 

You might want to adjust your melodic content to the primary key and scale if your song has a key. One thing that music has is a background or atmosphere that will be tuned to the root key. Sometimes, it will have a chord progression, but sometimes, it won’t.

 

Goal: Add depth and context to the hook with a bassline and simple pads.

 

  • How-to:
    • Choose a bass preset with a solid fundamental (sine or triangle wave works). If your main idea can be played with a sine oscillator, I recommend a different one for the low end, as it will feel more stable.
    • Create a 2-bar bassline that complements the hook’s rhythm.
    • Use a single-chord or a two-chord progression for pads—keep it minimal. Going from the Minor scale to the significant scale might do the trick.

 

Example:

  • Use Arturia Mini V or Massive for warm analog bass. These two offer warm, fuzzy, and fat tones that usually fit any genre.
  • Sequence a bassline that follows the root notes of the hook. Think already if you want the bass to respond to the hook or support it. If it responds, the notes would play in a different position than the hook, just like a conversation, but if it’s helping, it can be a mixture of playing simultaneously mixed with some silence fillers.

 

4. Mockup the Structure: A Rough Blueprint

 

Goal: Sketch a quick arrangement (Intro → Verse → Chorus → Bridge) without worrying about transitions. This might not apply to some electronic music genres, such as techno, where sections are more fluid. In that case, think of variations or scenes you move through.

 

  • How-to:
    • Duplicate your loop to fill 2-3 minutes. Place it in the middle of the structure, starting from the heart.
    • Mute or solo different elements to create contrast (ex. drop out drums for a verse, bring them back for a chorus). Deconstruct to the end and the beginning from the middle.
    • Keep things simple to have a macro vision.
    • Avoid complex automation and focus on the bigger picture. At this point, only fades in and out are helpful.

Example:

  • Create a simple A-B-A-B structure:
    • A: Hook + Drums + Bass
    • B: Hook + Pads + No Drums (breakdown)
    • I sometimes import a structure using Instacomposer as a placeholder.

 

5. Placeholder Sounds: Fill the Gaps Quickly

 

Goal: Use temporary sounds to fill out the arrangement without getting stuck.

 

  • How-to:
    • Drag in samples or presets, even if they’re from well-known tracks, to test ideas.
    • Replace them later during the deconstruction phase.
    • Focus on vibe and energy, not originality at this point.

Example:

  • Use Splice to grab vocal one-shots or FX sweeps to test energy transitions.
  • Apply a simple sidechain or reverb if needed, but keep it light.

 

6. Live Play and Jamming: Test the Energy

 

Goal: See how the Mockup feels as a performance.

  • How-to:
    • Use your MIDI controller to mute, solo, and tweak real-time filters.
    • Record a live jam of manipulating the Mockup—listen back to identify high-energy parts.
    • Treat this as a “dress rehearsal” for the track.

Example:

  • Map knobs to a filter cutoff, reverb send, and volume for different elements.
  • Perform and record 5-10 minutes of tweaking live.

 

7. Export and Listen Away from the DAW

 

Goal: Get perspective by listening outside your studio setup.

 

  • How-to:
    • Bounce the Mockup as a WAV and listen on different devices (phone, car, headphones). Listen while walking. Music takes on a different persona when we listen to it actively.
    • Make notes on what feels repetitive, empty, or too busy.
    • Make a playlist with your reference to other similar songs and add your mockup. Listen while walking and in different contexts. Observe how your music fits in there.

Example:

  • Create a note in your phone with timestamps for what works and what doesn’t.

 

8. The Lynch Twist: Capture the Mood, Not the Details

 

I’ve always been inspired by how David Lynch taps into ideas to create movies. One approach is to write scenes on paper; when he has several, he knows he has a movie. I think of the same with music.

 

Goal: Focus on making the Mockup feel emotionally complete, even if it’s rough technically.

  • How-to:
    • Ask: Does this Mockup evoke a specific mood or story?
    • Does it evolve through the song, or is it stagnant?
    • Is there a tension related to it, and is there a release?
    • What is the opposite emotion of your hook? Can the sound be altered toward that emotion?
    • See if you can divide your hook into two segments and make it in conversation with itself.
    • Follow Lynch’s advice: If an idea feels wrong, cut it immediately and put it in a folder for future inspection. I usually like to close the project and return when I’m in a different state of mind to see if the wrongness remains.

Example:

  • Record a voice note describing the mood or story you want the track to tell.
  • Compare this vision with how the Mockup feels emotionally.

 

9. Deconstruct the Mockup: Rebuild from the Core

 

Once the mockup is ready for its next phase, you can rebuild it to taste.

 

Goal: Replace placeholders with original sounds and refine the arrangement.

  • How-to:
    • Consider whether the imported sounds can be altered to a new aesthetic. Sometimes, using a filter, distortion, or Shaperbox can completely redefine a simple sample or loop.
    • Swap out samples for your own recorded/imported sounds or synth patches.
    • Simplify busy sections—focus on the hook and main rhythm first.

Example:

  • Replace a Splice vocal with a custom recording.
  • Use a different reverb or effect to make it feel more original.

 

10. Final Check: Does It Still Resonate?

 

This is where things get delicate. You might still not feel the song, but it might still be good. Leaving it alone for a while can help make the best decisions. Asking for validation from a friend is also helpful. You can make different versions for a song too.

 

Goal: Make sure the track still feels fresh after listening multiple times.

  • How-to:
    • Take a 2-3 day break, then listen again.
    • If it feels stale, identify if the problem is the sound design, the melody, or the rhythm.

 

Example:

  • Replace one element (like drums or bass) to see if it refreshes the vibe.
  • Usually, I choose the kick at this stage, when everything has been set. The kick will give the song its final intention. A dirty kick can make it old school, while a punchy one can make it more dancefloor. Testing in context can be a surprising experience. Perhaps check your reference as a guide to what you can do.

 

 

Digital Hoarding and The Electronic Music Producers

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If there’s one thing I miss from making music in the ’90s, it is how my choices for making music were limited compared to now. What we saw as a limitation was an opportunity to be creative and get the most out of what you have. In the 80s, as kids, it was also the same thing: we would get some toys, but it was limited. Being forced to be creative with what you’d have was the perfect training to jump-start my electronic music exploration. I remember going to the music store, where there was a section in the back where they would sell synths, samplers, and effect units. The selection was pretty small, and if you wanted something special, such as a 909 or 808, you’d have to search because stores couldn’t get them at all.

Softwares were also limited in terms of selection and what they’d do. I remember getting some software, and we’d discuss our wishes and options. It was both frustrating and, in hindsight, liberating because the lack of options meant you’d be done quickly when you ran out of possibilities. In my latest album, I tried to get back to that state because after following numerous classes online, I realized that I was doing some digital hoarding and had to focus on the essentials to decide of a direction on how I would do things for my project.

Credit Gearspace.com

So, what would be digital hoarding?

 

Digital hoarding for electronic musicians tends to accumulate a vast collection of digital resources—such as plugins, samples, presets, and templates—without fully integrating or mastering them in one’s creative workflow. This behaviour often stems from the constant influx of new tools and content in the electronic music scene, leading to a cluttered digital library that can hinder efficiency and focus. Instead of exploring a few tools in depth, the musician has an overwhelming array of options, which may result in creative paralysis or a diluted artistic identity.

Some symptoms or actions that could indicate you’re tending to do hoarding would be:

  • Over-Accumulation Without Use: Continuously downloading or purchasing new plugins, sample packs, and presets, yet rarely revisiting or using many of them in actual projects.
  • Disorganized Digital Libraries: A cluttered folder system where files, presets, and samples are stored haphazardly, making it difficult to find what’s needed quickly.
  • Procrastination on Mastery: Spending more time exploring and acquiring new tools than mastering the ones already in your arsenal.
  • Analysis Paralysis: Overwhelmed by choices when working on a project, resulting in indecision about which tool to use or a tendency to switch between tools without fully committing.
  • Redundant Purchases: Repeatedly buying similar plugins or samples, often influenced by trends or free offers, without a clear plan for integration into your workflow.
  • Neglecting Cleanup: Rarely revisiting your collection to organize, delete unused items, or update your setup, leading to an ever-growing pile of digital clutter.

For hardware, the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) syndrome is often pointed out as a problem musicians have because it is apparent that hardware physically brings new material to the studio. It is less evident for software and digital tools because they are within your computer and so easy to lose/forget.

This doesn’t only refer to digital tools but also to skill hoarding. Some people spend hours watching tutorials or buying classes to learn how things are done but without putting what they just learned into practice.

Hoarding impact on one’s workflow

 

This leads to some pitfalls. Let’s discuss some. I will also propose ways to address the issue with practical tips.

Shallow Mastery vs. Deep Expertise

 

Mastery of a skill or a tool comes from hours of practice. Having too many options divides your time of practice between multiple tools. One thing in electronic music that can pose a problem is when a musician decides to do everything by themselves. This means they’ll be set to become a jack-of-all-trades. The DIY culture within electronic music has gone a long way since the early ’90s, but in today’s competitive market, aiming to do it all means you’re not maximizing your output’s quality. The positive side of having multiple tools means you’ll have the proper material to go through the various phases of song development. But you’ll still need to sit with the tools and learn them, before adding new ones to your toolkit.

Some essentials for each phase can be a game changer. If I had to start all over, I’d focus on the minimum tools per phase. This lets you organize yourself better.

The phases I teach to newcomers are:

  • Research, analysis, ideation and development: In this phase, you basically need a Splice account to fill up your moodboard with ideas to start with. Once you have some ideas, you can create a song mockup, reworking your imported samples with tools like Shaperbox alongside a few synths of your own. If you want a versatile synth that can answer pretty much all your needs, I’d go with Pigment. Honestly, that’s pretty much all you need.
  • Hook: This is where you trim the chaos and ideas from the previous phase and find your song’s hook. You don’t need anything here, but a powerful drum machine like XO can help structure an idea.
  • Structure: To see if your hook has potential, sketch a structure. This will reveal your idea’s strengths and flaws. A tool exists that will build up some basic structures for you. Song Sketch is a lovely tool to speed up the process.
  • Arrangements: This is all about how you use your DAW. The best DAW is the one that you know and have fun with. Some prefer Ableton Live, some Bitwig or FLStudio. They all have a different way of working.
  • Mixing: While there are countless tools needed for mixing, I would say that sticking to your DAW’s compression, EQ, and dynamics can do the trick. If you feel like you’re reaching the limits of one of them, perhaps expand to upgrade that specific tool with a third-party plugin.

I like to make buying decisions based on two things:

  • Can my stock plugins fix it? If not, what else can?
  • Am I using a tool that works but compromises on the quality?

 

If my tool is creative, I usually will ensure I finish a few projects before buying a new one.

 

Overwhelm and Decision Fatigue

 

This is a topic I have covered before, but decision fatigue is something tangible that can impact a person more than they imagined. I have been teaching newcomers lately, and one of their first comments about making music was about how tiring it was to work on music. Each time you have to make a decision regarding your song, a chunk of your mental energy dissolves. If you also need to think about how to solve a problem and have multiple options, this is another chunk that is taken away. If you have various tools for numerous issues, you’ll be draining yourself down faster, and what was supposed to serve as leverage will tank you down.

There are ways to solve this, though. One is to keep a notepad with :

  • Nature of the problem: Does this problem have a name, or can I formulate it in my own words?
  • Potential solution: Ex, for phasing issues, you might want to control the width of a sound.
  • Tools available: If it’s the width, perhaps learn the limits of how much you can widen a sound or rebalance your mono signal.
  • Link to use. Youtube or another tutorial.

Fine-tuning your workflow comes from decluttering tools and habits that slow you down. Keeping simple notes is a fast way to get your answers. The more you have tools, this can not only drain you but also make you lazy. Tools with tons of options are the combination of multiple existing tools but with an interface that makes it easier for you to use. For example, a compressor could be replaced by an Envelope follower and a utility unit, but the compression has a few more options. Having less forces you to understand the nature of the problem and the tools you have to work around it.

 

Clutter and Inefficiency in Workflow

 

As mentioned previously, a workflow works best with a minimum of tools. The more you add to it, the slower you get because you have more parameters to handle. This is an issue someone with much experience, like myself, faces when starting to work on a new song because I already see the long list of all the things to take care of. One thing about being a helpful beginner is that by knowing less, you work with what you know alone. It might be less perfect, but at least it progresses quickly. Collecting tons of samples and libraries is also something that slows you down, mainly because there are not so many tools that will help you organize everything properly. Even some DAWs will let you face chaos if you’re not organized. Ableton has recently added tags in version 12, which can help you categorize your samples and tools. However, if you do it halfway, you’ll quickly lose control over your digital environment.

Just like plugins, whenever I buy new samples, I ensure I use them on a specific project before adding new ones. Some people stick to presets, which can get messy if you collect many of them. In Ableton, I haven’t found the best way to organize all my macros properly, which sometimes forces me to redo a patch that I did previously.

 

Financial Drain and Resource Misallocation

 

Constantly chasing the latest plugins or sample packs can quickly add up financially, diverting funds from investing in quality tools or learning resources. The temptation to acquire “free” tools often leads to a glut of subpar options that may not integrate well with a streamlined setup. There was a time when the number of plugins coming in was limited, but nowadays, multiple ones have been added. A site like KVRaudio is quite handy for following up on what is coming in, and they recently added a plugin manager to keep track of your installed plugins. Plugin Boutique has also been quite helpful if you have to reinstall all your tools because it is a portal to all the plugins you bought. Both have user reviews that come as applicable when you want to know how to invest correctly.

But if you are obsessed with the latest options and buy anything fancy that gets released, knowing which plugins are helpful for your workflow will be challenging. Considering how much money one gets from their investment, it is worth buying carefully. Using trials is undoubtedly something to consider.

 

Stunted Creativity Through Overexposure

 

The barrage of new sounds and tools might lead to analysis paralysis, where too much inspiration prevents a focused creative direction. I see this with people who have difficulty finding their own sound signature or identity as a musician. Instead of nurturing a unique style, producers might mimic trends or switch approaches too frequently. This means that if you don’t know how one tool works, you’ll be using the first few presets instead without going deeper into the options your tool is providing you. With an overabundance of content, listeners might find it hard to develop a personal taste or to follow an artist’s evolution, as the constant turnover of music can blur the lines of musical identity and innovation.

Each time you add a layer of tools to your kit, you are also potentially distancing yourself from your natural self-expression. One might have a challenge of not sounding like others or professional, but there are always simple ways to get there. If you always rely on audio cosmetics, you will be limited to the outcome of the tool’s options.

When I teach newcomers, I insist they work with the minimum possible. This limitation might be frustrating at first, but if you’re curious, it pays off quickly.

 

Reduced Value of Curated Experiences

The art of crafting a coherent track or album can be compromised when the production process is scattered across too many tools and ideas. Well-developed sounds tend to create a more cohesive and impactful musical narrative than a collection of half-explored ideas. If you go back to the 90s when the acid house or early techno had similar aesthetics, you may understand this was not a choice but because of the limitation of tools. Not having all the necessary tools might be a good thing for you. Perhaps organizing your ideas in batches of material where you can plan your next round of song exploration based on what you just acquired can direct how you want to use them.

 

 

Digital Hoarding can happen even if you don’t realize it. You are officially hoarding if you find yourself overwhelmed and disorganized and gathering more tools than songs being produced. The more you are conscious of this, the more organization you’ll have for your next studio session.

 

Guide To Templates

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I’ve recently finished an album. The tracklist has 19 tracks, which means I had about 40 songs and discarded half of them. For some, this feels like much, but when I work on an album, there’s a point where the more I make songs, the more new potential ideas emerge. This motion feels like a force where all falls in place with ease, and the efforts become less intense.

But there’s a secret weapon that makes it all easier and fun. Well, a few tricks come together when I work on multiple tracks at once because, speeding through the ideas, I have to save macros that fix an issue; the same goes for presets and eventually, I create templates where I can pick up tools.

I thought I’d write a post about templates. People overlook this tool and don’t see the point of exploring it. It deserves some attention because it could bring you speed and efficiency.

 

Productivity, Speed and Organization in Creation

 

I’m not sure where I read this, but this person said something like:

 

“I don’t believe in efficiency while creating because it is normal to be messy, lost. and chaotic; it is the core of troubleshooting, which is what creativity is about.”

 

While I understand and relate to it, I also see the benefits of having some tricks when working on more significant projects, whether mine or a client’s. There are things in art where your intuition will guide you to make decisions, and that will get you to take steps towards zones that aren’t controllable. However, regarding electronic music, we have multiple steps towards the end of the projects, and some are purely technical. Frequently, I get clients who come to me because they’re on the verge of giving up. Once you go through the multiple layers of everything to be handled, you get to overhear your music and, perhaps, start changing things that were working in the first place. This is why if you can use some tricks, tools and organization, you’ll cut out some time from the wrapping part.

That said, you can have the best of both worlds: You want to remain intuitive and explorative, but you want to achieve results rapidly when it is time to conclude.

Being organized solves multiple issues, such as:

  • Time saving. One challenge electronic musicians face is digital hoarding, which means they constantly get free or bought plugins, tools, and macros more than they use them. This results in having more options than one can easily integrate into a solid workflow. Organizing this will give you quick decision-making.
  • Better understanding of technical needs. Having templates helps you separate your workflow into modules, where you will already know what tasks to do next.
  • More energy. A challenge that new electronic musicians face is mental exhaustion from exploring music. This is partly due to decision fatigue. The more you have to make decisions, the more you’ll feel exhausted quickly.
  • Effective validation process. When you have a process that is also a checklist of all the elements you need to decide if your song is done, you will rely less on others to know if you’re finished.

 

Regarding templates, if I look at what I do, I have multiple templates categorized according to the tasks and needs. There are also various ways to use them, which I will cover. Let’s go through the categories and how they can be done and review the tools I use regularly.

 

One Template Per Need

 

The point of making a template is to turn something that worked into a tool you can reuse. If you think of any tool you have, such as a stove, hammer, drill, or MIDI controller, they are all the results of people having to solve an issue they wanted to address and turn it into something that can be used repeatedly. Using someone else’s template could be a shortcut for your workflow but it’s essential to keep in mind that it was made from someone else’s trial and failures. I believe it’s essential that you develop your templates so you can learn and tweak tools to your needs. Other people’s needs will never be precisely adapted to what you do.

I want to share some template ideas and tips for turning your work into future shortcuts. My work approach involves multiple phases, so I have made my templates based on that to avoid having to redo the same repetitive tasks.

 

Default Template

The Default template in Ableton is where your day starts. It’s helpful to have a few things ready, so you don’t have to prepare your environment each time you open your DAW. There are a few things I want to set up my Master/Main channel, the default audio and midi channels, and organize your sidebar properly to avoid searching.

 

Master/Main Channel:

  • EQ: Handling garbage low frequencies means you want to have a high pass at 20Hz. You can leave it with a smooth curve, but if you do this, you’re already solving many issues beginners have with their mixes. I would suggest not doing many changes and keeping it flat but if you have tendencies to compensate for your listening environment, you could do a default EQ to fix that problem. Compensating implies that your listening environment might be badly treated with acoustic padding, making you push or cut frequencies that don’t need changes. People who don’t have a sub in their studio tend to push the lows too much or completely miss it.
  • Utility: This simple stock plugin is probably the most useful of all your plugins. Having one on the main channel lets you sum your low end to mono, which fixes most phasing issues and solidifies the mess that stereo low end can create. Some songs have a stereo low end, but this is not something I would encourage newcomers to explore. The width is also a good way to balance your mono versus stereo ratio. Then, the gain allows you to compensate for too much or too little volume coming in.
  • Limiter: When we make music, we might lose track of the main channel, and the signal might overflow. The limiter is your friend to control that. It’s that policing tool that can also scrap a mix if you leave it as is when exporting.
  • Metering: While experienced musicians tell others to use their ears to know what’s wrong, I still rely on visual representation of what I do to validate what’s happening quickly. Working on a mix for a while, you will lose sense of flatness in the frequency distribution. You can look at a visualizer to see what’s happening.

 

While stock plugins will do for a while, you can get some third-party plugins, some for free.

The King of Metering is free and offered by Voxengo as SPAN. It covers everything you need to understand what’s happening. Make sure to configure it properly using Dan’s tutorial. I also love T-Rack Meter. It is visually appealing and has a waterfall/spectrogram analyzer. You can also use this one for free if you want to add it.

For Utility, you can also look into other plugins, such as Track control by DMG and Melda’s own MUtility. Both are free.

For Limiters, the one in Ableton got a lovely upgrade with v12 and is now very powerful. You can achieve solid results with it. If you’re looking for something with a bit more bells and whistles, you could check Smart Limit, which is not too expensive, versatile and easy to use.

 

Send/Returns

I’m always baffled by how people don’t use return channels that much, but they’re efficient in many ways. One of those is global effects, which means you can route multiple channels towards them and have a more coherent result. It also saves CPU. I believe the default ones in Ableton are a reverb and a delay. Those 2 effects are common in electronic music production and other genres, so it makes sense. The stock plugins usually do the trick; you don’t need much more. But there are an extra 2 return channels I would encourage you to add:

  • Stereo/Sides: You may add a utility plugin sent to be in Sides Mode only on this channel. I’d pair that with the EQ and set it in Mid/Side mode.
  • Mono sum: This would be the opposite of the previous one. This means you put a utility plugin in mono mode.

 

Why do this?

Some sounds might need to be sent towards the stereo return to increase presence in that zone. You can also add “side” effects, where the effects will only affect the side part of the channels routed there. The mono channel is in the same logic, but this one is focused on the mono signal. Many clients focus on getting width for their music and forget the importance of the mono signal, which is critical to impact multiple contexts (e.g. phone, car sound system, headphones, etc.). If you use premade loops, there may be some imbalance between the stereo and mono. Using sends is a fun way to control that because once you have multiple channels routed there, you can adjust the entire track simultaneously.

 

Default Audio

Some plugins can be added automatically each time you open an audio channel. This saves some time, but if you add many, it will hog your CPU drastically. In theory, you don’t need much but if you think of general needs to its bare minimum, I would recommend adding the Channel EQ as well a Utility. These will let you control the tone of your signal and its input gain and stereo adjustment. If your CPU can handle a bit more, I would also suggest a few:

  • ConsoleX8056: This suite is badass. It’s an analog emulation suite with a console emulation, vintage EQ and compressor, and a coloured gain staging utility. When mixing, I’ve been ditching my pricy Universal Audio VSTs for these. Using the console on all your channels will bring some non-linearity to your mix, blurring the lines of a digital signal. The Gain unit is not transparent; you’ll get some crunch if you push it.
  • Envelope Follower: This is undoubtedly my favourite tool in Ableton. It will read the amplitude envelope of your incoming signal, allowing you to control the channel’s parameters or any other channel, which opens the door for creative sidechaining.
  • EQ8: The advanced EQ in Ableton with more filters than the channel EQ.
  • Compressor: If you want to control the density of your incoming signal.
  • Channel strip: If you want to turn your channels into an analog console with a similar look and feel, these aren’t available in Ableton. My favourite option is to turn to Brainworx with their numerous emulation of legendary consoles. I have a preference for the Neve (AMEK)‘s sound, and therefore, the 9099 is my default option.

 

Pheek's Default Audio chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Default MIDI

This one comes with a few options that I would recommend.

  • Scale: You want your midi signal to have the option to follow the global key/scale of the project, so scale allows you to handle that easily.
  • Expression Control: This tool intercepts the signal’s characteristics (Velocity, aftertouch, slide, etc.) and can map them to the parameters of the synth in the channel or something else in the project.
  • Velocity: Useful for tweaking the velocity to taste, including randomization and midi compression.
  • Note Lenght: Allowing you to tweak the length of your incoming notes
  • MFA S&H Pro: Reading the incoming notes will generate random information, which helps modify your instrument in the channel. This pro version of a simple S&H is very powerful in the numerous options to control the random signal.
  • Chance Engine: This allows you to add probability to the notes with the option to modify the notes. It’s convenient when you want to deconstruct a repetitive melody.

 

Pheek's Default Midi chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sidebar

Organizing your sidebar will speed up your searches. You can use the colours to tag anything and have quick access. Mine has been a bit of a mess until I discovered a new feature on Ableton v12. You can now add custom folders on your sidebar with any content you have, but it will be essential to tag your plugins properly. To add a custom folder, you need to search and then click on the “+” to add that search as a dynamic folder. If you made a side folder for compressors, the folder will be automatically updated each time you add a new compressor to your library.

 

R&D Template

 

I have a template dedicated to research and development (ideas, theories, concepts, tutorial exploration, etc.). This template aims to have quick tools to test whatever is on my mind. The way my mind works is perhaps similar to other people’s. I often have an idea of a sound based on something I heard in a song playing (maybe I’m driving or walking and not in my studio), and then I reverse-engineer what it could be. Being on the Mac ecosystem, I either use Notes or Voice Memos to write down what I have in mind and then I will try ideas in the studio later on.

Here are some ideas for an Ableton template dedicated to research and development. You could start with the default template and then build this one since some needs overlap.

Signal Analysis & Visualization

 

The first channel would be for sound inspection, and the second for testing. Therefore, these analysis tools are needed for both channels.

Visual feedback is key since the goal is to deconstruct and understand sounds.

  • Spectrogram & Frequency Analyzer → To see how harmonics evolve, check the previous link to the free Spectrogram and SPAN. I also love Fabfilter ProQ4, which has a beautiful Frequency Analyzer. One thing I like about this EQ is the matching EQ option, which will be useful for understanding the frequency shape.
  • Oscilloscope → To analyze waveform shapes. I love using the one in Shaperbox because it can pair with some signal modification tools. Otherwise, Melda has a free tool that can be helpful.
  • Envelope Follower → To extract dynamics from a reference sound and apply them elsewhere. I’d use the one in Ableton.
  • Peak & RMS Meter → To monitor amplitude behaviour. SPAN can convert this.

I would drop Shaperbox on both channels to modify and analyze. That alone will be very useful.

 

Sound Deconstruction Track

The third track will be about making tests from a song.

  • Reference Track → Load in the sound you want to analyze.
  • Sampler & EQ Matching Track → Use an EQ Match or Sampler to isolate key frequencies.
  • Transient Isolation Track → Use gates or transient designers to extract attack portions. While you can do a fair job with Ableton’s gate plugin, my favourite gate comes from Oxford Drum Gate.
  • Sustain Analysis Track → Loop specific sections to analyze their behavior.

 

Reverse-Engineering Tools

 

This channel will explore some sounds from your reference or sound to analyze. This one is optional and not necessarily one to use de facto. Instead, you could prepare this as a series of macros you import when needed.

  • Granular Sampler Rack → A Simpler/Sampler preset pre-loaded for quick granulation. The Granulator III is pretty impressive for exploring.
  • Resonator Bank → A rack with multiple resonators (Corpus, Collision, EQ) to extract tonal characteristics. Again, you can see notes from what you hear using Pro-Q4 paired with a stereoscope.
  • Modulation Extractor → A chain with an LFO, Envelope Follower, and Sidechain Compressor to mimic movement in the reference sound.

 

Synthesis & Rebuilding Section

 

This channel is also optional but comes in handy.

  • Oscillator Matching → A synth (like Operator or Wavetable) to manually match the tonal structure.
  • Noise & Texture Layering → A track that adds noise, static, or other micro-details. Melda has a noise generator that is free and very useful.
  • Dynamic Modulation Rack → LFO + Envelope tools to reconstruct movement.
  • Harmonic Enhancer → Using Saturators, Waveshapers, or FM techniques to match reference overtones.

 

 

Possible Enhancements

  • Randomization Macros → To introduce variations while testing.
  • MIDI Note Extractor → A MIDI effect chain that converts audio to MIDI for better tonal deconstruction.
  • Spectral Freezer → A track that can “freeze” spectral snapshots for close inspection.

 

Song Structure Template

 

These templates are from a different mindset, and they’ve been explored in my blog numerous times, but it comes down to deconstructing a song you love for its arrangements. This implies dragging the song in Ableton’s arranger side, matching the tempo to the project, and then looking at the waveform.

  1. Listen to the song and pay attention to all the sounds.
  2. Add a MIDI channel per sound that you can hear. For example, one channel named Kick, one bass, clap, synth, etc. These ghost midi channels don’t have any instruments loaded and are there as references alone.
  3. Once you have listened to the song and noted all sounds with a MIDI channel, you listen again and add MIDI clips to the timeline when you hear the sound coming in.
  4. By the end, you should have the song’s structure in MIDI clips, indicating the order of all sound appearances.
  5. You can go beyond by putting midi notes in the clips to see when the sounds appear precisely.
  6. Group the reference with the midi channels, then drag and drop it in your sidebar within a folder for your structures.

 

 

This can be saved as a template for later use. Once you have a solid loop and want to turn it into a song, you could import a structure you previously made and know works. This can validate a structure and the number of sounds you need to complete a song. Some people can never pinpoint whether they have enough or too many sounds.

Mixing Template

 

While I offer a mixing template here for you to check, I can explain how to create one.

The logic of a mixing template is to rely on groups you can import into an ongoing project. Then, you can drag your project channels into the imported group. I would do a group per family of sounds:

  • Kick (on its own): I’ve been enjoying Cableguys’ new tool for percussion. Pair it with Shaperbox, and you will have your compression, transient shaper, and overall volume adjustment tools all in one.
  • Low End: Bass or whatever bleeds under 100hz. An EQ like Pro-Q4 or TrackSpacer will do for clean ducking, but you could also use a simple stock EQ from your DAW.
  • Percussion: Percussion potentially needs a bunch of tools, but Neutron will cover that for you. Tools that are useful here are an EQ, Gate, Transient shaper, Compression for glueing and some saturation.
  • Melodic elements: This one is tricky because it could combine synth stabs and more extended notes like pads. Some compression can help glue them together gently, and I love using a leveller for that. The LA-3A is perfect for that. EQing and stereo control are going to be essential. Please don’t overdo it with the width enhancements.
  • Background: This is low in presence. Compression and EQing, as well as the track spacer, are useful here once more for clean results.
  • Vocals: This is a tricky one, but I would say the LA-3A is going to be your best friend and a vocal rider like Melda. Pair this with your favourite reverb, delay, and chorus for cosmetics.

 

I hope these were useful!

 

 

Where Do I Go Next?

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In case you missed it, I recently recorded a video announcing I wanted to make more YouTube videos and shared that I’m working on a series of courses. Making videos came from the need to stop repeating the same information to new people I coach. The first few hours of my coaching cover multiple aspects of music production, mainly focused on organizing your workflow, which will help set what to practice next. In the video, I invited anyone wanting to create and learn to get in touch so I can connect with others about where they’re stuck in their journey, but mainly, to understand why they are blocked.

There has never been as much help, resources, tutorials, plugins, and tools as now, yet people are still blocked. They are told and sold that this solution will fix their needs, yet it doesn’t. My meetings with these random people aimed to see how they’ve been surfing the waves of music-making, mainly electronic music. In the end, the same stories come up over multiple connections.

 

It seems the main issues people face aren’t technology-based. Yes, some technicalities will be a hurdle in the race to a goal, but people can find solutions with some research.

 

One of the main issue people face is asking the simple question “Where do I go next?”

 

This will manifest in multiple ways, and while each participant had different issues, the underlying problem was that, whatever they did, they felt the next phase was unclear.

 

Let me explain more. Based on 2 main categories, I will explain contexts and solutions.

Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

The Hobbyist

 

This type of musician usually has a job, perhaps a family and makes music a hobby. Maybe that person had a moment where they’d party and go to concerts more, but at some point, they felt like they’d also want to make music. One common need the hobbyist will have is to balance their busy life with some activity that is fun and creative, and this leads to finishing some music. If you work 30-40 hours a week in a corporate job (or anything not so creative), you might find your life redundant and lacking one passion. The call to have a purpose self-imposes, and if music is something you live with, it becomes clear that it can be an exploration. But working full time comes with one challenge: spending more time in front of your computer after a full day of screen isn’t super exciting.

 

Making music has multiple uses other than spicing up your life:

  • It actualizes and crystalizes a moment in your life. When you work on a song for a little while, it creeps into your life as a score. It can follow you as an earworm while doing something not studio-related. It can also be like a story that unfolds gently, where you aren’t sure how it will end, but something emerges as you work on it. This is why it’s essential to finish projects more than perfecting them. It allows you to learn something, feel you’re progressing by learning new skills and leave a chapter behind.
  • It has health benefits. Countless studies show that making music triggers hormones that benefit mental health and sharpen cognitive abilities. It can also help prevent dementia, develop emotional intelligence, and encourage troubleshooting.
  • It regulates emotions. Making music helps you experience some emotional states. It is a way of letting go of emotional blocks, allowing you to focus on a particular feeling and not explode randomly later.
  • Music is communication beyond words. Ultimately, we share music as stories in a bottle, thrown at the world in hopes that someone will find it. While making music for ourselves, we want to connect with others through the sounds we love.

 

But these also can backfire in certain conditions. For instance, if you need a studio session and, within the first minutes, you run into technical issues related to technology failing you, that can impact your need to create. One of the challenges the hobbyist faces is a lack of time to dedicate to his art. If most sessions are organized in the time left, they have, not only is their mental energy isn’t sharp but their patience as well.

Successful hobbyists usually set studio sessions in the “green zones.”

 

Everyone has moments during the day when they have more energy. These are considered “green zones,” followed by”yellow” or “red” zones, which are different levels of energy.

  • Green. This is your peak attention time. You’ll be very effective at creating and solving issues and facing challenges that require attention and concentration. The only downside is that you have only one per day, and it has a time limit.
  • Yellow. You have less energy, but you’re still going. This zone is perfect for organizing, cleaning, and preparing tasks. Yellow zones are more extended, but if you handle them with patience, they can morph into spurts of energy.
  • Red. This state is almost lethargic. You are just unable to focus, and your motivation might be low. In this zone, you can approach the studio time to handle software updates, organize cabling, fix decorations, and, most importantly, use it to listen to music and take notes.

Setting your studio session at the best time is essential, but you can set a session’s activity based on what you can do during that moment.

 

Most hobbyists who struggle with music face a contextual issue: they either don’t go out to music or/and don’t have friends with the same interests. Perhaps one of the key points of my meetings relates to the lack of social validation.

 

Not everyone knows an electronic musician that can share knowledge but also, that can understand where one is and wants to go.

For the hobbyist, some have songs, but what are their options?

 

Having a few songs, you might want to push it to the world because the need they want is related to validation and a feeling of belonging. There’s some desperate need to connect with someone who will get it, and putting it out to the world seems like the best option. But since the person doesn’t go out and perhaps has a restraint network, reaching people might most likely end up being lost in a sea of noise where millions of people also want to be heard. I’m not sure where I read that, but there was a quote that said:

If you want to receive, you have to start by giving.

 

So, for the hobbyist, one strategy and activity to consider is listening to other people’s music and being curious. Connecting with those who share your views can provide potential artistic connections. I coach hobbyists and tell them to spend time digging for music on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Knowing music and exposing yourself to new ideas is essential to expanding your vocabulary, but you might also come across another musician who, just like you, is waiting to connect.

With too many options, we disconnect from them and tend to focus on our little habits, tastes, and routines. It makes it hard to see potential possibilities for where we can go next. For hobbyists, having a few friends who are also making music will undoubtedly answer many of their questions—not just about what they can do with their music but also about getting updated on trends, tools, and techniques.

 

Where can they go then?

 

This is a bit of a puzzle for everyone, honestly. If I take Montreal as an example, I will speak on behalf of a city I know and share some ideas that come to my mind. Montreal is a very special city, but you might be able to find similar resources locally.

 

Record stores: If you’re a music lover and rely only on digital for listening, diving back into record stores might be interesting to get out of the algorithm bubble. We have multiple vinyl stores that also sell some cassettes and CDs. There’s a market for that still. You might see other people digging and listening to music in a store. This is always a good opportunity to talk with the clerk and ask for music recommendations, but perhaps venues. If you’re not going out to clubs, there might be alternative indie places that are intimate and worth checking out local talent.

 

Music instruments stores: Similar to record shops, those places might have some gear you could consider picking up. You might want to buy basic percussion instruments to spice up your music with interaction. Talking with the staff, they might even suggest some ideas to try. Adding just a few acoustic options to the studio already makes it more playful, and sound-wise, it becomes personal. Someone like Bruno Pronsato would always record his claps and egg shakers manually. A little touch like that gives your music colour. In both cases, those places are spots to meet up and expose yourself to other music lovers of all ages.

 

Exhibits, activities, cafes and random places with DJs: Montreal always have DJs playing in random places, such as a street festival or presentation in a park. Again, befriending DJs is an excellent step in building a network, and perhaps someone can play your music in the sets or podcasts.

 

Independent Radio events: If you can find your local community radio that plays the type of music you listen to, you’ll perhaps hear about events when shows are related. It’s always a form of promotion we overlook, but local radios have a good reach in communities.

 

Follow local artists on Instagram: Instagram or other social media are places where artists usually share news about their creative activities, events, and recommendations. It’s also a place where you can send direct messages; in most cases, people will interact with you. Don’t expect much news back if you reach out to artists with many followers who are often on tour. But following your artists on multiple platforms, even streaming services, is a resource to find venues for the following shows.

 

Production Groups on Social Media: Many groups exist on Discord or Facebook. You might have to search the web a bit, but you might be able to find a community focused on a specific genre or DAW. Of course, you can be in multiple communities.

 

We have places in Montreal with an open mic concept where everyone can showcase a song. The format changes frequently, so a bit of research is worth it. However, playing your music publicly requires preparation. Releasing music is, in fact, the worst approach to getting attention and a network compared to the ideas I shared above.

 

The Semi-Pro

 

I have another category of people I work with: artists who have found a way of releasing music, perhaps also DJs, and, in some cases, are making revenue out of their exploration. This kind of artist is usually pretty aligned with what they want to do; they have perhaps an alias, a music direction, maybe a few releases on specific labels, and a taste of the different aspects of production. Music making might be one of the main activities of their lives and also takes an essential amount of their free time that overlaps work. Some have a part-time job that might be in the creative realm, but sometimes, the money income is purely functional.

 

For these people, music has benefits similar to the hobbyist’s but also:

  • Some make music in a way that promotes certain bookings. Some festivals aren’t interested in DJs who haven’t released music.
  • Endorsing a specific aesthetic can make you join a community. Some genres have leading record labels, and making music in that direction can dictate your identity, attracting people who love that music.
  • Making music for their DJ sets.

 

For the semi-professional musician, making music is not necessarily only for the sake of releasing, as there are various nuances of self-accomplishment. While many want validation from a broad public, some have focused that need on a close circle of people, which makes it easier to be attuned to where they want to go. But now and then, I see people’s mood tanks when they’re not getting attention or if they’re not releasing music. It might be seen as validation; doubt will creep in if that source isn’t fulfilled.

At some point, that category of people will also encounter a moment of not knowing where to go next. This usually happens when the routine of releases/gigs/social media exposure does not provide what the person was hoping to get. It’s easy to think that a release will be the catalytic moment where you imagine one song getting traction and giving you exposure, and then things unfold themselves. While this can happen, it is more from wishful thinking than an actual domino effect leading you elsewhere.

 

The Role-model Problem

 

I see how people spot an artist they like, then look at what they released, what they did, and where they’re playing and then put this information as milestones that made them who they are. For instance, for a while, people would look up to Perlon because of its lineup of talent and think that this was the angular piece of the puzzle that was the doorway to being validated. I know a few people who did everything imaginable to get on that label, and it never worked. Some got signed, but 10 years later, they’re still waiting for the release, which will probably never happen.

The main reason one person succeeds over another artist is mainly related to the network of people they know. But this also raises a few issues. One is the buildup of cliques and closed circles of people where some intrinsic system of politics and approval is mostly unstable. Any group that is impermeable and exclusive can most likely come to a quick end when gossiping and fights erupt. With the lack of new people, it is not set to strive healthily. The second issue with exclusive groups is the lack of open opportunities but cutting networking, and ultimately, you see members leave as soon as they succeed elsewhere.

I’ve seen many scenes where people get cynical and bitter in those situations.

Seeing how others succeed will not be your path to success. While it can inspire, you might find yourself in situations that have nothing to do with your hero’s journey.

 

What are the options to explore?

 

For anyone who has hit a wall on where to go next, there are multiple things you can look into.

Change of scene, genre, alias. Expanding and exploring other genres are fun. Artists rarely limit themselves to one genre, so it might be time to step out of your comfort zone to see what awaits you.

 

Releasing hiatus. If you are fueling on releasing to manage your ups and downs and your music validation, I strongly encourage you to take a hiatus. A pause from releasing is like taking a break from social media or smartphones. It improves your mind, and you can focus your energy on other things. Try supporting a friend in their first release or study reference tracks.

 

Go to a festival abroad. Find a festival of your choice and go on a vacation to participate. Try to go far and be somewhere you’ll know no one. Experiencing the feeling of being new again can spark fun and inspiration. Not only is going to a different city and seeing other people healthy and inspiring, but sometimes we also discover micro-communities that resemble ours. That was one thing that was constantly surprising me when I toured. I would meet doppelgangers from my Montreal crew in various places, and people who would love the same music as me would connect easily with me on a personal level.

 

Listen to music from clubs you’re new to. This is the same as above, but locally. I name clubs, but if your music is for any other context, you need to visit those places and hear your music, leaving it up to the people there. Very often, artists are studio hermits and forget about the outside world. Hearing certain songs you love in context gives a better understanding of how you can translate your ideas out there.

 

Spend time in Record Stores. Just like the hobbyist, this activity explains why we’re making music. To see records and people shopping gives an outlook to a passion. I like to see this as someone who grows crops and then can go to a restaurant where they use it for their meals. It connects the dots. Sometimes, you might even be able to play your music to the shop owner and see people’s reactions.

 

Collaborate. As it says, opening up a project with someone else, perhaps someone who is not a musician, to see what happens can lead you to unexpected places.

 

Take a class. Learn anything. It can be visual design, coding, or electronic soldering. Having another hobby is very welcomed by the brain that will appreciate the new information, and this is proven even to feed your ongoing desire to learn.

 

Music is more than releasing. It comes and lives in various ways. I hope this article inspires you to try something new.

 

Electronic Music Is More Than Making Tracks

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People have become increasingly interested in making electronic music in the last decade. I find it more exciting than people getting into DJing. It’s clear to me that one or the other is a hobby that everyone who enjoys electronic music should explore. As you explore the art of DJ, you learn how to dig, get familiar with the roots of artists you love, discover music you didn’t know you loved, and build some obsession over tracks. It’s a fun hobby that fuels the scene, supporting artists and labels and feeding more energy into what you believe in.

Making music is a pretty deep activity. I mean it. Some people get curious about making beats, and before they know it, they’re engaged in an inner journey where they rediscover parts of themselves and create sounds they never thought possible. Making music mirrors its creator’s psyche, reflecting subconscious emotions and triggering memories.

Photo by James Kovin on Unsplash

Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy, but most people who have been exploring the art for a while will confirm that it’s not so silly. This is why I get it when someone wants to make songs first, but I am also excited to tell the newcomer that there is more to explore than making tracks. What’s a bit tricky to explain is that to make tracks, you need to do multiple activities first. Making a song is like writing a story or a novel. You need to live some adventures first to share a story. Or perhaps you have a lot of imagination, but real stories always bring substance.

I like to see songs as stories from the studio. They are a collection of moments built into a more cohesive narrative. Sometimes, a few related stories can also be paired into a conversation.

Regarding categories of songs, in my case, I have two main buckets:

  • Reference-inspired music: This refers to songs that are built with a precise purpose, such as making music for DJs, and is built to fit sets.
  • Personal agenda: collecting moments and miniatures and finding sounds that I would love to put into a live performance where I record the outcome.

 

The issue I see for people who start making electronic music is that they focus on creating a song but lack the experience, tools, and general workflow to get things done. They will then compare themselves, and the gap between what they made and other people’s music will be significant. Many want to make a personal song combining the two categories I mentioned. This is even more difficult because the person will lack one of the primary essential music skills: vocabulary. That skill comes with playing, rehearsing and repeating the techniques.

I found many tutorials on making songs and known artists showing how they made music or how to make one from scratch, but this is a steep activity for a newcomer. We could relate to that kind of video, such as sharing how to build a house. It is helpful, but you’ll practice someone else’s way of working, and it won’t show all the learning they’ve been going through, which includes failing, dealing with various issues and how they resolved them. Electronic music is supposed to be a playground where you play with all those toys and software to see what comes out of it, and then, down the road, you record something you want to share.

 

To record something without exploration is the equivalent of sharing a made-up story that you haven’t lived: it lacks the essence. Memorable stories are partly inspired by personal experience.

 

Making sounds without a purpose might not be romantic or exciting, but it is an activity that develops deep listening. That skill is essential for understanding sound, reverse engineering what you imagine, and mixing. Sitting there and listening to sounds you make or have found is valuable.

 

Besides making music, sound activities that have to be added to your rotation of studio sessions should include:

  • Listening to music.
  • Listening to samples, videos, non-related sounds.
  • Update plugins and gear.
  • Learn a specific effect by testing all the knobs/options.
  • Backup projects.
  • Rename and organize past projects and ongoing ones.
  • Use MIDI controllers paired with plugins and play with them.
  • Design one sound at a time: ex. Bass hit or percussion.
  • Turn loops into structures
  • Create Mood boards and fill them with samples, designs, and sounds.
  • Analyze Reference tracks and create templates for them.
  • Modular patching.
  • Create grooves alone
  • Create Hooks alone
  • Create beats alone
  • Design an arpeggio.
  • Try chord progressions.
  • Deconstruct the song structure of a project of yours and see what are the different alternatives.
  • Practice playing an instrument or a keyboard.
  • etc.

 

 

I will share some activities and exercises I do daily that you can also do. These provide me with some ideas and remind me that electronic music is more than just making songs; it’s just spending time tweaking, listening, and adjusting.

 

Studio Activities to Try

 

Here are eight studio activities that mix challenge, logic, and analysis. Each is designed to be a focused exercise in sound exploration that lets you practice a new skill and gives you material to play with at the end. These exercises allow you to treat individual sound elements as mini-compositions (miniature) while keeping things structured enough to evolve into a conclusive five-minute segment.

 

Focus: Parameter Modulation Mapping

 

Challenge: Explore manual modulation with the 2-hands Technique

 

Activity: This requires a MIDI controller and mapping some parameters to a plugin instrument or effect. One of the most straightforward yet most potent explorations you can do is to map two knobs to 2 parameters. Then, using your hands, you’ll explore the different results when one hand does something while the other does something else. As a starter, if you need an idea, you’d control the frequency cutoff of a filter, and the other parameter would be the resonance.

 

What happens when you move slowly one parameter while the other squiggles quickly?

What does it sound like when the two move in opposite directions, quickly vs slowly?

You could ask yourself many questions, but being curious is the best guide.

 

Outcome: This transformative manipulation can drastically shape sound. You might want to add a limiter immediately to avoid hurting your ears. Recording the movement can test various sound sources through your effect. Resample everything.

 

 

Focus: Layered Texture Sculpting

 

Challenge: Create layers for a sound to make it more complex or richer.

 

Activity: You can layer textures to a simple-sounding sample using an envelope follower and a few filters. If the sound is mostly a mi-oriented synth, you can layer higher-pitched texture by putting a filter in highpass mode. Since many sounds have content in various areas of the frequency spectrum, you can explore parts of it with an EQ that isolates a section. You can also practice FM modulation to make the sound richer and then have fun with multi-band processing (eg. compression or saturation) to blend it.

 

Outcome: Practice adding layers to sounds, which gives you options when exploring new hooks. You can use previous experiments,, or if you build macros while exploring, you can create them on the fly.

 

 

Focus: Micro-Rhythm Manipulation

 

Challenge: Explore a sound when repitched, stretched or sequenced.

 

Activity: There’s this interesting fact that a sound in a library can have multiple lives, just like a cat. You can use the same sample multiple times, and to avoid repeating yourself, you’ll change it so it feels anew. Changing pitch is one way of exploring a sound’s potentially new outcome. Pitch it down for darker moods and high for exciting overtones. Explore the sound in a different scale, as a chord or reversed. Changing its length and sequencing can also turn it into an unpredictable turnout.

 

Outcome: After resampling the new ideas, you can save them as new hooks or post them on mood boards that need fresh air.

 

 

Focus: Algorithmic Sequencing Experiment (Or any sequencing that isn’t usual to you)

 

Challenge: Use an algorithmic sequencer or generative tool to create evolving note sequences or parameter changes.

 

Activity: You can record the MIDI output to new clips using a complex sequencer or MIDI clips with probabilities on some triggers. Recording multiple new clips allows you to save practical and fun sequences to reuse. In Ableton v12, you can make a drum kit and then shuffle the sounds with similar ones. Shuffling sequences and drum selections allow you to preview sounds with a specific sequence. Sometimes, we have a melody we love, but the sound doesn’t fit, and vice versa. Exploring one or the other lets you see a broad palette for a selection. Algorithmic sequencing is a powerful tool to spit out ideas from your habits since you’re not in control of the sequence.g

 

Outcome: If you save them, the result is in 3 spheres with new drum kits, midi clips, and audio clips.

 

Focus: Resampling and Transformation

 

Challenge: Reshape a sound entirely

 

Activity: Using the option to record modulation to clip in session view, add multiple effects of your choice on the channel of the sample and then record yourself moving parameters. Tieing your modulation recording to a loop-based time creates a lot of change to the initial sample. When we play with effects, we rarely automate multiple parameters at once, so this activity is about exploring exaggeration and going to places you might not explore. Once you have some action going, resample the entire playful session.

 

Outcome: Recording a long exploration as this will always offer alternatives to the original idea. Those recordings can be new hooks or extra material to support the initial sound.

 

Focus: One-Plugin Challenge

 

Challenge: Choose a single instrument plugin and use it exclusively to sculpt your sound for 5 minutes.

 

Activity: Similar to making a miniature, this activity is about taking enough time not to achieve anything other than using your curiosity and seeing what comes out of it. Very often, we are task-driven with something in mind, which narrows the outcome of what your tools can do. Set your root key to C to resample the exploration in those moments. Being in C will let you import the recording to a sampler for easy manipulation.

 

Outcome: Limiting your tools forces you to explore every nook and cranny of a plugin, and not having a goal keeps you open to finding sounds you aren’t usually going far.

 

 

Focus: Dynamic Arrangement via Automation

 

Challenge: Turn a simple loop into multiple versions of itself using generative techniques.

 

Activity: Use the follow-action option in the session view to select multiple clips with a hook and create variations. The idea is to start with a simple loop, but the outcome will be different each time you play it. The record button allows you to save the order of the clips played, creating new hooks and unexpected arrangements.

 

Outcome: Either you resample the session or record the clip launching activity, but the outcome will provide a way of exploding the initial loop trap one can fall into. You can also revisit old projects and apply the same activity to recycle solid ideas in alternate versions of themselves.

 

 

Focus: Spatial Field Exploration

 

Challenge: Explore using space through panning, reverb and filters

 

Activity: Using a few samples from a new project or idea, spend time meticulously positioning them in space using panning. Quite often, that production phase is overlooked and left to be done at the end, either in the mixing phase or at some other point. Taking the time to explore what a sound can be like in the panning distribution can reveal potential flaws or strengths of a sound.

 

Outcome: The recorded performance might inspire spatial arrangements in larger tracks and help you consider sound positioning as a compositional element. Sometimes, moving around a sound will help make sense when paired with another. It’s a nice activity to listen to how sounds relate to each other, but from a spatial perspective. Also, exploring reverb use can give a new mood to the most straightforward sound.

 

Focus: Preset Owning

 

Challenge: Explore all the presets of your plugins and tweak them.

 

Activity: It is an enjoyable experience to go through all the presets of a plugin or synth and modify them to taste. You can, after that, either save them over the original preset or as a new one. Electronic musicians often disdain using presets, but you can see them as a starting point. You can also make them yours by changing them to your needs. Going through multiple presets helps you understand how a specific plugin works and how to configure it to achieve a particular result.

Alternative: My friend Jason likes to try to “break” plugins by pushing them to extreme settings to see what happens. By pushing them far, you can then roll back to less intense results.

 

Outcome: An expansion of your presets and a better understanding of your tools.

 

If you have suggestions, please share!

 

 

 

Self Promotion And The Music Business

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There’s something weird going on at the moment with the music business. I’m unsure where to point fingers, but I’ll explain what I’m seeing, and perhaps you’ll understand what I mean.

As you know, I’m not new to music making or the business. My first record was out in 1999, and since then, I’ve seen the business change much, going through mutations, transformations, and various crises. From the whole peer-to-peer system, Netlabels, and music piracy to the appearance of streaming services and the almost crash of vinyl record sales to the huge boom.

As they say in Buddhism, change itself is the only thing that doesn’t change.

Looking at how things are going at the moment, we have many options, both for making music and consuming it. We’re being almost feed fed to new music multiple times a day. It’s hard to keep up and dive deeply into the music because we’re chasing everything we might miss. 2024 is the first year I bought plugins and things, and then the week after, I completely forgot about them because something else came up. It’s hard to think there was a time when we’d see new interesting audio tools coming every 3-6 months.

For many musicians, this situation raises multiple questions as the challenge of being heard and seen becomes more than a puzzle. For many newcomers, being able to finish a song and then publish it with a few clicks motivates them to enter the electronic music world. There’s a brutal awakening down the road when there are not many results.

 

In the past years, we’ve been sold that we could reach out to the entire world with the abundance of music promotion options available on the market. But it is clear that after some experimentation, these false premises left us a bit lost on what those tools are doing. James Blake even said he couldn’t reach out to his fans, so he started his platform. He’s not wrong, though, because when one posts to their fan, it seems like social media are trimming the size of people who will see it to a bare minimum. I’ll see an artist share their new release multiple times a day, and the number of likes I see is often around 10, sometimes more if the artist is widely known. I have 17k followers on Soundcloud, yet only 10-20 will listen when I post a song.

 

The numbers don’t mean anything anymore.

 

It seems that releasing music is making people shrug. It is no longer special unless you have a real following of caring people.

Let me summarize a few points that could help anyone with music promotion. In the last six months, I’ve worked with many clients on taking new approaches to their music, and so far, I’ve seen some encouraging results.

 

Immediate Promotion

 

The first step to promotion is to understand who your music is for. In electronic music, it is often, in the end, for DJs. Technically, those are your clients and the bridge between yourself and the public. If DJs aren’t your bridge, you need to sit and find out who your promotion proxy is. Perhaps it’s radios or blogs.

Whoever it is, you need to be able to pinpoint locally and in your surroundings who can promote your music. In this phase, the focus of your promotion is that you must avoid promoting your music, yourself, directly to the masses. The soapbox promotion method is not a good one. It is the opposite of the word of mouth promotion. We all know that word of mouth works.

TIP: There are many coffee shops, yoga studios, or other public places that are open to playing music by local artists as a way to give them a first try.

While this might initially seem counter-productive, it is yet what I’ve seen working the best. In a past post, I was relating to the Circle of 5 method, where you need to have people test your music for you and pass the word around.

I’ve been suggesting that people contact DJs to pass on their music. This can be demanding for networking as you must use social media to get in touch. From what I’ve seen lately, using Instagram seems to be a good way. Soundcloud is dead, but it works for finding talent and checking how to contact artists. That said, DJs are always looking for new music, and having the chance to discover talent is something they all want. Using Bandcamp is also another solid way of finding labels and artists and discovering music that could be similar to what you make.

The point is that you want your music to be played and tested in context. Something that drives people crazy, especially DJs, is hearing a song in a set and being unable to find out what it is because you can’t Shazam it. This is why promoting your music that way can create a buzz. That method is called Shadow presence. It’s a derivative of artists who use anonymity to create some mystery

 

The immediate promotion dynamic’s way is to invert the communication flow; You want to bring people to you instead of running after them.

 

I’d encourage you to use this method to communicate with whoever you contact.

  1. Whenever you contact someone, don’t drop a link to your music in the first contact. Don’t sound like a vacuum salesman; be human first.
  2. Establish a friendly conversation, get to know the person, be polite and explain your intention of networking.
  3. Ask permission to send music. But first, do your homework and make sure your music fits the artist’s music tastes/direction.

 

These tips for communicating with DJs are what you’d use with a label. They’re pretty much the safe list approach that makes it possible as you’re not seen as intrusive. But basically, just use these three steps through your career to avoid issues in general.

 

Labels vs Self-Release

 

This is probably one of the topics I discuss the most with clients. Too often, I get clients who just finished a song, and their first idea is to send it immediately to a label. What baffles me about this is:

  • The song has never been tested. Songs need to be played by a few experts to see if it fits the market.
  • The song never got played in a club. If your music is club-oriented, it needs to be played out to see how it fits a set, touches the crowd and fits among other songs of the same genre.
  • The song was never peer-reviewed. Music has to be heard by artists to get some feedback.

For many, the idea that every song should be promoted, sent to labels, or released is a validation-seeking exercise. They are completely disconnected from the music release process, ultimately filling the market with space-filling music. Releasing music means you want to commercialize the song(s), and the promotion must be done before.

You commercialize music because there is a demand for it. If you commercialize music to promote it, it will compete with other music (promoted properly) on the market and be lost at sea. Even more prominent artists go through a routine check before releasing their music. Some who don’t might create a backlash with their followers or the press.

The best approach to establishing a relationship with your music’s promotion is to develop patience first. Labels are there to facilitate the commercialization of your art, but there is leverage work of consolidating your online image and making your music solid. Once you have set yourself, partnering with a label will be smoother. They will get you in touch with a community, have channels of sale, and push you through their promotions. But you need a basis first.

 

Conversely, some people jump quickly into self-release without understanding the consequences or having a solid basis. Before going there, ask yourself if someone mentioned they would like to buy your music. If someone wants to buy it, you can self-release it because that is how you sell it. However, self-release is not a helpful promotion method.

 

There is no rush or need to release music whatsoever. A release doesn’t set any standards and it doesn’t make you more of an artist than you are already.

 

It’s not because your music is up for sale that it will sell. I often see clients who immediately put their music on Bandcamp and have two or three sales over a few years. This doesn’t look good and can be interpreted as unprofessional by industry professionals.

Mainly for these points:

  • It makes you look like you have no network or support.
  • It gives the impression that you’re not doing your self-promotion properly.
  • It can give the impression that there’s something off with your music.
  • It will mostly make you look like a hobbyist more than a pro or semi-pro.

 

That said, I would refrain from trying that.

Instead, keep your music to yourself and people who want to play it as a way of building yourself a network. People who succeed mostly can say they made it happen because they knew the right people at the right time. Yes, there is an element of luck, but the chance factor is multiplied by the number of influential people you know.

 

Direct Action

 

If we think that one of the artists’ goals with their music is to be heard, it is easy to be tempted to reach out to all the promotion options. Yes, sites like HypeEdit, Groover, and others will perhaps provide a window of possibilities for getting through. But then again, it might not be happening. That desire can divert you from the underlying need for validation. Once that is met, you will feel more comfortable waiting for things to happen. Therefore, what can make a difference is what you can control. This involves a series of different things.

The first action you can take to promote your music is to pass it on to interested people. Whether that person uses your music for DJ sets, a podcast, or to play in a local coffee shop, all these micro-actions make your music move. I emphasize working on what you can control.

 

Quality in your music.

Whatever and however you make music, a certain level of professionalism will pay off in how you sound to others. Some clients will book me for a mix and master, but the song does not have much content or depth. While solid production certainly can be impressive, people usually remember the hook and feeling coming from the song. If the production is a distraction from the idea, that might say that your hook is weak.

Quality combines several elements: sample quality, hook catchiness, idea articulation, execution, and development. That will eventually be the topic of a whole post. Still, if I had to sum it up, I’d say to make sure you use quality samples (not MP3 or YouTube rips) from sites, and if you find a good way to integrate it in a pattern that develops appropriately, then you’ve done a large part of the assignment.

 

Quantity and Consistency.

This has been covered multiple times in the blog, but I’ll reframe it again (until people know it by heart). To find fun and exciting ideas, you need to dig for many. The first one you see might or not be “good,” which will only be more apparent with time. This means starting new ideas every day. Make a tons. The usual ratio of gems is about 3 to 5%, good ones will be maybe 10%, and the average is 20%. So, if you make 100 new ideas, you will get a rough idea of how it will go. If this can help, I will start with about five ideas daily (for the last 20 years), but only a tiny amount will be released.

The quantity is necessary because you will be exposed to exploring multiple techniques, so you won’t repeat yourself. Eventually, you’ll end up with a lovely catalogue of songs and ideas.

 

Regular Networking.

The name of the game is networking. Your success is directly related to who you know and how you position yourself with your local community. Knowing people online is one thing, but having in-person contacts is even better. That has been said enough, and I’ll leave it to this as that is something you control for the most part. I’m aware some cities have fewer communities, and some people do not live in big cities with an active scene. But if you’re serious about what you do, organizing road trips to nearby places and making new friends might be something to add to your vacation plans in the future.

 

Expressiveness Sound Design

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One of my favourite topics is about one of the most helpful tools involved in music sound synthesis: Envelopes.

Years ago, I was searching online for essential tips on sound design and ended up in an interview with someone who worked in the industry. While I don’t remember who it was or what he was talking about, the one thing that struck me was how he explained that the most exciting part of his design was related to envelopes. In other words, he said that what made some sound designs “next level” was how they were used.

 

Every sound around us has envelopes, even constant background sounds such as a the low hum of a fridge.

 

In sound design, an envelope is a reactive control mechanism that shapes how a parameter, such as amplitude, pitch, or filter frequency, evolves in response to a gate (a signal that remains active as long as a note is held) or a trigger (a short, one-time event). Envelopes modify a sound’s dynamics, giving it motion and expression.

When you trigger a note on your keyboard or punch in some notes for your melodies or percussion, you’re using an envelope to shape the personality of a sound. If the envelope modulates the amplitude (e.g., volume, gain), it defines how it starts and ends over time.

 

There are two main types of envelopes:

AD Envelope (Attack-Decay):

This more straightforward envelope consists of just two stages:

  • Attack: The time it takes for the sound to rise from silence to its peak level after being triggered.
  • Decay: The time it takes for the sound to fade from the peak level to silence after the attack phase is completed.

It is commonly used for short, percussive sounds or when simplicity is needed, as the sound always returns to zero regardless of how long the gate is held.

Since you don’t need to hold a key down for the envelope to work, a simple tap will do, and this is why we often use this one for percussion.

 

From The Wolfsound webpage

 

Rampage (Befaco)

This module is similar to another module named Maths. It is a double AD module, meaning that one trigger can trigger two envelopes at once or be used as a multi-stage envelope (see below) where the end of the first envelope triggers a second one. It can also trigger one another into a feedback loop, a technique named Krell patching.

This highly versatile module also has speed adjustment for envelope movement, from slow to fast, once again valuable for creating textures and movement.

ADSR Envelope (Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release):

 

A more versatile and detailed envelope with four stages, often seen in synths. This one requires a gate to operate because it’s following the time of the gate itself. If the envelope’s settings are shorter than the gate, it will shift to the release stage.

  • Attack: Time to rise from silence to the peak level when the gate is activated.
  • Decay: Time to fall from the peak level to the sustain level.
  • Sustain: A constant level is maintained as long as the gate is active (note is held).
  • Release: Time to fade from the sustain level back to silence after the gate is deactivated (note is released).

 

This type is ideal for shaping sustained or evolving sounds like pads or leads, allowing for more dynamic control. It can also be used with percussion but must be longer than shorter sounds. Cymbals and gongs are good examples.

 

ADSR explained (Native Instruments)

Ableton’s Envelope MIDI is a simple modulator you can map to anything in your project. It also has different parameter adjustments for tweaking it in detail.

Envelope Reactivity:

 

  • When a gate signal is applied, the envelope begins shaping the sound according to its defined stages (AD or ADSR) and reacts dynamically depending on how long the gate remains active.
  • The envelope completes its cycle regardless of the input length for a trigger signal, making it suitable for one-shot sounds like drum hits or effects.

 

Envelopes are fundamental tools in sound design because of their reactivity. They enable precise control over the evolution of a sound’s character over time.

 

A function and an envelope share similarities in that both are time-based modulators, but they differ in flexibility and application:

 

Envelopes:

  • Typically, predefined stages (e.g., ADSR or AD) control how a parameter evolves in response to a gate or trigger.
  • Envelopes are tied to musical events like note on/off signals and are specifically designed to shape sound characteristics (amplitude, filter cutoff, pitch, etc.).
  • They repeat their behaviour consistently when triggered.

 

Functions:

  • Functions are more generalized and programmable time-based modulators that perform various tasks beyond standard envelopes.
  • A function can trigger a single event (like an envelope) and include custom curves, loops, or conditional behaviours (e.g., cycling, repeating with variations, or modulating multiple parameters).
  • Unlike envelopes, functions may not rely on a gate or trigger. They can operate freely, following internal timing or external synchronization.

 

In essence, envelopes are a subset of functions purpose-built to shape sound, while functions are more flexible and allow broader modulation possibilities.

 

What Is a Multi-Stage Envelope (Chained Envelopes)?

 

A multi-stage envelope extends the traditional envelope concept by adding additional stages, creating a more complex and customizable modulation shape. It consists of multiple chained segments with their curve, duration, and target values, allowing for intricate and evolving modulations beyond the simple ADSR model.

One thing I like in the modular world is having multiple envelope modules with an EOC (end-of-cycle), where when one ends, you can have another one starting. If you have 3-4 envelopes, they can all have different settings, and the modulation will end up being like a function because it is more programming than static and repetitive.

The best application for this is for complex fluctuating modulations. Background design, textures and drones are good examples here.

 

Key Features of Multi-Stage Envelopes:

 

Customizable Stages:

    • Each stage can have different time lengths, target values, and shapes (e.g., linear, exponential, logarithmic, or even user-drawn curves).

Chained Behavior:

    • The envelope moves through each stage sequentially, often in response to a single trigger or gate. It can also loop specific stages or groups of stages.

Looping and Re-triggering:

    • Certain stages or sections of the envelope can loop, creating cyclic behaviours (e.g., for LFO-like modulation or rhythmic effects).
    • Some multi-stage envelopes allow conditional behaviours, such as advancing to the next stage only when a specific condition is met.

Applications:

    • Multi-stage envelopes are perfect for creating evolving textures, rhythmic patterns, or modulating parameters over extended periods.
    • They are often used in modular synthesis and sound design software like VCV Rack, where granular control over modulation is needed.

Practical Example of a Multi-Stage Envelope:

 

Imagine a multi-stage envelope used to control filter cutoff for a pad:

  • Stage 1 (Attack): The cutoff rises slowly from low to high.
  • Stage 2 (Decay): The cutoff drops slightly to add subtle warmth.
  • Stage 3 (Sustain 1): The cutoff holds steady.
  • Stage 4 (Rise): The cutoff climbs again for a sweeping effect.
  • Stage 5 (Release): The cutoff fades out smoothly.

This setup can loop stages 2 through 4, creating a hypnotic movement in the filter.

 

Followers as Mimic Envelopes

 

An envelope follower is a tool that extracts the amplitude shape (or envelope) of an incoming audio signal and converts it into a control signal. This control signal modulates various parameters in a synthesizer, effect, or other audio processor. While it shares similarities with traditional envelopes, it differs in how it derives its modulation shape.

 

Similarities Between an Envelope and an Envelope Follower:

 

Shape Control:

  • Both create a time-based modulation shape that can control parameters such as amplitude, filter cutoff, or pitch.
  • In both cases, the “envelope” defines how a parameter evolves.
  • In many cases, envelope followers have rise-and-fall controls that are used to smooth out the shape of the read signal.

 

Dynamic Modulation:

  • Both can introduce expressiveness and movement to a sound by dynamically modulating parameters.

 

How an Envelope Follower Works:

 

This is a modulating tool you put at one point of your chain, and it will read the incoming signal. The signal read is then translated into a modulation. It usually comes with a Gain knob so you can control how much movement you want it to read.

 

Input:

  • The envelope follower analyzes an incoming audio signal and measures its amplitude (volume) over time.

 

Output:

  • It generates a control signal (CV or MIDI automation) corresponding to the input signal’s amplitude.
  • For example, a loud signal produces a high output value, while a soft signal produces a low output value.

 

Filtering:

  • To avoid overly rapid or jagged modulation, many envelope followers include smoothing or attack/release (rise/fall) controls.

 

Ableton 12.1’s new Envelope Follower has a Sidechain signal, allowing you to intercept the signal from another channel and mix it with the incoming signal, creating a more complex movement that refers to 2 independent sources.

 

 

Using an Envelope Follower to Modulate Another Sound:

 

Extracting Modulation:

    • The envelope follower “follows” the dynamics of one sound (e.g., a drum loop, vocal, or bassline) and creates a modulation signal that mirrors its amplitude shape.

 

Applying Modulation:

  • This modulation signal can be applied to another sound’s parameters, such as:
  • Filter cutoff: Make the filter of a pad “pulse” with the rhythm of a drum beat.
  • Amplitude: Shape the volume of one sound (e.g., a synth) based on the dynamics of another.
  • Pitch: Add a wobbling or dynamic pitch effect driven by the input signal.

 

Practical Example:

 

  • Imagine a drum loop being fed into an envelope follower.
  • The envelope follower generates a modulation signal based on the drum’s transients (e.g., the kick and snare peaks).
  • This signal controls the filter cutoff of a synth pad, creating a rhythmic filtering effect synchronized with the drum loop’s dynamics.

 

Creative Uses of an Envelope Follower:

 

Sidechain-Like Effects:

  • Use an envelope follower on a kick drum to duck the volume of another sound, similar to traditional sidechain compression.

 

Rhythmic Modulation:

  • Apply the rhythmic envelope of a percussive sound to non-percussive elements, such as reverb or delay levels.

 

Dynamic Layering:

  • Use an envelope follower to match the dynamics of a secondary layer (e.g., adding texture to a lead by dynamically modulating it with a vocal track).

 

Cross-Synthesis:

  • Combine the dynamics of one sound with the tonal qualities of another, creating hybrid and expressive textures.

An envelope follower is similar to a traditional envelope in providing dynamic, time-based modulation. However, while conventional envelopes are pre-programmed shapes triggered by a gate or trigger, envelope followers derive their shape directly from an audio signal. This makes them a powerful tool for dynamic, real-time modulation, enabling producers to “borrow” the amplitude shape of one sound and creatively apply it to another.

 

How I use Envelopes and these movements in electronic music

 

There are multiple insights I discovered while studying sounds, and one of them is how the sound fluctuates and modulates based on an envelope more than LFOs. For instance, deeper kicks often use envelope-based pitch shifting for multiple purposes.

 

  • A fast pitch shifting up can make a kick’s transient snappier.
  • A medium shifting down will create a downward pull, with a feeling the kick is dropping low towards your hips.

 

Both are common and have the advantage of bringing life, therefore making them more engaging. If the envelope constantly changes, it will feel more acoustic sounding. Considering that one envelope shapes the kick’s amplitude and another one, the pitch, reminded me of what the interviewed sound designer mentioned. I realized that when I use a sound, I always try to have 2 to 4 envelopes and an envelope follower. It became a “by default” macro for my channels.

 

The advantage of having multiple envelopes is you have them have 3 ariations: slow/fast/medium attack and slow/fast/medium release.

 

That realization was a 180-degree shift compared to my old approach, where I’d use multiple LFOs per channel/sound. Something about LFOs made the sounds feel more mechanical, while envelopes made the sounds more organic/human. It was also a way of ensuring that one sound would shape the characteristics of the sound of another channel. It made me stop using side-chaining compression and instead would use amplitude side-chaining. But that’s just one example because the applications are pretty vast.

 

Ideas to explore:

  • An envelope is used to open up an LFO’s amplitude. If an LFO modulation is constant, it will give more of a mechanical result. Still, if the envelope opens the amplitude, there will be this little temporary movement (think of bird singing). An envelope for exciting evolution can also alter the speed of the LFO.
  • Opening the wet-dry of an effect such as a reverb.
  • Envelopes are used to modulate the panning of a sound to make room for another. This is an excellent alternative to predictable aut0-panning and can also avoid phasing issues in some cases.
  • Using the envelope, a sound but inducing a delay can create a cleaner call and answer for your arrangements.
  • Create a MIDI channel without an instrument, but instead, add a few envelopes. The envelopes will follow your notes whenever you press keys on your keyboard, and you can then assign the envelopes to a few parameters across your project.

 

For mixing, envelopes have helped add cleanliness and clarity to songs. Side-chain compression became obsolete more than ever for me as compression alters the envelope more than an envelope will. Compression also alters the density of a sound, which is not always necessary.

You can also create a macro that captures the movement of a sound within a frequency range (e.g., everything over 4kHz, where transients are). Transient shapes can be used to make the texture for another sound.

 

The exploration is vast here, and I’d love to read your application.

 

 

 

 

 

Learning, Growing, Pruning

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Yes, I know, this blog has been silent for too long. I was half burnt out of ideas, to the point of not wanting to do it anymore. In a way, that was a helpful feeling because I focused on learning instead.

Sarah Belle Reid

From having Sarah Bell Reid as a mentor, Omri Cohen‘s community and wisdom for inspiration and research. Plus, there are a bunch of random courses here and there. I think I learned more that year than in the previous ones combined, where I did some studying. I feel fortunate to have access to this. When I started making music in the 90s, there was no YouTube, so watching your friend’s work was the best way to learn. Montreal had a solid community then to help one another.

Reflecting on the past year (2024), I realized I love teaching and talking with people. But I also love learning (my 15-year-old self would never believe it). When you learn, you see what triggers passion and curiosity. These emotions drive me to learn, probably because I’m passionate.

I realized that so many people invest large amounts of money into gear or software without allowing any time or investment into being taught how to use all of that correctly. I have to say I’m partly guilty of that, but now I have caught up with my investment with enough classes for multiple years ahead.

One of the most effective ways (for myself) to truly learn music is not through isolated tutorials or hours of theory but by observing someone experienced in action. Watching an experienced musician navigate creative choices in real time, asking questions at pivotal moments, and understanding why a choice was made—that’s where the most profound lessons are. It helps understand each context where one technique might be used to achieve a specific result.

 

Many online courses fail because they’re out of context: with who you are, what you want to have, and what you want to achieve. Most electronic music producers don’t read manuals as they prefer to explore to learn. So courses often fail in the same fashion: linear learning isn’t for everyone.

 

Music education thrives on interaction, dialogue, and having the space to experiment without fear of making mistakes. Learning with a community is a way of getting accountability and will help acknowledge the progress of an artist. In 2016, I started offering free coaching and created a group on Facebook. It worked for several years, but eventually, it got tired. The objective of the group was to provide technical feedback on songs. I saw many people who initially joined grow into creative artists.

 

This is also why the artist retreats have been so precious. Online feedback is one thing, but things make more sense in person. We meet as friends, listen to one another’s music, share feedback, eat together, and discuss.  The weekend becomes an exploration of learning, validation and belonging. One of my favourite ways to see this is by inviting everyone to perform a song live (5 minutes more or less). Everyone says the same thing each time we do it:

 

“Why aren’t we doing this in our living room already?”

 

My most significant learning of 2024 was how the sum of all the teaching came down to the essentials of how I work. There’s not much I can learn if I don’t experiment and revise what I just acquired. Sarah started her course by explaining how circular learning is the key to progression. While I’ve been doing it all my life, it became clear that I have structured it by pruning what I learn, practice and eventually integrate.

Circular Learning: Cycles of “How Do I..?”

 

Learning (electronic) music isn’t a linear journey. It doesn’t follow a straight path from A to B. Instead, it moves in cycles—rounds or sprints of creativity. Sometimes, your learnings spring you forward, or your lack of time drags you down, but your music will never let you down. However, having people for whom you can play in person is essential. During retreats, we all agreed that we prefer five to ten people listening deeply rather than five likes/listens on a streaming site.

It’s different than learning how to play an instrument. It is multi-dimensional because it covers synthesis, arrangements, sampling, computer understanding, logic, mixing, etc.

This is where many musicians fail to learn online: a generalized lack of how-to structure themselves to get to where they want to be.

 

The typical scenario I see is someone with the time and budget to invest in music making and starts with strong motivation. As they explore, they’ll constantly hit walls and obstacles, making them realize they lack knowledge on various topics. If their workflow isn’t well defined and there’s a lack of self-organization, it can quickly bring them to the edge of giving up. As a musician, I keep getting exposed to many ads on so-called “solutions” or shortcuts, but I know they won’t solve my issues because I have experience. This is why I want to share some of my circular learning.

 

What is Circular Learning?

 

Circular learning means that instead of gathering all the information you need to progress, you’ll explore until you wonder how to achieve something and then get the information you need to move forward. As you see, you’ll be exploring, and then you’ll run into a “how do I..?” question, which will then bring you to the next step of Research. The results are usually either a solution or technique you can then test. This will open up new possibilities for you to explore.

 

I find that what’s critical is to complete your full circle, as this is a cycle that will bring you learning.

A cycle starts when you ask yourself, “How do I…?”

 

Examples: How do I make my vocal pop in the mix? How do I recreate this sound from scratch? How does this song hypnotize a crowd when played?

Maybe I’m hearing you think aloud: That’s what I’m doing already.

But how much is it working for you? If it does, then great. Now, you perhaps have the words to explain it better.

If it’s not working, maybe a phase of that circle isn’t handled correctly. Signs of success mean that you constantly add new skills and have fewer and fewer hurdles when creating. Something is incorrect if you learn new things but keep having issues before a challenge.

Cycles and their uses

 

Each cycle begins with finding a concept—an idea that sparks curiosity.

Then comes the proof of workability, where the idea is tested, put into a template or macro, and explored by jamming. If you constantly rely on tools and macros others build, you’re skipping essential steps in developing yourself.

Understanding how your concept works forces you to learn music production techniques, perhaps new tools you ignored and possibly learn more about sound itself. But sometimes, putting an idea in a technical environment doesn’t mean it works immediately.

There’s a phase of fixing and refining—adjusting elements until they feel similar to your reference. Once the template feels solid, it’s time to record ideas. This could mean capturing an improvisation, layering sounds, or finalizing an arrangement. You then have the heart and soul of a song to finalize the arrangements.

 

I often tell people that each of my songs results from a new technique I used and learned, providing a fun result. Sometimes, an album is a collection of multiple songs using the same method, making all the songs feel coherent.

 

 

But the process doesn’t stop there. The magic happens when the cycle begins again, not from scratch, but from the momentum of the previous session. Ideas mutate, evolve, and branch out into unexpected territories. Your last project is the seed of the following one. This also helps you keep presets, tools and materials you know work well. Consolidating knowledge and technique is done by repeating over and over something until it becomes very easy.

When you learn something, you need to practice it until it’s fully integrated.

 

This cyclical process mirrors how art develops in the real world—it’s iterative, messy, and deeply human. Artists look at other artist’s works, try to understand it, then come up with theories and tests. It might be a copy at first, but you’ll be elsewhere as you start practicing to perfect it.

Having references you can study will bring many questions and start new cycles. The more unique and inspiring your references are, the deeper you’ll be in your learning process.

 

Why Education Matters Now More Than Ever

 

I could go on about how learning electronic music is essential, but I’ll share some thoughts that may support my claim.

 

Market Saturation.

A few people have told me how lost they are when finding music they like. DJs feel overwhelmed by how many new tracks come up. Since music is becoming easier to make and can also be distributed without hassle, this causes a mass of music that becomes more difficult for the listener to find what they like. They might discover multiple pale copies of the music they want instead. Still, the lack of originality comes from artists who rely on shortcuts, templates, pre-made macros or any solution to speed up their workflow without an integration where they can innovate the sound itself.

The success of a song often relies on understanding what works but adding a new twist to it. The more you know what you want to do, the more control you have over your output, which means your musical vocabulary expands.

Higher quality and control will allow you to distinguish yourself and your art.

 

AI Music.

This type of music-making is entirely different from the music we make. An algorithm processes a prompt and turns it into a song. While it gives the impression that it makes music for you, your output is still limited as you don’t fully control the render. There’s room for that type of music, especially for making generic music or coming up with ideas you can revisit later on. Still, AI music skips one of the most essential parts of music-making: the long process of composition.

Making music is often more interesting than the outcome, but many people only focus on that part because it is the end of the journey. I like to compare it to travelling. Your travels aren’t the pictures you took of them, but the entire story from when you leave your home to when you’re back. All the good moments and the parts where you had to change plans are part of the journey. It’s pretty much the same thing with music-making.

If AI music expands your vocabulary or eventually replaces a lot of musicians, it will never take away the pleasure of making a song or jamming in your studio. But with education, you can make those experiences even richer.

 

Personal Understanding.

Understanding something you love doing opens the door to a community and feeds a need for belonging. As musicians often seek validation and appreciation, relying on their music to achieve this, they frequently don’t realize that they’re trying to respond to a need to be part of a community. Making a song can be a lovely business card to get into a community, but being able to share ideas, explain how to achieve them or help others achieve their goals is a need they don’t know they have. This is what education can achieve for artists because it teaches them new skills and one way to learn is to explain it to someone else.

 

Reverse Engineering Into a Concept.

The final point I want to share is how understanding allows you to hear other people’s music and be able to pull a concept out of it. Conceptual music implies that you’re not necessarily chasing or digging for a hook; instead, you’ll make music based on certain conditions. Imposing yourself limitations is a way to create focus on what matters.

 

I hope this has inspired you to dig for information and insights.

 

 

 

 

Mixing Issues And Solutions

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As a mastering engineer, I’m exposed to dealing with mixes every day, and as we know, quality masters are directly linked to the mixes’ strengths. When in the mastering stage, I’m dealing with a stereo file, which means I can make adjustments but also have limitations. If the mixed file has all its issues fixed, I can focus on bringing the best of the song to life. On the other hand, if there are some issues, I might have to fix them the best I can, but that will also blur the song’s best part(s).

Asking the client to fix some issues is part of my job. How about a blog post to cover the most common problems I deal with?

Before I start, I’d like to say that mixing is an art that takes years and years to get the most out of. While you can take many different classes, practicing and exposing yourself to many other issues is the best way to learn. Sending them to me for mastering trains yourself to how specific tests come out in the end.

 

Some clients send me music every week for mastering. Not because they want to release the song but because they want to see what it will be like. They constantly practice and tweak their songs and start new ones, and those are the ones who learn to mix fast.

 

But like a client asked me recently, “Will I always have to depend on someone for learning to mix?”

I replied, “No, but you need to learn the basics first and then the rest will be much easier.”

But before you read this post, I encourage you to watch this video I recorded for clients.

 

 

The most common mixing issues I deal with in mastering

 

As a reader, you probably expect easy pointers to what you do wrong within your mixing session, but some of the issues come from external factors. If those aren’t addressed, you’ll have the same problems no matter what you do with your software or how you use your plugins. This is why, quite often, after listening to the first 20 seconds of a song, I already know in what context the producer is working.

This leads to the first most problematic issue I deal with every day.

 

Lack of experience with mix-translation

 

What is mix translation?

One develops this skill when they know how their sound will be projected into the world outside the studio. Mix translation requires spending time in the outside world, listening to different types of music, then returning to the studio and listening to the same songs to see how they sound. Your ears eventually understand that if you have your low end at a certain level in the studio, it will have a particular impact in a club or a car. Some people rely on their car to see if the track sounds right, which is, in a way, a form of mixed translation.

But this has a particular twist. If your studio doesn’t have appropriately adjusted settings, your monitoring will trick you into misleading directions. Or even worse, it might mask some issues or enhance parts that don’t translate well.

 

Does this mean you need a studio with a full range of acoustic treatments and a room correction by Sonar Works?

 

The answer is no.

 

I wouldn’t say I like Sonar Works’ plugin because I would rather get used to an imperfect signal than deal with a plugin-induced flat tone. Some like it, and that’s good for them, but honestly, it’s not something you need. You need a sub or Subpac to understand your low end if you do music where the low end is essential. Get a pair of headphones you love that are not consumer grade and get to know them well.

 

A client kept asking me to boost the sub, and I eventually found out he had no sub. He had a nasty surprise when he got to play the track in a local club.

 

Many clients have mixes with too much of a certain range (ex. exaggerated low end) which will have repercussion of be sounding wrong in certain clubs and will for DJs to have to readjust their EQ on the mixer to match other songs they mix.

 

When clients receive the master of their track, they listen to it in their studio and sometimes feel it’s wrong. That is because they have mixed their song to fit the studio’s flaws, and once those are fixed, then something will feel off. The right way to listen to a master is to compare it to a third-party song that we know sounds right. You can also listen on headphones where there’s no external acoustic disruption.

 

Solution(s):

The easiest solution is to get yourself a wide array of reference tracks. Some people don’t like working with them, but using and knowing them properly will resolve many issues regarding presence, impact, loudness, tone, and general impression. While I work with a client, I usually propose a master that is, according to my understanding, the best presentation possible. Still, if I miss the aesthetic, a reference will significantly help. It goes beyond the words and explanations of a client as it is a concrete demonstration of the wanted result.

 

That reference cannot be a client’s track. It must be from a third party with whom we agree sounds excellent. Tracks from the client will sound right in his studio because they were made there.

 

As mentioned, knowing your environment and going out will help you understand mix translation.

 

If you handle this first point, it will resolve many issues. But I see other problems, no matter if you hold that point, so let’s continue.

 

Low-End Clarity

 

Having a good understanding of the low end is the key to many dance music-related electronic music. How the sub, bass, and kick perform in a club or a festival drives a crowd and keeps energy. I recently brought my son to a local festival where he heard electronic music loud, and he was so impressed by how the bass felt that it gave him a new understanding of why I love the genre and why people get into dancing.

On the opposite side, if the low end lacks clarity, the mushiness will have a sluggish effect on the people listening, mainly because it will lose its power and punch.

 

What is low-end clarity?

The low end refers to a frequency range of about 150Hz and below. This covers the kick, part of the bass, and the sub. The bass can start at around 250Hz and go as low as 30Hz. The kick can start high, around 1.5kHz (for the transient) to 20Hz. But its punch will be between 200Hz and 20Hz, depending on the genre, which all have a different recipe for handling the kick. The sub is pretty much under 30hz.

Considering how these three main sounds cover and share presence within that range, they can easily overlap, causing confusion. It can easily be disruptive once one masters if one masks another.

 

Solutions:

One can do multiple things, but the first solution is to handle this right from the start when you’re in the arrangement stage and sound design.

  • Adjust your sound’s length so they don’t overlap. This is within the ADSR, where you can cut the tail of one sound so it doesn’t hit another.
  • Amplitude modulation is another option if you’re struggling with the length. This means you can use side-chaining compression or a tool like Trackspacer to make one sound that should be the leader to force others to duck when it plays. While Trackspacer is the easiest to use, that can also be done with Pro-Q, Fuser, Shaperbox, but those require a bit more tweaking to get a satisfying result.
  • You can also clear your low-end by learning to use a Gate. The gate helps create space, muting anything under a certain threshold. This means it will silence the tail of certain sounds. My favourite Gate is included in the Neutron Suite.
  • Considering your low end has limited space, consider having a shorter kick if you have a longer bass or vice versa.
  • Cutting the unnecessary frequencies for each sound can also help, but it starts with the amplitude first.

 

Gain Staging

 

For many, this music production and mixing aspect remains a bit esoteric. Even for myself, it was confusing for years, mainly because no one would adequately explain it to me. Eventually, I understood it independently, which was good because now I can describe it easily to anyone.

 

What is Gain Staging?

Let’s summarize it to the essential: it’s about giving enough loudness during the mixing stage so that once I master it, I don’t have to compensate and boost it too much. That is not just for the general loudness of the track but also per frequency sections, such as the low end or the mids.

 

Why is this a problem?

Once I have mastered it, I’m left with only a few options to compensate for the mix’s loudness to hit the commercial levels the market needs. If the mix given has a loudness of -19 LUFS, I need to compensate by adding 9 to 10 LUFS, which is quite a lot. This means that the level differences between sounds and the depth, noise floor, and relationship between all the sounds will be altered drastically, giving my client a shock.

Also, sometimes the loudness is almost perfect, but the low end might not have the required density. I must focus on that zone alone, which can alter the track’s direction.

 

Solutions:

Gain staging is a series of different actions one can do right from the beginning once samples are selected. When you load up a sound, it is essential to normalize it so it hits zero unity, then check its RMS level to see how much power it has. There’s a difference between the peak loudness and the RMS. The last one is about its density. You can stimulate the density with distortion in one of its numerous forms: compression, distortion, saturation.

This means that plugins such as pre-amps, emulations of hardware, overdrive, and waveshaping, to name a few, can help a sound pop out of the mix because it is thicker. See it as if you would put the sound in bold, where it is dense and thick compared to a standard font.

One mistake I often see with clients’ mixes is applying compression at the end of the chain, either on buses or the master. While that can be useful for glueing multiple sounds simultaneously, it also significantly reduces your dynamic range, killing punch if not used properly.

 

Harshness, Resonances and  Transients

 

This one covers three issues at once because they’re related. The umbrella that covers them all at once would be named harshness.

We all know when a song sounds unpleasant, but what causes it?

 

Generally speaking, harshness means that when you listen to the song, it feels uncomfortable or worse; it slightly hurts the ears. This is a given in 99% of contexts because you want people to listen to an enjoyable experience. The last 1% is about some noise, punk and Lofi music, where the uncomfortable feel is enjoyed because it creates tension. But even with those genres, there is a threshold on what human ears will handle.

 

What makes a song harsh is related to one or the combination of different characteristics. One of them is poorly handled transients that feel sharp and will feel like a stabbing to the ear drum. Transients come from the ADSR of a sound where the attack might be too sharp, paired with annoying frequencies. Some people think, de facto, that 3kHz is automatically uncomfortable, but sometimes, that frequency can be ear-pleasing if boosted. The envelope of the sound is sharp, and the concentration/density at a specific spot might be affected. It is just like putting bold in something ugly.

 

In sound design, different sound sources help replicate real-world instruments. For instance, noise or inharmonic content can replicate a hihat or a snare. Poorly managed noise, such as white noise, which covers a full range, can be sharp. Picking a filter and applying an ADSR to it can help manage that.

Other sources, such as feedback, which can be helpful for non-linear sound design, can be beautiful but can create resonances. That type of sound, if handled properly, can add an organic feel to your sound, but if you exaggerate, it will be uncomfortable. This is why that resonance on a filter can be ear-pleasing at a certain level, which is the same for boosting EQ’s filter.

 

When I work on a master, I call myself the general ear’s advocate. I’m the wall between the general public and the client’s song. I adjusted the song so that it felt suitable for the average Joe. It can sometimes be shocking for a client to hear their song fixed, where I removed all the uncomfortable points.

 

Solution:

 

Quite often, clients or people I coach ask me which online ear trainer they should try to be able to spot problems in their music. My reply confuses you as I suggest not to use any since, in my humble opinion, they won’t train you for that. The real issue is that many clients don’t understand the harshness for multiple reasons.

  • You will lose the criticism if your monitoring equipment masks your song’s harshness. This is why consumer headphones or, sometimes, hi-fi make everything sound perfect.
  • Your ears eventually adjust to imperfection if you overexpose something to them. In other words, if you listen to an ugly song in a loop, your brain will trick you. It’s nice because it’s the only option to not go mental by listening to that loop.
  • Comparing your music to well-adjusted music is a cross-validation system that will reveal imperfection. If you AB your music, you can feel something is wrong with your sounds. Then, what should you do?

 

No tool will directly educate you about resonance, but some will give you hints. A plugin like Soothe is a good eye-opener because it shows you potential resonances and controls them dynamically. Different alternatives are cheaper. But honestly, a good way to educate yourself on the harshness and rough mixes is to trust your intuition that something is wrong and then follow this routine:

  • Using a 3-band EQ, isolate one of the three primary ranges (Low, Mid, High) to pinpoint the issue’s approximate location.
  • While you pinpoint the range, pay attention to which sounds are playing.
  • Mute some of the channels to find which one is causing the issue. Once you mute one that seems to impact the ear’s comfort, you know you have found the problem.
  • Sometimes, the problem comes from combining multiple sounds playing simultaneously. If you solo the sound, you won’t have a problem, but playing with others creates a concentration of frequencies that hurts your ears. You can group those channels at once and then apply an EQ cut at the frequency where it hurts. The methodology is the same: put an EQ dip of 6dB to start with and then scrub the area to see if a position makes it more comfortable. Once you find it, adjust it to -3dB to see if that works. Adjust to taste from there.

 

Consider removing a sample if you must EQ out 3-4 points at 3- 5 dB. This usually means the sample is plain garbage (for your song).

You can also manage transients with a transient shaper or use a compressor with a short attack to control the problematic envelope of certain sounds.

 

Stereo Width and Depth

 

Wide mixes are impressive—I get it—but that can also be an issue in some listening contexts. Those issues mean loss of punch and power; some sounds become ghosts by disappearing or losing considerable loudness. In a stereo signal, there are the Left and Right (LR), but there is also the Mono signal and the Sides (MS).

The mono signal is distributed in both speakers. If you go very close to a speaker and hear only that one, you should distinctively hear the mono and panned signals. When the two speakers are positioned, the mono signal will appear right before you (center), so your ears perceive a stereo representation. On headphones, the mono signal feels right up to your nose or in the middle of your head.

The right and left signals are encoded in the specific signal, which is the same on headphones.

The Side signal, once isolated, will feel on each signal but will have the mono signal muted. It’s a hard one to describe. On headphones, it can feel like hearing the ambience of a space alone, almost tricking your ears that you can listen to behind and around your head.

 

There are many wideners out there that play with psycho-acoustics to trick your ears. The signal is wider, but this can blur out your sounds to a point where they will phase. What we call phasing issues is that the sound cancels itself out because it can’t be properly represented in the stereo image. I could go deeper in the description, but you must know this.

One of the issues I often deal with is the mono signal being too weak compared to the sides. Sometimes, it can be where the side signal, but only a specific frequency, is louder than its mono signal. In the opposite scenario, the sides are too weak, and I will try to open them to give some presence. If I did that, I would never exaggerate it.

 

Solution:

This is a tricky one. Using a tool that shows your mixe’s MS balance is best. You can also learn to spot if sounds are phasing with a spectrometer. I’d encourage you to get the free vst Span by Voxengo.

 

General recommendations for enhancing your mixes

 

Some healthy habits you can start when you make music will directly impact your mix’s quality. I will share a few of them here as bonus content. These tips don’t necessarily address a specific problem but will help you achieve consistency and better results after mastering them.

 

Mixing Flat / Using an FFT

Keeping an FFT reader on your master bus, such as SPAN, will give you an idea of whether the tone of your song is slanted or flat. For mastering, it’s easier to deal with a mix that is flat than one that is slanted (dark or bright). Having a flat mix gives me the chance to propose to the client a specific direction that will be best for the given song. If the song has an exaggerated tone, and I have to fix the tone, the client will automatically believe I messed up the song.

 

Testing in Mono

 

I’d encourage you to test your song in mono during the mixing stage. Multiple plugins, including the Utility plugin from Ableton, can convert a stereo to mono. When your song is in mono, try to see how certain sounds are heard compared to when in stereo. If the sounds in mono signal drastically get attenuated, you must accentuate its presence to solidify its level. You might have overused some phase-inducing plugins, and it might be good to mellow that out.

 

A/B your music

Drop a few songs directly in your arrangement section to use them for referencing. You can then A/B your song with that one and compare the tone, levels, and width. You can also check the arrangements, which sometimes reveal flaws in yours.

 

Learn to DJ and use Rekordbox

This might sound strange if you’re only producing, but if you learn to DJ, this will be helpful in how you prepare tracks. When you DJ music you love and then play yours, does it feel right? Is there a gap? Not only can DJing be a fun hobby, but it is an activity that will significantly help with your mixing and arrangements. I consider this essential if you aspire to make dance music-related music. It is a way to put yourself in a DJ’s shoes.

 

Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash

 

The Success Trap

/in /by

I went to a local club to hear a visiting friend from Romania for an all-night of music that was more aligned with my tastes, and while the DJ before him was a bit linear and predictable, my friend opened up with fresh-sounding music. He didn’t drop the Beatport top 10 music or anything directly linked to the previous DJ, not even an introduction to please the crowd. He dropped some obscure techno, which was a bit audacious, and he quickly followed it with a song from the 90s. The main idea of that track was a vocal saying, “Get House,” which was this song by Caliesto. Beautiful contrast.

 

 

Just hearing the sample, I had flashbacks of raves, lasers, glow sticks, and people dancing and sweating, just from a single sample that I heard, which brought me back to a specific era. In contrast to the previous DJ, where all songs blended well together in a seamless flow, there was unfortunately nothing memorable or tangible to grasp from it. I don’t remember a single moment, just a week after. This is not a criticism of someone’s music, but more to say that solid ideas age well because they create intense moments. If you listen to the Caliesto song, you’ll realize it’s relatively simple. Still, the hook is catchy enough for anyone to tell their friends later on about the primary sample, which others can probably remember easily.

It occurred to me that the definition of success has changed since the 1990s. Of course.

 

Back to DJs

 

As I got back into DJing, I’m exploring the options available, as numerous tools are now available. For instance, I got a professional account on Rekordbox and paired it with an experienced account on Beatport. This allows me to sync my playlist from the store directly to my Rekordbox, add any songs I want and then have this endless catalogue on hand. It’s basically like having Spotify, where your limitation is your music knowledge or culture. But even if you are new to it or limited, there are discovery tools to help you search what others like and play.

After synchronizing Beatport to Rekordbox and opening the music section related to it, I got overwhelmed. If you know me, you’d know that technology rarely overwhelms me. It took me a lot to get there, but I was staring at the selection and feeling lost. I wasn’t overwhelmed with possibilities; I was confused by how much junk was out there.

I’m not here to criticize the music again, but more from a meta-level, stepping back as a global view.

The number of songs that sound exactly like the previous one was blatant. Some of my favourite artists suddenly make songs with questionable sounds or presets, and many new artists create music with strange, unusable arrangements.

Am I too old for this?

Nah, don’t worry. Once I start digging, I still find a lot of fantastic music. So what happened exactly?

 

Music Democratization and Open Business Opportunities

 

In the 90s, electronic music software aimed to allow more and more people to make music by making it more accessible and affordable. This opened the path to countless music lovers interested in making music. I’d be a hypocrite to complain because I was one of those people with no music background; technology was my saviour. Jump 30 years later, add YouTube for knowledge sharing (fueled with the motivation of popularity of likes), and add aggregators who allow anyone with a finished song to access all online stores and streaming platforms. You’ll get albums of barking dogs, techno EPs made by eight years old, fart-fueled drone music and whatever you can think of, you can probably find it.

Is that bad?

It’s not me to judge, but the advantage of people being solid selectors is probably what can make a DJ stand out from their colleagues. But as a producer, I think the question is, can one escape the appeal of the mass wave of music similarity and perhaps be irrelevant?

Absolutely, but this is a tad complicated to cover because it is defined by multiple aspects, such as your Definition of done (DoD), your culture, your community, and what you consider success.

 

Success Trap

 

Whatever you see or identify as a “problem” is directly related to a micro-culture of habits that created that situation. For instance, if your bedroom is messy, you have a terrible habit of not keeping it tidy. If you want to clean it, once you have cleaned it, it will remain that way for a day or two until it gets dirty again. The real goal behind this is not to organize your room; it’s to develop cleanliness habits so it remains clean.

We can translate this to the music business as well. A considerable amount of people who consult me in private wish to finish more music because their goal is to be successful, which they translate by having:

  • Music being finished
  • Signed to a label

Labels see success by releasing music that eventually gets attention and sales. DJs see success with gigs, and Instagram reels with loads of likes.

While there’s nothing wrong with these, the focus is set on something that defines the success of an external party. You might never feel like it’s enough because there will always be options for better, and while it can become addictive, it can also feel depressing. But the appeal of seeing people having many likes, playing on the big stage, and having many streams is an image we might all crave; I can get it.

Seeing success in others as an end goal is a trap because it doesn’t focus on the habits that successful artists built.

 

Behind the successful DJ is daily research of old and new music, rehearsals, and research, but also many failures. Behind the successful release is the habit of the producer making music every day and making 23 different versions of each song. Behind the successful label is a team that spends time daily networking with media, DJs, and festivals. Behind each role model, there is a lot hidden, and that is where success lies.

While everyone is debating AI music (or images) generating tools, I rarely see anyone talk about how this is aimed at results and bypassing the creation processes and habit forming.

If you focus on having solid habits, results will follow. This starts with keeping your bedroom tidy, making your bed every day, and washing the sheets once a week. In the end, your room will be clean and remain clean.

This is not my pure invention. It comes from a book called Atomic Habits. I discovered that book years ago, and it made such an impact.

Breaking The Standards

 

In my last post, where I gave points on speeding up your work process, someone asked how this can flood the market with more unnecessary copycat music when I posted on social media. I asked him if my music was, and he said no (I know the person, so it was a good chat). It came down to how you use your speed and the aim of your intentions. But yes, if you work fast and aimlessly, you may get in the queue to make another version of the best seller on Beatport, which has probably already existed 200 times.

But how can one break standards, routines, clichés?

 

Forming Habits Based Around Originality

 

This is where it should all start. That implies recognizing what makes a song original, unique, and memorable.

 

 

Being more personal in your expression

 

There are two popular types of producers: those who want to sound like everyone and those who don’t want to sound like the rest. Each faces some issues:

  • Sounding like everyone else will not elevate you to the status of a leader. However, it can pay off if you find other people who quickly like the same sounds as you.
  • Sounding like no one will marginalize you, making it hard to find your community. When done right, originality can be acclaimed and turn you into an innovator.

But being more personal in your music doesn’t mean turning yourself into an alien. It means you can take known ideas but shape them into who you are. For instance, I love it when there is a melodic harmony in my music (using root keys and scales), but I have a hard time following typical chord progression that is popular in songs (progressive, lo-fi hip hop, etc.). When I make melodies, I just hit keys randomly using my ear and eventually organize my notes to make sense (to me). It’s weird for anyone into music theory because it doesn’t follow convention, but it makes sense because it is not harmonically wrong.

My friend Bryan, a jazz musician, said he preferred my weird melodies to some too-organized songs because ” they sounded more like you.”

A client used his voice to sing notes that he’d convert to midi. He felt like his voice would put to melody, something very personal.

It’s the same for percussion. You can follow conventions or play it weird with whatever you like… while remaining on the grid, so it’s playable by a DJ.

 

Master one or more music production techniques.

 

The more you master one technique, the more you can push its boundaries. Using a method on its low level is missing that zone where you can extract ideas entirely different from what everyone is doing. Thinking of J Dilla, he mastered sampling and swing groove, which brought his recognizable signature.

If you think of that Caliesto song I mentioned, it’s also about understanding execution more than just relying on the content.

 

 

Cross-pollinate genre inspiration.

 

If you read my blog, this often comes up. Songs that get attention are usually innovative, and recently, there’s been a news saying that David Guetta has done some country music, which is a good example. You might not like him, but in terms of business decisions, this guy always takes decisions that show the way. This also applies to handling sampling as a way of constantly innovating yourself. If you think you’re mastering that technique, think again.

Splice is also an excellent place to dive for inspiration. Their AI that suggests ideas to start with is pretty innovative and helpful. It allows you to break the routine and pick samples from other genres.

 

Avoid popular sample packs and presets

 

I can’t say this enough, but some genres rely on the same packs. Unlike drum and bass with the amen break, it’s a sample. We’re talking about a pack of multiple samples just used and reused to the point where it’s breaking any chances of growing as a musician. Considering the number of samples we can access, I have difficulty understanding why this is happening.

Using the same sample packs falls under wanting to sound like the others. One of the excellent features of Ableton Live 12 is the “Find similar samples” feature, which, with a click, proposes a wide array of options. So, perhaps you can start with a base of a few samples but then dive into your library to get similar-sounding ones.

 

While advocating for presets, primarily for self-education, I also encourage you to tweak them a bit so you can find various colours you didn’t know you had under your nose. While mastering and listening to a client’s music, it often happens that I’ll go, “Ah, he used this synth with that preset,” which is not a problem, but I find it a bit lazy. But that’s me, which means others might also think that. If you aspire to release it, you might not want a label to believe that of your music.

While there’s no “find similar presets” in Live, you can sort of work around it by creating a macro of your plugin by mapping parameters to knobs (as a group), then creating snapshots of your knobs. If you record yourself playing with your snapshots, you’ll see the knob’s position being recorded as well. Then, you can make a slew between the positions. There’s also a max patch that can do it here.

 

I hope this helps!

 

Photo by Matthew Moloney on Unsplash

Shortcuts And Speed Up Tricks

/in /by

In case you missed it, I declared 2024  “my back-to-production year.” It started slowly because I had a lot on my plate, but as soon as it slowed down, I got into full force. Ironically, the last ten years of education I provided to students and people I mentored were based on my peak time experience, but I wasn’t applying my tricks to my workflow so much.

Sometimes, you need to focus on yourself; other times, focusing on others will provide insights. You can only explain what you truly understand; explaining to others often forces you to rethink your knowledge. Since time flies, it has made more sense to do a lot of music to see the real challenges in 2024 and perhaps find new approaches.

In this post, I will try to summarize the different shortcuts and hacks that have led me to be on the road to work incredibly fast, making 1-2 songs per day on top of my regular workload.

 

Why Work Fast

 

If you read this blog, you know I embrace speed in music-making for multiple reasons. The number one reason is that you get better at something with practice, and if you work fast to make music, you’ll work with techniques, face issues and learn something new with each session.

 

By stating this over and over, it only made sense that I would be fast myself, and at first, I felt a bit rusty, so it didn’t take much time to get back into it. The first step to speed is to understand where you lose time.

 

For this, there are two main spheres:

 

Idea generation: Melodies, bass lines, percussive patterns, sequences, chord progression, hooks, song structure, arrangements, etc.

Content: Sounds, recordings, effects, etc.

 

Idea generation matters when developing your song, while the content sphere is about how it sounds. You can have all the best ideas in the world, but what does it sound like? You might have all the sounds, yet how you arrange them will be what your song is about.

 

It’s a challenge to come up with both, and many people get lost in one part of this, hyper-focusing on making the best of it and forgetting that there are other things to address. Building speed involves delegating some parts to tools that can handle it while you focus on the ones you are the best at.

 

A good example is the use of a drum machine. One might want to focus on hook and song structure but will leave the percussive side to a drum machine that won’t need much programmation nor sound design, as it comes with its sound. Another example is from the acoustic genre, like folk music, where the sounds will be guitar and voice, so the artist can focus on the lyrics and perform without worrying about finding many sounds.

 

Finding Your Shortcuts Through Tools

 

Once you know where you lose time, it’s time to realize that technology exists to simplify your workflow. Regarding tools and plugins, here is a complete list of all the tools I use to enhance my music.

 

Idea Generation

Hooks, Melodies, riffs, motifs: After analyzing so many hooks from songs I love (you should do the exercise to see what you like), I can understand that they’re either sampling-related or short phrasing of notes. If you expect to make great melodies without understanding music, your best asset would be to become familiar with the basics. Knowledge is always the best investment before any use of the tool.

That said, writing ideas can be tricky. Plus, if you want to write melodies yourself, you might likely always come up with the same routine. I suggest starting with generators that can propose some starting point and then build on that.

Ableton Live 12 has many different seed generators for creating fresh ideas. I recently related to Phil Meyer’s Suite of Generators, but I also looked at Manifest Audio, which has its palette of tools freshly ready for Live 12.

If you’re not familiar with the various tools AlexKid made, he humbly started with a drum machine sequencer in Live, but soon after, he came up with multiple tools for generating ideas, such as Seqund and the suite bundles.

I also love AudioModern and Riffer, and Rozzer and Sting can be super powerful free tools. Snake just got a new version of Live 12, which is lovely.

 

Sounds and Content

 

If we are going to relate to samples, there are multiple options on the market. In the subscription model, there is always Splice (one-shots, loops, plugin rent-to-own and more), Loopcloud (one-shots, loops, midi), Tracklib (royalty-free song content to reuse), and Soundsnap (sound library from field recordings to one-shots, used mainly by movies). You can also explore free options with Freesound, Archive.org, and Samplette (random YouTube searcher).

The best way to generate new sounds is to create a macro where I have mapped the parameters of a sampler or Synth as a macro and then hit the macro’s randomizer to access a new sound.

 

Creativity comes from action and motion. You need to sit and work for ideas to come.

 

Collaboration

 

This is not a plugin, but collaboration has the most significant impact on speeding things up. It also depends on who you work with. In-person sessions can often result in distractions, chatting, smoking weed, and not doing that much. Ideally, I prefer remote sessions where each participant works when they have time, at the peak of their focus.

The other benefit of working remotely is collaborating with anyone, anywhere. In my case, my collaborators are often in different countries.

If you want to learn how to make music fast, work with someone who knows their way. When you swap projects, knowledge will be shared. You will find collaborators in people who do something you love and do something well that you don’t. Someone who complements you will do better than someone at your level or who has the same ways as you.

Now, here’s a twist. Sometimes, it’s good to work with someone with zero music-making experience who is in good spirits and will provide you with some ideas. I find it inspiring to be sitting in the studio with someone who will go, “I imagine the song to do this, and that can go there.” then you do what you can with that information, and whatever happens, it gets you to a place you would not explore on your own. A beginner is often enthusiastic about things you might be jaded about, giving you an appreciation for things you got bored with.

During a recent retreat, we did a jam with four people. While this wasn’t new to me, everyone else had never tried that before, and they were mind-blown by what we were doing. There was no preparation at all. We just improvised, and everything felt natural and fun. What felt like 10 minutes was almost 2 hours of weird music. That was energizing, and we all shared the music that we saw fit with others.

 

Templates and References

In my fast pace of music-making, I’m having two initial sessions. One is building a base idea, and the other is creating a skeleton song. As you have learned from this blog, fetching, developing, and organizing ideas should be the base of your work, and it takes a lot of time to find the ones you love. But that shouldn’t stop you either from advancing within your music-making.

Building songs from basic ideas is a good starting point; sometimes, the main idea appears as you work on them.

You will be creative by working it out and not by waiting to feel creative.

 

This is where templates are handy. I like to save a finished song as a template, but first, I remove it from all the sounds while keeping the MIDI and effects. If you think about it, in the 1970s, people organized a mixing board for an entire album recording, which kept uniformity across the project. It would also often be recorded in a unique studio.

Keeping the song as a template speeds up your organizing for the follow-up song(s).

 

Rekordbox

I once saw someone on Instagram saying everyone should DJ, and I agree. I don’t mean that everyone should perform as a DJ in clubs, but more for self-educational purposes and because it’s fun. It opens you up to many exciting understandings of how electronic music works. If you disagree, fair enough, so we should agree on one point: anyone who makes electronic music for DJs should at least learn and play as a DJ themselves.

In the last months, I went back into DJ mode and found a new range of inspiration. Plus, playing unfinished music in Rekordbox alone pointed out flaws in the arrangements and the mix that I initially felt were ok. It even altered my workflow, where I would make a skeleton arrangement for a song and then directly drop it in Rekordbox to play it with music I love so I could see what happens, what works, and what does not.

So, in a way, stepping out of Ableton Live and going into Rekordbox is a shortcut and also a headache saver.

Everyone should learn how to DJ. There is a lot to learn and it gives you appreciation for the art, for the music while educating you on how music is made. Just as much as everyone should learn how to play piano.

 

Templates

I’ve discussed this multiple times, but when you start making music, I recommend starting by making one template per studio session. From simple to complex, creating a template ensures that you structure future sessions, organize what you do each time you start a song, and store potential techniques to explore.

Here are some ideas to explore:

  • Mixing template: Create a template of multiple pre-made channels with effects for mixing.
  • Minimal (or any genre) template: Have a template with a collection of kicks, synth presets, and other sounds ready for you to put in the spirit of making one genre.
  • Sound scrubbing: Build a template with different tools for altering and destroying samples, such as granulators, distortion, modulators and samplers.
  • Complex routing: Perhaps you’d like to explore weird techniques of gating and side-chaining with some complex routing made in advance.
  • Pad collection: Load up a bunch of synths and samplers to have complex textures in layers.
  • Percussion swapper: Open multiple drum kits and send the same midi to various kits so you can preview your options.

 

The beauty of having options in a template means two possible points: the first is that you can open a template and start working on it or import channels from a project you are currently working on.

 

Macros and Systems

 

Quite often, when I open up the projects from clients, I see they use a chain of effects. Some make no sense, while others are interesting, but however it works, I never see them being grouped as macros. I’m always surprised how so few people miss the opportunity to use one of the most powerful aspects of Ableton. Not only is it easy to group that rig of effects, but who knows if it can be used later on in another song.

Turning multiple effects into a macro means:

  • You can map essential parameters of the effect to knobs so you can control them with PUSH or quickly have access to the knobs, all centralized in one place.
  • Save parameters as global presets to have different colours quickly.
  • Randomize your rack for unexpected results.
  • Modulate elements from one spot.

I’d encourage you to add this as a habit, as it will automatically pay off in the short term.

 

Systems are a bit like macros but a bit more advanced, so they are not easy for a newcomer to explore. What I refer to as a system is when you have built a macro that generates content for your music. This falls under the umbrella of generative content but uses macros. The advantage of generative tools are to create ideas to add to your music. It can be related to percussion or melodies or weird glitches. I have a lot of generative tools I always pull out when the idea “something’s missing” pops into my mind.

Photo by Marc Sendra Martorell on Unsplash

Slice Everything

/in /by

After a few years of pausing teaching 1-2-1 beginner’s classes, I took a few lately to get back in touch with how it feels when you start making music. One of the reasons I wasn’t taking beginners was that it became redundant to me, and I preferred taking intermediate to advanced producers instead because of the challenge and because, at that level, different problems require some creative approach. Beginners require guidance, help with navigation, workflow, and debunking myths about music making and basic concepts. At the same time, I now realize that I take the challenge differently; I aim to teach them the most with as little as possible.

 

One approach I take is to see their progression with levels, like video games or Dungeons and Dragons (if you know me, I’m a big D&D fan, playing weekly). In this post, I’ll approach one technique people are constantly overlooking, and whatever level you are, it is undoubtedly something to apply: Slicing.

 

Sampling, Resampling and Hip Hop

 

At a beginner’s level, people are looking to familiarize themselves with the tools and navigation of Ableton Live (or DAW). I always insist that if you focus on hardware, you go back to a DAW, as there are a lot of concepts to learn first, and using a computer is far simpler than learning gear. Part of that navigation includes using clips, loops, and simple sounds and building songs with those to understand how arrangements work and simple theory.

 

At that level, you can’t yet aspire to sound like what you hope for, nor does someone who plays the piano for the first time practice scales. If you want to make songs, you need to practice making songs out of whatever you find. But sampling, resampling and remixing can go a long way. Some producers make a career out of those techniques.

 

Everyone wants to make songs but no one want to learn how to make them. They all want to skip the practice because they think they have it all figured out.

 

Hip-hop is a good example. The philosophy and basis of production include sampling old records or any music whatsoever and arranging them, often on an MPC. The logic comes down to “grab and juggle, rearrange to taste.”

Creatively, it is the ideal ground-breaking approach: You take what you love and then arrange it in your way.

 

I’ve been following this artist, Jon Makes Beats, who applies this efficiently. He often samples records, usually quite corny (apparently many of them were bought at a Salvation Army for a few bucks), rearranges them, adds beats (often from rearranged loops), plays some notes on top, and then booms (usually presets, which he says he’s okay with)—all that is recorded in one shot. To me, this feels like perfect, successful studio time.

 

Watch all his videos, and it’s impossible not to get inspired by the simplicity of his approach. But also, he has some good, down-to-earth tips that are aligned with mine.

 

The central concept is simple: once you have your samples, you have the material to tell your story in another way. I’ll share some points and ideas for you to try.

 

Numerous notable artists have made amazing things with samples, but two who come to mind are the Beastie Boys and Daft Punk. In the Apple TV documentary, The Beastie Boys share how one of their early hit songs relied on three samples as the basis; the rest was a drum machine and their rapping. On the other hand, Daft Punk layered multiple little samples from various records to achieve a song. Those 2 are good opposite examples, but both did so much with taken ideas used creatively.

 

 

Creating your own Slicing preset

I wasn’t super happy with the sampling presets in Ableton Live, so I created my own. When I slice a loop, I want, by default, access to a specific macro mapped to what I usually use.

 

First, if you’re unfamiliar with slicing, you can do so by taking any loop you have, and then, when you right-click, a menu will appear. From there, you pick “Slice to Midi Track.”

 

 

Then, you’ll be prompted on what preset to use for the slicing.

 

You’ll then get a drum rack with each sample (slice) assigned to the rack’s pads. A Midi clip will also be generated with a note pointing to a specific slice. If you play the clip, you’ll hear your original clip, but now you can rearrange the clip so the notes come in a different order. You can also pick one sample.

 

 

They’re all OK for vanilla slicing, but the rack’s macros feel underwhelming. Making your preset is so easy and fun that I’ll explain how I made mine so you can do your own.

Create your slicing preset

First, open an empty MIDI channel.

Second, place a Drum Rack and add a Simpler on the C1 pad.

 

 

Third, you can map some parameters of the Simpler to the Macro-knobs of the Drum Rack. This means that when you slice your clip, each slice will have its own Simpler, but a simple mapped knob will control all of the same parameters. This has pros and cons. On the positive side, this means that you can, for instance, maintain the length of all the slices, making them short or long. But if some clips are intended to be short while others are long, that can be tricky.

Some of my knobs are controlling these parameters: Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release, Volume on the lower right side. Then, the Filter’s Frequency and Resonance. Make sure that you uncheck the Loop and Snap options.

 

 

 

The last step is to save this new preset in the right folder so it can be used in the slicing option.

You drop the drum rack in the User Folder, under Defaults, in the folder “Slicing.” You can then rename it whatever you want, like mine below, “My Basic Slicer.”

 

 

If you slice a clip to midi, your new preset will appear in the list.

 

You’re now set to go!

Now, let’s do a few little experiments.

 

Slice the Ugly Into Beauty

 

Sometimes, you might have bizarre and ugly recordings of a synth or perhaps a dissonant effect. I’m particularly interested in those because you can get some unusual melodies or percussion once you slice them. I find there is something poetic in transforming something you’d automatically discard and finding a new, unexpected life.

One issue might be that it might not have transients to be detected, so you might want to slice it into forced regions. I’d encourage you to try different settings, but it could be 1/4 or 1/8, depending on your desired size. Ensure the sample you’re slicing isn’t too long; otherwise, you’ll end up with too many slices, which won’t be interesting to work with.

 

 

From there, you can see what slices came out, modify the length, and discover new patterns.

TIP: You can try a sequencer before the drum rack to generate sequences without the MIDI clip. Some fun sequencers exist, such as Rozzer and Snake.

 

Slicing Melodies

This technique comes from Hip-Hop. They usually slice a melody into more extended regions and then, by playing a MIDI instrument, play the song with a different articulation or change the order of the notes. But you can also take a more abstract approach, have shorter notes, play them randomly, and see if it makes sense.

To do this, people would select a region size that is 1/2 or 1 bar long. But if you’re into Micro-House music, you’d go for tiny regions.

TIP 1: Get a MIDI controller to experiment with playing the regions.

TIP 2: Use the internal LFOs of the Sampler to add some life to your sequence.

 

 

Swapping Sounds

In Ableton Live 12 (if you have it), the drum rack has a new option that allows you to swap all sounds for a new selection of similar ones. This can be a rabbit hole because you’ll start with a few sounds, and then you’ll end up discovering plenty of alternatives. You can lock some sounds you like and then dice roll the other out.

To do this, you’ll first need to go into the sample list and consolidate the slices; otherwise, they won’t be detected as single slices.

 

 

TIP: Whatever slicing you do, if you use transient mode, mainly for anything percussive, you’ll have a midi DNA of where each transient falls on the grid. You can also use one slicer’s midi and pass it to another. This means that the rhythm of one slicing pattern can trigger the order of another. This leads to rearranged sequences and a fun, unsteady swing.

 

Third-Party Samplers

 

It’s also fun to explore third-party VSTs beyond Ableton. There are quite a few out there, but I’ll share my favourites. Not that you won’t be able to create a slicing preset with those. The slicing presets can only be made with the native sampler/simpler from Ableton.

 

Life / XO

This plugin is XO’s little perfect companion. If you don’t know about XO, it’s probably one of the best drum machines and samplers. XO excels at creating percussive sequences, giving you variations with sounds and patterns. It also visually organizes your collection of samples by category and family, allowing you to find similar samples quickly. Life takes this to another level where you can resample your samples internally and then create new sequences out of them but with many variations options. It also has this option as an app on your smartphone to record sounds anywhere and then link them to your DAW. It is awe-inspiring.

TIP: Use both with automation to really bring your sequences to life.

TIP2: These are essentials if you have the budget.

 

Serato Sample

For DJs to play their sets digitally, Serato has been around for a while. It started with a Vynil encoder where they could beat-match music from their computer. This evolved in 20 years, and now digital mixing is a standard for many. DJing for hip-hop artists who do DMC scratching competitions is an art, and Serato developed a sampler version for artists who want to explore sampling parts in production. This plugin is highly rated because it offers simplicity and easy workflow.

 

 

Loopmix

The guys at AudioModern have a series of excellent studio tools I use regularly. Loopmix is quite fun as it’s designed to be used with loops. The idea is to use multiple loops (ideally, it works better with percussion), and then it will slice them to recreate new sequences, blending the different sources. It’s pretty impressive what you can do with this live but also in the studio if you want to recycle the loops you have.

 

Dawesome Novum

I’m not too familiar with this one, as I only saw demos, but from what I understand, it decomposes the samples into layers. Instead of slicing them in time, it does it on a spectrum layer. This means you can decompose your sample into layers. It’s on my wishlist, and I’m resisting trying the demo because I know I’ll buy it in a glimpse. This is the kind of tool you’ll want if you love drones, textures, moods and anything ethereal sounding.

 

I look forward to hearing what you’ll do with this technique. Please share your experiments.

 

 

Photo by MW on Unsplash

 

 

 

Using Imperfection As a Leverage

/in /by

The last few weeks have been quite exciting for me. This year so far has brought me a lot of joy when it comes to music. After being at the service of my clients on a full-time schedule for the last nine years, I realized that bringing the spotlight on myself was essential for my creativity and sanity. Moreover, after teaching and explaining concepts for that long, it was time for me to dive into my needs and apply them.

 

But what ignited much passion recently was that I was invited to play a DJ set, which at first was a bit unsettling, but it turned out to be a positive thing as I dove into digital mixing. I haven’t DJ a set since 2011 and didn’t have fun either. As someone who feels like himself when playing live, DJin feels like a limited version of my creative self. But using Pioneer’s Rekordbox and a controller, I realized that things have changed a lot since and that it’s pretty exciting.

 

I’m fortunate to have a label (Archipel), and many friends, which made my music collection quite rich, so playing that music felt like rediscovering two things: layering music and creative storytelling.

Most importantly, it reminded me that if you make music for DJs, you will benefit from DJing yourself to know what works or not with your art.

 

I made a few realizations while improvising music, which I’ll share in this post.

 

Tracks vs Songs

 

One of the first things that come to mind when mixing music is that if the music is too full or too arranged, it is hard to layer it over other music. One term we use in music production is “stripped-down music” for tracks that are generally more repetitive and, on first look, feel a bit underwhelming. If you’re into layering music, those songs are a DJ’s best friend. This comes as eye-opening as I am into tightly executed arrangements, and now, when I mix, I tend to search for those mellow songs to mix in just for the texture it brings.

Some songs that I love listening to become a nightmare to mix because they’re overly busy, and relying on the EQ to attenuate some frequency range brings down way too much from that song.

 

Clients who are worried their music is boring don’t realize that it might actually be a good thing because a song that is slightly repetitive and not so exciting can actually be an excellent tool for a DJ.

 

When minimal was at its peak in the early 2000s, I remember journalist Philip Sherburne describing minimal techno as “music that feels unfinished but released anyway,” he wasn’t wrong. It was primarily because leading DJs would layer all kinds of songs simultaneously as a performance. Richie Hawtin was the leader of this, as Algorithm, Mike Shannon… I’d say it is an art to find the right balance, and in this interview, Hawtin explained that for his Concept:96, he was focusing on working with elements essential to the song, discarding anything else.

Many people forget that DJ tracks aren’t necessarily made to be listened to independently. You may if you want, but it might be slightly underwhelming. If it is, it’s perhaps done right, which is mind-boggling for many producers who often stress that people might get bored.

 

I’m blantantly going to point out EDM as the main actor for making overly arranged music, creating a standard that contaminated other genres. If EDM brought people on board to the electronic scene, it also confused the new people that it is the way music should be made.

 

The strength of music that is filled with risers, swooshes, reverse, effects, drops, and breaks is that you’ll have a crowd that is paying attention, and it will also remove intervention for the DJ to do… or maybe they will induce more action, creating a wall of noise. I don’t despise this genre, but it is not what I want from music. I’m more interested in a hypnotic effect, subtle transitions and a mysterious music excursion.

 

Back to unfinished songs, I’m not even observing that music that is not so well mixed can also engage in mixing as their imperfection can be blended into a song. I mainly refer to songs with weird filtering or sloppy low-end. Of course, on their own, it’s a bit rough, but as a third deck song, as a way to complement what’s happening, it adds a layer of frequencies that can be a nice colour. Well-mixed songs can carry a set, but there is room for imperfectly mixed songs to be added, as long as you don’t leave them on their playing.

 

Negative Space In Arrangements

 

This brings me to negative space, or “holes.” These are voluntary spaces, silences, and blanks you leave in your patterns or longer phrases. The beauty of these silences comes to life when mixing another song, where some aspects of song B reply to elements of song A. When you think this way, this opens up a whole range of options:

 

  • Negative space in percussion patterns: Instead of having a full line of an element playing, you could mute half or a quarter of the bar to have space for other percussion.
  • Space in section: You can see your melodies and patterns by sections where they can play for 1 to 4 bars, then go mute. You can also alternate melodies every X bar instead of having them play throughout the song (a common mistake I see in arrangements).
  • Less transition, more spontaneous elements: You don’t need to have sounds at every transition. Have it less, and instead, use decorative elements here and there. When mixing with another song, these elements might converse with another song.
  • Reduce your checklist: Sometimes I feel like a song has a checklist of all the elements it needs to be “full,” so why not leave some out? You could leave out the claps, arp, bass, or something you usually put in de facto. Most other songs have those elements, so leaving an “essential out” is a soft way to create tension.
  • One-note melodies: We often trick ourselves into thinking melodies need multiple notes to be fun, but using one note can go a long way. It can also be layered with another song with 1-2 notes, creating a new melody. Harmony happens when multiple notes are combined, so having a track with one note complements other songs. One-note sequences are quite helpful in the intro or outro of a song.

 

Breakdowns, Drops, Effect

 

Now, let’s discuss things I don’t like about mixing. The first one I need to mention is something I’ve been saying for a long time: breaks.

I don’t understand why each song has a breakdown. Especially long ones. Having a moment with less energy can be fun and offer a different flavour to how the song is built, but you don’t always need a long pause in your music. It has become too easy just always to have breakdowns, as when there is then a drop, people react. There are other ways to do that, and each song has a long break, which gets tiring. As I said in past posts in this blog, it’s the DJ’s job to know when the best moment to drop the energy is, and if you do it for them, it can get irritating.

 

I found myself using hot cues to skip breaks, and in some cases, I’m now creating edits of the songs where I remove them. Once removed, it feels even like it shouldn’t be there.

 

Once again, in EDM, one of the main ideas of a breakdown is that once the drop happens, it should propose a new twist (ex., change of percussion pattern or introduction of a new sound). I like that in some way, but not in every song. This is something to be considered for repetitive music, which is in the last third of a song, to add something new and complementary.

This also goes for effects, swooshes, and risers, which are all over the top and unnecessary. Again, I removed some of them in songs I’d want to play.

I’m starting to like “empty-sounding songs,” pretty straightforward ones. Is that a return to my 90’s roots? Perhaps yes.

 

Arrangement Techniques

 

There are multiple ways to write arrangements for DJs who, like me, are into layers and long mixing sequences. You can search my blog with the arrangement topic to find a bunch, but I’ll share the ones I’m currently using. Yes, at the moment, I’m lost in a rabbit hole of making DJ-tools songs for my pleasure and enjoying it quite a bit.

 

1. Find a track you like as a reference, play it in the background of your arrangement, and build your song to fit over it. I recommend isolating the last 2-3 minutes of the reference and then developing your intro over it. This is particularly useful if you struggle with how to start a song.

 

2. Decorate your track using the reference song and place your “events” at moments where it complements it. For instance, you could add a few notes to answer the ones of the arrangement or place a vocal at another point. These are fun for a DJ to use because as the song goes, they can loop part of your track and layer it over the song that is playing. Sometimes, for longer tracks, where the DJ is waiting for the last part to mix in a new one, there are a few minutes to kill, so if you provide something playful, the DJ can be creative and do subtle mixing or crossfader tricks.

 

3. Add Bonus content. When your song is done playing, add a few seconds of silence and then the effects, risers, or whatever you want. That way, you can load the track twice, and the second one can be used to decorate the first one.

 

4. Test your music. Rekordbox is free to download and useful for testing. Load up your references and newly done tracks, then layer them to see how it goes. You can also do that in Ableton or your DAW. Adjust. I don’t think the first version you will do will be the best.

 

5. Live Jam. This one is where you can have a lot of fun and be less intellectual. Have your reference play, and then gather a bunch of loops you can jam with. The idea is to jam those loops over the reference. See this as if you were the DJ but with more control. Another way to approach this would be that you’re collaborating. Mute the reference and listen to what you have. It might feel a bit weird on its own, but you’ll have a layer to work around as you can build your core song around your playful jam. You don’t have to keep it all. You can trim the best parts.

 

Leave your comments below if you have other suggestions and ideas. I’d love to read them.

 

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash