How To Reinvent Your Sound

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If you’re finding that all your tracks are starting to sound too similar, there are a number of ways you can reinvent your sound. A while back, I wrote an article about how sometimes we feel that our music always ends up sounding the same. I did a test with friends and asked them to import their last 10 tracks into Ableton Live to compare each of the tracks’ wave forms. Visually, this immediately reveals if their track structures are the same. For instance, some people always introduce the hi-hats after 4 bars and will pause the kick just before. Others will put a first break after 2 minutes, then another one pretty much at the same place every time. We have habits and preferences in music; it’s possible to end up going down the same road with each track.

If you take music production seriously, you’ll want to pay extra attention to how you present your art. If you always stick with the same routines and habits, you might have difficulty keeping things interesting, especially if multiple labels want to work with you. Let’s discuss a few important points improve your sound, without losing the sound signature you might have already developed.

Know yourself first

You can’t change or reinvent yourself if you aren’t aware of your routines. What do you want to change or upgrade in your sound? Sometimes you know easily, but other times it’s important to answer this question. There are two major ways you can answer this question, but first you’ll need to gather all the tracks you’ve made in the last months and listen to them (or have a friend listen to them which can be better as there will be no bias) to determine what commonalities they share.

Another way, which is what I do, is to open your last bunch of project files and look at the arrangements. There will be something you might be doing regularly that needs to change. Once you know, the best thing to do is to start taking notes in the project itself by putting markers where you tend to do a specific thing. Put as many markers as possible then delete the content and make that new project your starting template for your future projects.

Are you always using the same kick? The same samples? The same synth? Reverb? If you’re always using the main effects that are included in your DAW, don’t forget that thousands of other people are also using those effects, and perhaps it’s time for an upgrade to new VSTs. Some are very affordable too. What’s very interesting is how sometimes we don’t realize we use the same samples. If you use analog gear, this might end up becoming an issue unless you add a bit of color or personality to your sounds somehow. Machines are often limited to what they can do and will depend on outside help.

For instance, if you always use the same type of kick or clap, perhaps you can start layering it with something else.

TIP: This is the longest part of the process but it will pay off – use friends to collect intensive feedback or our Facebook group.

Seek inspiration

This is the fun part and it demands a bit of an open mind. I would encourage you to do these things:

  • Who are your main inspirations in music? which artists do you like? Try to find out what/who inspire them. Perhaps it’s an unknown artist or something completely different. For instance, Bruno Pronsato is an ex-rock drummer and that has been a big influence on him. Pretty often you’ll find that some artists do get inspiration very different from the type of music they themselves make.
  • Try to listen to randomly selected music. This can be from the radio that you swipe around or from Spotify. There’s also a plugin VST named Radio that is pretty cool for that. It allows you to stream the radio directly in your DAW, and record it – an endless source of ideas. It also offers random channels to listen to.
  • Go back to oldies. If you lack ideas, try exploring different eras such as the 80s, 70s, etc. You can also dive in the vast world of jazz, hip hop, folk, world music, or indie rock to name a few. Create yourself a playlist and note down some ideas you like and see in them.

The most important question to ask when you listen to other music is to ask yourself what made that song famous. Is it the quality of the voice of the singer? Some innovating technique? Some use of effect? Every song has a story and it can be very insightful to understand what it is.

TIP: If you lack ideas, dive into electro-acoustics, Musique Concrète or Free Jazz. It’s not for the faint of heart but it’s full of ground-breaking ideas.

Think Modular

Reaktor by Native Instruments

I don’t mean modular synths here – when I say “think modular“, I mean that it’s time to become a crafting master in Ableton. Here are a few tool suggestions that can help you improve:

  • Reaktor. Reaktor is a monster. If you’re not already into it, check out Native Instruments’ demo to try it. It will be intimidating at first but it pays off, creatively speaking. There’s a huge community exchanging patches made with it and the blocks series is a good alternative and introduction to modular synths. The cool part is finding free tools that can be tied together and rebuilt into an instruments of your own. Many artists like to build one patch which becomes the tool in their next 5-10 tracks, then it evolves into something else. The strength of Reaktor is that it can be used as a synth or as effects.
  • MXXX.

    MXXX By Melda Production

    MXXX is for effects. It is very, very powerful as you can create complex chain of effects into one space, then automate multiple at once. I’m pretty addicted to this tool for sound design but also for mixing where I can fix some issues.

  • Reason. Reason (a DAW) has a more visual approach and sounds incredibly amazing. There’s something very playful about it by plunging virtual cables in the UI. The last version is simply outstanding and won awards in 2017. Link it to Ableton to combine forces. Ableton can send notes to Reason and you rewire the sound back into your project.
  • Bitwig. I find this DAW is very advanced and if you’re new to music production, it will be a challenge to learn. Since it’s very similar to Ableton, the transition is pretty fluid. I find the way the plugins work together is extremely creative and easy, without killing CPU. You can add randomizers and LFOs to pretty much anything and for that alone, it’s worth using. I often come to Bitwig for advanced sound design.
  • Goodheartz. Goodheartz is a collection of super nice plugins. There are many modular options but I like these because of their high quality and the fact that they don’t push CPU too hard.
  • Modular by Softubes. This plugin is the most impressive take on real modular synths out there. You have software equivalent of real hardware, a bit like Universal Audio’s version of hardware mixing tools.
  • VCV.

    VCV Rack (credit: VCV website)

    VCV is all the new hype – a free, open source environment and also an interpretation of hardware components. It does have a learning curve but the results are fun and it will certainly get you out of your comfort zone.

TIP: Abuse demos and trials! Try everything, record all your sessions and use them as wave files in a project. The plugins that are the most exciting should be considered to be added to your shopping list.

Collaborate

Collaboration is the most important in order to help you break from your habits. If you can find someone who lives close by that you can visit to produce in someone’s studio, hang out, listen to music and talk production, it will bring you a lot of fresh ideas. Don’t limit yourself to people who make the same music as you. It can be a guitar player or a singer. Sometimes if you can try to work on a new song with someone else, it will work your creative mind and force it to explore techniques you might have never been exposed to. Collaborating online is also very refreshing. Find people on Soundcloud and see if you can befriend them to eventually work with them, or remix them. It can be someone in a field that is totally out of your “normal”.

SEE ALSO : Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks

The musician’s double life: making money from music

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I’ve been working with musicians for quite a while, and it’s no secret that making money from music alone is huge undertaking because we all know that revenue streams are hard to come by. In many cases, I’ve observed how many musicians often have a double life that they’re trying to deal with. I’d like to share how this is often an aspect of being an artist that can be misinterpreted by the artist him/herself.

I’ll start with my own background.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been interested in anything art related. In the early 80’s, I convinced my dad to rent a camera so I could direct my own movies with my friends. We made cowboy movies and later on, in high school, I was really interested in theatre. When I was in college I was getting more serious about theatre but to secure my future, I decided to go in Social Science and Psychology.

This is the case for many people I work with: they live the double life of having another job because making music won’t pay the bills. I often see people who believe that because they do music, they should be able to automatically make a living from it, but making a living from music takes a long, long time. I find that if you want to live off music, it’s better not to do it full time for a while. There are multiple benefits in avoiding music as a full-time job, even though that might be your dream. Let me explain:

You may run in a creative burnout. This is something I explained in a past post and it becomes a problem when pursuing music full-time. If music is really important and fun for you, turning it into a job will completely change how you approach it. You’ll have to put aside a good part of your creativity to find ways to monetize it, and then you’re sort of stuck again in that you’re not making music full time. One thing I realized when I made this jump is, for the quantity of music you need to make to gather enough money to make a living, you need to not only make tons, but you’ll need to reinvent yourself every year. If you don’t want to saturate your market, it is recommended not to release more than 3 times a year. So then, yeah, you need to DJ or perform, and then, again, you’ll spend you time dealing with all the business aspects of that, plus dealing with a very competitive live music market.

TIP: Living off music full time is possible if you have a very solid basis and money saved up beforehand.

You need money for your studio. It’s no secret, electronic music is probably the most expensive music to create. Technology keeps evolving, as well as sound, plus computers quickly become old so you’ll have to allow yourself a budget for constant research and investment. If you count on hacked software to provide you with this solution, you’ll likely have to deal with the loss of your productions at some point because something goes wrong.

Some of the best ideas don’t come up in studio. How many times have you been washing dishes or on a walk, and then have a really amazing idea for a song? Taking distance from what you do is one of the best, most valuable ways to see your craft from a different angle. In my post about Non-Linear Production, I suggested taking many breaks and days off. Working on other things (like a blog), gives my brain a break to regenerate and come up with new ideas for making new songs.

Convert your other abilities into something creative. Every side-skill you have can be used in relation to your music or art hobby. This is one thing I approach in coaching, where I see how a person can combine both music skills and non-music skills. For instance, someone in finance can help other musicians making budgets or find ways they ignore to generate financial income. All you need to do is to see where you can contribute to your community and to surround yourself with other artists – a good way to be immersed into your music world.

What’s mostly important to realize however, is how many artists have this feeling that they’re in the “wrong place” when they’re not in the studio working on music. Some of the people I have worked with were working in schools, IT, restaurants, design, architecture, networking, or writing to name a few. The area where your more traditional career skills overlap with making music is a great place to start thinking about how you can make money from music.

Music Goals: Using Signposts instead of Goals

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You often hear about setting music goals to keep your drive going and to get you pointed in the right direction. I’ve previously discussed the best ways to set goals and reach them, but as time has gone on, I’m not totally sure if setting goals is still the most efficient way to get yourself going.

However, some goals on your bucket list still might be relevant; but this depends on how you set them. For instance, whenever I have people in coaching, we discuss that setting goals should be done in a way where you can actually quantify the success of your work. For instance, people often try to set a goal of “becoming a known artist”, which, in a way, doesn’t make sense at all compared to “finishing an album.”  The problem with the first goal involves two important things:

  • You can’t control your circle of influence. What does “becoming an known artist” mean exactly? That you’re appearing in charts or that 1,000 people have your tracks on their Spotify playlists? You can’t control that at all and being vague in your objectives will lead you to failure.
  • Becoming a known artist may or may not, happen. If it does, you might not even be aware of your reputation and some people think they’re known, when that’s actually not the case (for example, buying “likes” on Facebook doesn’t mean anything).

In the second goal, “finishing an album”, you’re in total control of that goal – you can clearly make a “definition of done.”  If this definition is reached, then you’re done, and the goal has been achieved. Working in this way can be useful, but I would also highly recommend that you also put an end date on your goal.

Now there’s another alternative to setting goals, which, for lack of better terminology, I’ll define as setting a signpost.  Why? Signposts are signs you see when you’re driving that help you be aware of the direction to go, to get you where you want, and also to reliably re-guide you when you’re lost. I like the term in French for “repères” – it’s sort of like “landmark” but not necessarily for physical places.

What is a signpost in your musical journey?

They are something you can rely on from a community you want to be part of, or a specific sound that you want to immerse your life with. I’ll give you the best examples as of how I applied the community approach to my life and why I use them in parallel to the type of goal-setting we described above.

In Montréal in the late 90s, we were really lucky to have a solid core of people and producers that gathered around the MUTEK festival which was our community but also a sort of signpost; a direction. It was a place where we could perform the music we all appreciated (arranged based on our personal tastes) and where we could also discuss music production. So back then, a goal for me was to play at MUTEK, but at the same time, it was that community that dictated how we had to sound to achieve it.

Another signpost I’ve used was a sort of music “target” I set through Ricardo Villalobos. I’d study his music, his sets, and a recurring question I had was “will he play this track of mine?” There wouldn’t be any goals attached to this besides, perhaps, having him play my music, but it was more as a reference point of how my music could be made or adapted,

I often do mixing and mastering for artists and labels, or do coaching, and one thing I often see is how people are a bit lost on determining who their music is for. Who do you want to reach exactly? Who inspires you? Which community would support and encourage you? This is the type of question to seriously consider, as I often work with people who are far from the physical community they’d like to be part of and rely heavily on the internet to be in touch. For instance, I have in mind some guys from South America who love Romanian artists – that’s quite a distance!

In past articles, I’ve about the importance of networking. Here are a few ways to help you find your own set of signposts:

  • Locally. Is there a club, a venue, or promoter that is booking and playing the music you love? Where is the closest place to you that could be your local reference? This is very important as you can get to meet people who have the same tastes as you. Perhaps it’s a festival that you can attend in another city, like MUTEK (this reminds me of a huge community from Colorado used to visit MUTEK in a group of 20! They would forge bonds and networks on their trips).
  • Online. I find it’s important to find a crew that make good podcasts, DJ sets, or music that gives you goosebumps. A trap however, would be if you aim too high, at very big artists and organizations (ex. Time Warp in Germany) where it is so big that becoming part of organization might become a huge puzzle and is very difficult. There are many smaller festivals that exist that have the same kind of music but on a smaller scale, you can grow with them. That said, try to downscale your target, or follow the bigger names but try to connect with the other, smaller guys who like that same music but are also emerging.
  • Aesthetic, genre, mood, direction. Try to find artists you like that are emerging and look stable and serious about their craft. You don’t need to contact them; it’s more about following their production and supporting them. Be a fan, someone who encourages and gives, while not expecting anything in return. Feeding people that inspire you is a good way to invest in yourself as well. I’ve supported and encouraged artists that started to go well but then have disappeared; it’s a disappointment, and sometimes I wonder what else I could have done to help. Seeing someone you love perform and do well is a great motivation for your own art!

I’d love to hear what you consider to be your own signposts!

Our First Music Retreat

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The idea for a music retreat came from a discussion I was having with my friend Fred about the need to just flee the city with some fellow music producers to spend a weekend making music. I mean, being in the country, being with friends, and then be able to make music seems like a recipe for something very special, right? Well, since returning from our retreat, I can only say it was beyond all my expectations; I believe it might even be something worth repeating on a regular basis.

When I first posted about my intentions to organize a music retreat on Facebook, I was mind-blown by the reaction and enthusiasm it generated. I think the excitement about a retreat comes from a need to be with others who share the same passion, but also to be in a context where we can connect about it.

We ended up having 13 people signing (note: we even had people from France who wanted to come but we didn’t posted the dates soon enough for them to prepare) and we found a beautiful manor outside of Montreal with the views of fields and hills as the place for the retreat. The setting was perfect. Fred organized two separate studios and we had plenty of room to be with our laptops to get in our bubble.

I had planned to do some workshops but after talking and deciding on the plan for the weekend, we didn’t really want to follow any structure. This first experience would determine our needs and how to deal with anything happening.

What came out was pure magic!

Imagine being in a room where everyone is making music, has gear and is focused on working on their own music, where you can show others what you’re working on to get feedback, to get answers to questions you have regarding technical issues, to observe everyone’s workflow and use of plugins…it really felt like a need was being met by everyone present: being part of a community, and getting instant validation and experience being in a creative environment.

We traded Soundcloud and Facebook for real human contact. Hanging out in clubs to find like-minds felt awkward; being around people who share the same interests, and working at the same time as others really responded to a common need we all shared: connecting physically.

No matter how the internet is developing and the tools it offers, there’s nothing like physical closeness. Even myself, I felt overwhelmed with the desire to make sounds and also to comment on other’s or to answer questions people would share out loud. It’s pretty common for music producers to meet in bars and clubs but you can’t really talk because the context is loud and not appropriate, plus you can’t really share your tech set up or how you work. It seems like a retreat is creates a proper space to co-create and see everyone’s game get upgraded. I am under the impression that this could be the best way to shape the sound of a community all together.

As we’re preparing to already organize more retreats, we are also planning to gather music producers in cafes, on a Saturday afternoon. I think that is also something we would love to explore, elsewhere in the world as well.

How I used the Music retreat for my creative flow

I wanted to do exactly what I do with my days in the city but to really concentrate it in a short period of time to see what would come out. My usual routine is to take my sound generators such as synths and then jam. I did that intensively until Saturday afternoon, but then I had a mental crash. It usually happens at some point but it was pretty interesting to see it happen like that. But the cool part was to be around people, talking and exchanging about anything coming. I wasn’t home on Netflix waiting for my energy to come back.

Later, I realized there were some ways I could have improved our productivity on the retreat. Below are some ideas I’m noting down for next time, as well as to give you some suggestions in case you plan to embark on a music retreat yourself:

  • Make samples as a team. Since everyone has a different background and inspirations, we could analyze some songs to try to replicate certain sounds.
  • Try to finish one song where everyone is involved. Each participant could use one instrument, and one person collect them all to put them into arrangements.
  • Use multiple people to do complex field recordings, strange sounds and atmosphere.
  • Make convolution images of different spaces, such as using microphones to sample the different rooms of the place we were.
  • Do the relay method of music making, meaning “try to do as much as you can on this track then pass it on to the next person.”
  • Try to do a cadavre exquis, music related.

If you have suggestions for us to try at the next retreat, let us know as we’re already planning another one!

The Inspiration Cycle

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Most people enjoy discussing music technically in terms of production as we all wonder where to start and how to handle ideas in order to make a song. I also follow many magazines and articles which cover how the brain perceives creativity, where it starts, and how to invoke it and keep it alive. However, even if you know the techniques to make music, remaining inspired to make music can become a challenge.  I struggle with musical inspiration as well, but also have a few tips if you’ve been struck with writer’s block that I find always work.

How is your inspiration cycle working?

This video about using flow is tightly linked to the experience of inspiration. Let’s dive deeper.

Through reading and my own personal experience, I’ve noticed that inspiration comes and goes through a number of phases, in a cycle:

  1. The stimulation and satisfaction of the mind.
  2. Conceptualization.
  3. Struggle.
  4. Release and creativity.
  5. Project completion.
  6. Transmission, validation.
  7. Celebration.

In the above video, the discussion is around flow, which is an important state of mind for a high level of creativity that can be reached by athletes and musicians during a performance. You can also access this level of creativity by making music, in your studio. But before a studio session, you need an idea and concept to make music around. Let’s examine the phases of the musical inspiration cycle I outlined above:

The stimulation and satisfaction of the mind

To sum up this phase, think about falling in love with something. For the writer, it’s a book or a scene description. The photographer gets excited about a landscape; the gardener, about the perfect trees; and the musician, sounds or a song. This can stimulation can occur anywhere at any time; in your car for example, or in many cases, during a “celebration” of some kind. The cycle becomes evident here, because the last phase is the celebration of completing your work, but this phase can also restart the cycle and restart the first phase of stimulation.

For example, many people feel that they want to become a DJ after a special night in a club. This is an example of musical stimulation kicking off the cycle of inspiration. People also like to celebrate art, in search of some sort of new stimulation for the mind; to be inspired to create.

Describing his creative process, Mozart observed, “Those ideas that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way,” he writes, “it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account so as to make a good dish of it… All this fires my soul” (Harding, ).

The mind will feel satisfied by certain things that will inspire it to bring different elements all together, into a collection that will lead to the creation of a concept.

Tip: Before investing and diving into production, try to make a personal collection of music that moves you. It could be a secret playlist on Youtube, Spotify or Soundcloud, for instance. The richer your collection, the more you are investing into potential sources of inspiration.

Conceptualization

Understanding your concept is key here; it’s about putting to words what you have in mind. The main writer’s block-inducing trap in electronic music is facing the limitless options of where you could go in a creative sense. Ideas and concepts help to box you in, and to create your sounds into a palette that matches your idea. For instance, knowing you want to make “banging techno” already provides you with a direction as to what you’ll be doing. The challenge in this particular case would be educating yourself and understanding how complex sounds are recorded as well as other technical details. Conceptualization leads to the next phase which is the struggle; an unavoidable part of the creative process necessary when trying to apply your concept.

I’ve always found there to be two main things that will help with conceptualization:

  • Finding real life equivalent to what your vision is, such as finding songs that contain your idea or a part of it.
  • Finding resources to help you understand what your idea actually is.

The more clear your initial idea or concept, the best you can explain it. From there you can find someone who has the experience or tools to help you get your there if necessary.

Tip: Using voice memos to record something you hear or to leave yourself notes is a very useful practice. If you can invest in a microphone to try to reproduce sounds with your mouth or found objects; this technique can lead to very interesting results.

Struggle

The struggle is the phase in which many people feel like they want to stop making music altogether and even sell all the gear they have in extreme cases. Perhaps you’ve been through this struggle before – it can manifest in many ways – but the best approach to handle a struggle effectively is to moderate what you like doing, by reducing the length of time or efforts you’re inputting into developing your concept.

For example, instead of being in the studio for four hours, how about going for just one? How about you go for a walk when you have negative ideas coming to you? There’s no rush in making music.

I’ve seen so many artists struggle through this phase by falling victim to substance abuse which is by far the most risky way to deal with writer’s block. If you need an external substance to make you creative, you’ll quickly become dependent on it.

Tip: My drug is jogging.

Release and creativity

This phase can be when the “aha!” moment hits you full effect; all the technical details fall into place and you can express yourself entirely. I’ve had this moment with two albums I made, Tones Of Void and White Raven. However in previous albums, I’ve worked and worked to eventually find a pace that just made me feel unstoppable. I would finish songs in a day, which would normally take me months. Find a recipe, a patch, a series of effects that give you wings to turn anything in the sound you’re looking for.

For me, the “aha” moment is easy to hear on Tones Of Void. I had found the right series of effects that I loved and I was digging in my library, then could easily turn 1-2 sounds into a full song. I would record it live, do minor edits and felt entirely satisfied with whatever I had. I’ve also seen people using modular synths to make self-generative patches where songs are just written on their own and it’s really beautiful to see.

Tip: This phase isn’t linear and comes in moments. Find ways to save your tools and understand what uplifts your work.

Project completion

Finishing projects is something many people struggle with. The real question is when is it really done? Recently, I made a list of items to check to give yourself an answer but you can also give yourself certain criteria. I like the idea that something is never actually totally done, and that is part of the charm of it. Knowing the next project will be better is a way to let go of anything that has been revisited too often.

Once you can save your file and are happy with it, do a backup and call it done, this phase is simply done; it’s something you don’t want to drag on.

Transmission, validation & Celebration

You know when you love your song so much you want to share it with the entire world? That’s what the celebration phase I mentioned earlier is about. We want validation for our work, but there’s a part of ourselves that also wants to pass on our ideas to others. This creates the desire to have “the celebration” and to provide musical inspiration to others.

There are some people, however, who fear sharing their music. It’s no secret that most musicians seek validation from their community and music is a way to do it. What stops some people from sharing their work with others is the fear of being criticized. However, transmission and validation are necessary to move on to “the celebration”, which is the end of a cycle, but also the beginning of another.

I’d love to hear your stories about your inspiration. Please share!

 

SEE ALSO :   Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks 

8 common mixing mistakes and audio production errors

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Since starting my label, and after years of dealing with large numbers of demo submissions and artists, I’ve noticed that most of the time new producers and musicians make the same kinds of errors when they are early in their audio producing years. When I started my studio full-time I also noticed that I have – for the most part – been dealing with the same questions and frustrations about producing audio on a regular basis. This post outlines a list of some of the most common mixing mistakes and general mistakes musicians make when they are starting out.

the most common mistakes I see from Musicians with regards to audio mixing and producing:

Not investing in good monitoring (speakers, headphones).

This one is a huge deal. You’re dependent on what you hear to get quality results. This is always a bit puzzling to me, that some people hope to compete with artists who have invested so much into a professional studio with poor monitoring. If you can’t hear what you do, it’s pretty much like working blindly and the results on good sound systems will be catastrophic. So many people go test music in their car to see if it’s done properly which is sort of ok, but not productive.

What I’d suggest is to try to spend an afternoon listening to music you know on different speakers. Do not invest in cheap monitors because it’s all you can afford. It will fill your music with many problems down the road. Trust your ears.

A Lack of references

You can’t produce quality music if you haven’t been exposed to quality music. This means you need to have in your possession a large library of music for listening, but also to spend just as much time listening to music as producing it. The more you immerse yourself in music that sounds great, the more familiar your ears become with regards to how things should sound. This can mean listening to good quality vinyl or wav files.

What I’d suggest is to have regular sessions of listening music you like attentively and also in the background. Both are important. Make a playlist on Spotify or on your computer of music you know sounds right and train your ears to know that music inside out.

Making Comparisons to Professional musicians too often

This is the downside of referencing as it can play tricks on you. I know some people who have amazingly good tastes in music and want to start producing but when they start and see the work that is ahead, they become frustrated quickly. If you compare yourself to a guy who has been around for 20 years, chances are, you’re setting yourself for defeat.

What I suggest is to focus more on the experience of making music than the result, at first.

Thinking making music is easy

Can’t blame anyone besides the general culture that has been saying for years that “making electronic music” is all about “pushing a few buttons”. People see a DJ with fists in the air and they think “I could do that…”.This mindset will give you a rude awakening when you start working in a DAW and dive into sound design. Electronic music doesn’t require the same skills as playing piano, but will be demanding in terms of technical details. There are so many possibilities that you can go crazy trying to know where to start. Sadly, many people realize that and become depressed.

What I’d suggest before diving in music production is to try to befriend a producer and spend time in studio to see if you really enjoy it. Watch videos on music making to see if you can pick it up quickly too.

Investing too much, too fast

I’m thinking of the guy who decides one day to make music and then comes back home with 5000$ of equipment without knowing if he likes it or knowing what he needs. See what you like doing first, then invest around that. Music production has so many different dimensions that it’s important to know your cup of tea. Is it DJing? Playing synths? Sound design? Making loops? There are pieces of gear you need first as I explained in a previous post but you surely don’t need everything your friends will tell you to buy.

What I suggest was written in a past blog post about what you really need to get started. I often get asked what you need to start making music: a laptop and headphones is all you need at first. Build around that.

CHASING “success” before Building up skills

This is a classic. Knowing what you like is one thing, knowing what you do best is another. We all have certain skills that feel natural and sometimes you need to explore to discover all of them. Planning your DJ career without having done a few gigs and releases is getting a bit ahead of yourself. Take your time; enjoy the fun of making music and success might come down the road. Chasing success can be like pursuing a mirage.

What I suggest would be to really focus on loving making music before anything else. I often encourage people to start with things little such as making music for friends or to share with local DJs. If you build a network of 5-10 people, that’s enough to slowly build your self-trust and eventually emerge at the right time.

A Lack of patience

Making quality sounds and music is like brewing wine/beer: it demands time, patience and some sort of personal isolation for a while. It’s important to stop yourself from sharing your work to the whole world before it is really done. The name of the game in music production is patience and it is the same for anyone who want to go to another level.

Misguided Audio Production Techniques

If we’re talking tech, this list of issues are some things I always find in the work of new producers. Perhaps you can start changing your techniques if you recognize yourself in this list.

  • A lack of quality samples.
  • Not using EQs/compression. This one always surprise me.
  • Using too many instances of an effect instead of using the Sends/AUX.
  • Not using at least one, very good quality EQ or compressor. They really make a difference.
  • Not using channel strips in the DAW.
  • No mono for the bass or anything under 130hz.
  • Not using swing/grooves.
  • Missing the boat with saturation. Either it’s not done at all or with tools that aren’t doing the job. Get this free one to get yourself with a good starter kit.
  • Lack of post-production on sounds. Whenever you think you’re done with a song, you just realize there’s a number of details you overlooked. The road often feels endless… because it is.
  • Muting the kick too often in a track. This kills the energy, especially if you have long breaks with no kick.
  • Not letting things go. Sometimes, a simple idea can carry a track for a while but you’ll need to let sink in people’s mind so to do that, you need to trust what you do and let it go. Too often, newcomers are concerned that the listener will be bored and they keep adding or changing things.

You can also ask for help and I will update this list with pleasure!

 

SEE ALSO :  Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head   

The 2-minute Soundcloud preview method

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The 2-minute Soundcloud preview method, as I call it, is about creating tracks previews that are 2 minutes long. Why that length?

If you look at most track previews labels and artists are sharing online, they’re about 2 minutes in length. This unofficial standard got popular during the early days of Soundcloud when a little problem was discovered involving people being able to download full tracks from the website; not the full resolution file, but the streaming version, which is very low quality. Many tracks leaked this way and it’s crazy to think some people used those versions to play in podcasts or even in clubs!

So then, why post 2-minute tracks?

Many labels look for artists by browsing their Soundcloud page and it doesn’t look good if the page is empty. As a result, some artists started creating “fake” songs, as 2-minute tracks, often with artwork created by an online app. The crazy outcome of this behaviour was that some people/labels started asking artists to release some of those two-minute tracks, which forced the artists to finish them.

The pros of uploading 2-minute mini-tracks is that if someone connects with you about one, you’ll know what’s working best from all the tracks you have online. This particularly useful if you have a large number of sketches and wonder which ones have the most potential. The cons of this approach, if done poorly, is that it can really backfire at you, and make you look (very) unprofessional.

That said, if your goal is to get some traction online, this method can really be effective. Some people also need motivation and direction to get things done so this approach might be good for you if you’re one of those artists. Here are some tips on how to approach this effectively, to get most out of it:

Use tracks that are in progress to avoid getting caught with unexpected requests. The more advanced you are in the arrangements, the better. You can actually use a complex 2-minute base as a way to find the final ideas of your track. Uploading a very simple loop is not a good idea as it might sound completely empty.

Make sure it is mixed properly. This might be the most difficult part of it, but make sure the mixdown is solid. Use some compression and have a limiter on the master to glue it together.

Make sure the main idea of the track is exposed in the preview. What I mean here is, be sure that if someone listens to your preview, they will have an idea of what the song is about. If you need a better idea, go to decks.de and listen to previews of records to see what I mean.

Have something strong to say. Make sure your loop is exciting, has something special in it and has a memorable element that might make people want to hear more. This is the most critical aspect of your 2-minute track.

Try to have very different song ideas from one to another. If you have too many previews that all sound exactly the same, it’s sort of like having a colour palette with a multitude of beige variations; have different colors but keep an aesthetic that is in tune with your style.

Make sure the mixdown is solid, then normalize. If you don’t use a limiter, export it normalized, this will create a louder version.

Limit the total number of tracks on your Soundcloud page. Try to pick a number between 10 and 15 then never have more. Why? Because you don’t want to be that artist that has zillions of unsigned tracks either. Remove older ones and remove ones that have no comments or likes. This is not good for momentum (see my previous post).

Indicate if the track is unsigned. Let people know the track isn’t signed or mastered; this helps clarify to people who listen to it.

So then, when do you finally finish one of these 2-minute tracks? You should decide to finish it when it generates some sort of buzz. If you get a DJ asking for a copy of a track for a podcast, this can be as important as if a label would like to sign it. If someone interested in your track, don’t sleep on it; let me know of your results!

 

SEE ALSO :  Intuition for decisions in music production   

Not getting booked for shows? Try this.

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If there’s one thing that haunts all artists, it’s entering a phase where you’re not getting booked for shows, or not getting any attention in general. Perhaps you were enjoying a phase of being booked frequently that’s now coming to an end, or perhaps the music ecosystem is changing and you might be out of tune with what’s currently demand.

Not getting booked can actually be a good thing.

When I come into a period where bookings start slowing down (or requests to work with me), I think of this new phase as a sort of “hibernation”; it’s a time to focus on other things that are important for the next time I start getting booked again to re-create upward momentum. Getting booked regularly is sort of like a wave you can surf for a while, but it can end, and you should take a moment to question why the ecosystem isn’t supporting you anymore. Perhaps it needs to be re-energized, or perhaps it’s time to change waves.

Even if your wave fades out, you can still rebuild your momentum.

“Momentum is when you manage to get a certain amount of people to talk about something you created enough to generate a certain level of enthusiasm that reaches other people out of your circle of contacts, organically.”

For instance, you might publish a song on Soundcloud and have a certain number of people who comment, like, repost but you didn’t ask for it. You can view this as the beginning of a wave. The number one mistake people make that hurts their momentum is release a track out of the blue and expect people to listen to and engage with it without any additional preparation or planning; doing this will make you bitter and frustrated.

To remain humble and grounded, let me offer you a few rules I’ve applied throughout my musical life:

  1. You are in no way entitled to have people listening to and liking your music.
  2. It’s not because a track is published online that it will sell, get success, or get attention.
  3. You are work in progress. Your next one will be better.

Through the experience of running my label Archipel for years, as well as other projects, I noticed that what created momentum was the usually initiated through a few diverse actions. The more imaginative you are, the better the results will be. Some of these actions include:

  • Having a really cool picture of yourself online. Artwork is also cool.
  • Uploading a video to Youtube.
  • Sharing positive news regarding something that is not related to yourself.
  • Contributing to someone else’s success.
  • Hanging out with friends and sharing it on social media. Bonus points if you did something fun that people do want to hear about.

Some basic marketing rules also apply here. Apparently, if people see three things you’ve done, it will imprint an impression on their memory. Sharing something positive will leave a better impression. Another general rule is that people enjoy useful information. Helping others or being part of something always strikes a chord in people. Being selfless in most of your online posts vs self-promotion is a critical tone you want to hit on. If you’re constantly posting things that are egotistically and promoting “your brand”, no one will pay attention.

Let’s create a plan that uses all these points in a hypothetical scenario to promote a song you’re releasing. In this hypothetical situation, we will try to create momentum online to have people come and listen to the track. Our goal for this is to get more online followers, widen up your network, and hopefully get a bit of attention from labels and some DJs who might play it out.

Scenario: Release a track on Soundcloud; we’ll take two weeks to build up momentum but the more time you take, the better.

First, try to visualize a number of plays you’d like based on a model track you like. Find a producer you like who produces music similar to you and have roughly equal or a bit more followers than you do. The main mistake people make is to try to replicate plays of far more popular musicians. Let’s say your track has 140 plays, 3 reposts and 14 likes.

A relatively successful track is identified by the number of likes vs the number of plays. I would say that 10% ratio is very good already, but if you make it up to 15 pr 20%, then I’d say the track was a success. The trick to get your ratio in the right zone is to have interested people to listen. If you’re marketing to too many random people that aren’t your target listeners, you’ll end up with many plays, but few likes; this is why reposts are important.

Do not pay for followers and plays. It will make you look really, really unprofessional.

Now that you know all these details, let’s try to create momentum for the self-release:

  • Spend an hour a day on Soundcloud building up your network. People won’t follow out of nowhere. The need a reason to and usually they’re in the same boat as you: they want to connect with people who make music and also need attention. Find music you love, follow as many artists who share the same tastes as you and leave positive comments on their music if you like it. Repost music you really like, reply to comments people address to you. The more you’re present, engaged, active and cultivate good tastes, the more people you’ll attract online. People often feel staying on top of social media like this demanding, but remember that you only reap what you sow.
  • Clean up your social media accounts. For many artists, this is a chore they hate but it’s a necessary evil if you aspire to create momentum online. You need a specific look and feel; i.e having a solid picture of yourself, no posts that make you look unprofessional, etc. Keep it simple and solid, look at the profiles of other artists to get ideas or ask for help from a friend who’s good with social media.
  • Link your Twitter with Soundcloud using IFTT. This will make sure that when you post a new track or like one, a Tweet will be sent. This is a good way to make sure people are aware you are active.
  • Connect with groups on Facebook and connect with others. Contacting someone doesn’t mean sending a none sense message out of the blue saying “bro, check my Soundcloud”, but trying to befriend them. The best promotion is when others promote your music for you but to do that, you need their collaboration and support. That comes over time with social investment.
  • As the release date arrives, be socially active and focus on helping others. The more you focus on others, the better it will be when you need their support. No one has to help you, but it’s more likely they will feel like it if you show interest in what they do, too. This is what I was saying earlier, share other people’s music, or any related news to show interest and that you truly like in them.
  • Prepare a video on Youtube. There’s are multiple free resources out there to do this. Just make one. It can be a full version of the track or not. You can contact Youtubers that share a lot of music to see if they want to premiere it.
  • Have good artwork for your release done. You can check on Fiverr for some help or maybe ask a friend who’s willing.
  • Get the track mastered or checked.
  • Share it with DJs so they can play it in podcasts. Best case scenario, a podcast goes online premiering your track the day before or day it’s released. Perhaps you can delay the date if necessary to work with a podcast creator. If you feel like you can do a podcast yourself with a good series, that can help.

As the release date approaches, have some online presence about 3-4 times a day on different channels. You can post in groups (but not shamelessly about yourself!), share things, comment. Be active. When you want to release the track, you need to get it out in a huge blast.

It’s your time to shine, make it right! Cover all your channels and talk about your release, but stay as humble as possible. When you post it, don’t have a tone that gives the impression that you expect something from someone, but instead that you’re simply happy you finished the track and want to share it.

Releasing music during the beginning of the week at a moment when people can actually listen is a good strategy.

Post-mortem comes usually a week after. Look at your stats and see what worked and didn’t work.

I hope this helps!

 

SEE ALSO :    Make Your Music Bucket List Happen 

The creative burnout no one is talking about

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Around 2008, as I was coming back from the doctor’s office, I felt completely lost. He told me that I had to change what I was doing because I was heading straight for creative burnout. At that time, in my career, I felt like it was in its peak: I was touring, releasing music, making remixes, was invited to great festivals, and had an occasional part time job as a teacher. I had nothing to complain about; I felt I was pretty much living my dream.

So what was going on exactly?

Before I explain, I want say that this post is about sharing what I’ve learned the hard way. I’m talking about an important thing no one will tell you:

It’s not because you do what you love that you’re shielded from your limitations. It’s mostly because by doing what you love, you may overlook that it remains a form of work.

When you do what you love, you feel invincible. This might be related to the feeling of flow, explained by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, which is a state you get into when you create or become really focused. The thing about music is, it’s about inspiration, and inspiration doesn’t come about “when you need it”, it just happens.

How do you recognize the signs that could announce you’re on the verge of crashing?

  • Negative output in discussions. Do you observe yourself talking negatively to your friends or on social medias? It’s interesting to look at a week of posting on Facebook and see if you’ve been more positive or negative.
  • Lost of interest for music or anything you used to love.
  • Desire to announce you’re “retiring” (from DJing or anything), selling all your gear, deleting projects, quitting.
  • Cynicism towards the music world, what you do, others who make music.
  • Jealousy, envy, feeling discouraged when being around other artists who are doing OK.

Keep track if any of these are persistent.

These obstacles may lead to burnout:

Overworking

Going from a “normal” full time job to transforming a hobby you love into a job involves a pretty steep learning curve. There are multiple things to take in consideration . Money in the artist’s life is the source of a huge amount of stress. Not only can you not predict when things will work, but when they do, you don’t know how long the ride will last Since there’s no obvious relationship between the creative work you do and what you harvest, it becomes very easy to overwork. Pair that with the pleasure of making music, and at first you’ll feel you have too much time on your hands to know what to do with. As I described in a previous post about how spending a long time in the studio is counter-productive; you can easily ruin a lot of your own music. During the early years when I was making music full time, I felt I didn’t create music that was as meaningful as when I was working and doing music on the side; this realization has changed my way of making music for the better.

In my case, with my label (Archipel), mastering, touring, and everything else, I really was working up to 60 hours per week. I forgot to take care of my health. No wonder I couldn’t keep up the pace after a few years went by. When you do what you love, it never feels like work, but it is.

Expectations

Managing your expectations is extremely tricky in the arts domain. The ultimate goal is to get recognition, because many things unfold after that. Or do do they?

It’s very difficult to tell, and it messes up your zen. For instance, if you believe that this release on a specific label will give you certain opportunities, or you think that playing in a gig will lead you to get better gigs, or working with an agent will give you more visibility, etc, all these things – in theory – could be true. You admire specific role models who’ve made it to a level you want to reach, but you might never seem to get there even by doing the same things.

Why isn’t there a recipe that you can follow that will guarantee results?

The arts are a big gamble; a lottery where the turn out is not determined by anything rational other than – most probably – timing and networking. And even if you have those right, it might not lead to anything at all.

The only thing you can control is your patience and resilience. That’s about it.

Some people will tell you that hustling hard might make a difference, but you might get to the opposite of what you want; people don’t like artist who are constantly “pushing their brand”. Knowing when and when not to have expectations is certainly incredibly healthy, especially if you can reduce them to be realistic.

In conclusion, what I’d recommend based on my experiences with creative burnout:

  • If you can live a healthy life of work/music making, try to keep doing it as long as possible. It’s not only good for you, but you will have money to invest in your craft. Balance is everything.
  • If you are brave enough to try to live off music making, treat it as a job. Give yourself time to not work – that’s equally valuable.
  • Find a new hobby. Since music used to be yours and now it fills your whole time, try doing other things.
  • Sleep long nights and nap. Avoid partying on a regular basis.
  • Collaborate, delegate, ask for help. Connecting with other humans is always amazing for recovery!

 

SEE ALSO : Mindfulness for Creatives

Managing relationships, parenting, and music

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I’m a father and have a family of my own. I’m often asked how I can still manage to find the time to make music amidst the chaos of all of the moving parts of my life. There’s no perfect way to balance everything life throws at you–balancing music and parenting is a challenge–but I manage to run a record label, play live sets, and release recorded music, all while being a parent. The life of someone who has the responsibilities of making music and parenting is very different than the life of a person whom only needs to focus on themselves and music alone. Knowing this fact and accepting it was, for me, the first step in taking ownership of my own time-constraint frustrations.

Your free time will become sacred

As a parent, you have to eliminate any possible distractions to when you’re ready to make music, because your time is limited. “That’s obvious” you might say, but when it comes down to it, as a musician and parent, this is the most important point I find one must follow to make the most of his or her time.

  • Schedule dedicated time for creation. This also involves your partner’s help, as she/he also deserves to get his/her own creative time in return.
  • Try to make music outside of your home. If this is possible, either share a studio with someone, or try to find a place where no one can interrupt you.
  • Turn off electronic notifications; social media, your phone, etc.

The number one enemy to creativity is to focus on too many things at once. Try to steal some time away from less productive things like playing video games or watching movies, to instead do things like learn how to use certain plugins that will be beneficial to your craft.

Echo Beach and Dahlia (Photo by Katherine Hoos)

Work faster, fix later

One thing I’ve noticed since becoming father, is how I’ve had to optimize my use of the little free time I have to maximize my productivity. For example, I’ll squeeze programming a percussion loop into a 5 minutes window of spare time. I’ve also developed tricks for myself to turn a loop into a full song in the fastest possible time. I tackle certain things in the creative process that don’t needed much critical thinking as fast as possible. Here are a few advisory points you can use to do the same:

  • Predetermine how you’ll be using your time. This will require discipline, but for instance, I know beforehand that my incoming session is meant to focus a specific task, like remixing or mixing. This helps me, once in studio, stop my mind from roaming to unrelated topics or chores. One of the things I realized after becoming a parent was that when I would get to the studio, I would be so excited that I wanted to do too many things at once, and ended up not progressing on anything at all.
  • Plan in advance how this or that track will be like. You’ll have to apply this to song making. Is there anything you can decide beforehand will free your mind from time consuming decision-making? For example, how long will the track you’re working on be? Is it ambient or dancefloor? Punchy or subtle? Athletes can go beyond their limits by visualizing in advance what they’ll do and this applies to you as well. The clearer things are beforehand, the more efficient you’ll be. Use a notebook if you have to.
  • Don’t focus on details until later. Details are time drains, so try to focus on the big picture and then do a sprint to fix all the small details in a future session.
  • See your time limitation as a creative tool, not a constraint. I’ve learned a lot from working in accordance with Matthew Herbert’s music manifesto and one thing I’ve learned from this is that leaving mistakes in your tracks isn’t a big deal. It can even be an artistic statement if you believe in imperfection. Sometimes, they can actually end up being okay… if you can let them go.

Not making music isn’t a waste of time

One of the things I’ve had to deal with is daydreaming. When not making music, sometimes I feel anxious that I might be behind or that I’m going to miss an opportunity. However, some of the best music ideas have come to me while I haven’t been making music at all. Sharing this with others has made me realize that I’m not alone in this phenomenon. It seems as though the brain can hatch great ideas when doing other things; everything comes in due time. In a past post I explained how to spot your creative triggers; this can be a game changer in this context if you are aware of them.

Echo Beach and Dahlia (Photo by Katherine Hoos)

Echo Beach and Dahlia (Photo by Katherine Hoos)

Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to start making music. Just get used working sometimes with headphones, at a very weird moments of the day. Get things done.

Make room for healthy habits

For some reason, I see a lot of people resisting the idea of forming habits. They associate music making with debauchery, partying and going a bit off the hook. Yes, it can definitely be that way, and if that’s how you see it, why not? But at the same time, if you aspire to be a bit more professional, organized and to actually get things done, you’ll need to focus on priorities. One of the most useful things to do is to make your art healthier.

  • Play more sports. Sports helps with concentration and ideas. This is factual. In my case, I can do way more creative work after jogging, and I’m usually am more enthusiastic about new ideas after I do yoga.
  • Don’t have dependencies. I don’t mean “dependencies” as in a partner or kids, but that if you’re dependent on substances or any odd conditions to make music, it’s time to break them. Making sure you can make music with no preparation, or lots of preparation, much is one of the most liberating things. If you need to “party” to make music, this will greatly limit your options.
  • Make the most of your morning hours. If you don’t already have experience with this, mornings are actually an excellent time to be creative. Some people believe they can only work at night, but this is–for the most part–not true. You can get a lot of things done with a clear mind and fresh ears. I always do mastering in the morning as at this time of day my ears are at their best.
  • Meditate. Actually, this was probably my secret weapon to remain productive through my parenthood. A simple 5-10 min practice of Mindfulness would clear out my mind and help me remain very creative, seeing through issues.

Last but not least, try to involve your child or loved ones in your music. It’s not something that has to work but it can help them understand what you do, how you do it and what it implies in terms of focus.

 

I hope some of these points help you maximize your time as a parent or partner! Remember that you can always ask for help, too.

 

SEE ALSO :  Make Your Music Bucket List Happen 

The feeling of being behind: competition in music

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cover photo by Emma Simpson

It’s interesting that somehow, music making has become a competition. If you think about competition in music and take the time to really examine this viewpoint objectively, this trend seems quite ironic. Before I debunk this common musical syndrome I often see in people I work with, I’d like to explain where I think it comes from.

One of the most common pitfalls of music making is comparing yourself to others. This is one of the most self-destructive things that can happen to a musician, but it’s so common that I sometimes feel like I need to de-brainwash people when they sit down with me to work on music.

Why comparing yourself is pointless.

Artists you’re comparing yourself with aren’t in the same category as you are. I’m not even talking about talent here, or gear; I’m talking about goals and needs. Similarly, the people who are usually using as your references for comparison were once in your shoes, but have evolved from there and are probably now making a living from music. Turning your hobby to a job requires huge changes to your music making process because you’re then dipping your toes in the business side of music, where your decisions are now in part based upon how it can generate some sort of “gain” for your career; financial or otherwise.  In other words, if you were in a car race, it would be like comparing your Jetta to a Ferrari driven by a pro driver.

I often hear this:

“I see this guy/girl making a track I can easily do but still I can’t get bookings or signed to labels.”

The truth is, it doesn’t work that way. You’re not less good or less qualified than him – you just don’t have the network he/she has.

You are comparing yourself to others because you have specific goals and needs you want to achieve. This is what you need to know.   

Your goals.

Are you aware of what your goals are? Knowing what you’re chasing will be a very helpful in terms of what exactly you need to do to achieve them. Some examples of goals in music might be:

  • Recognition: You want to be seen as someone talented for what you do and you feel that if you prove that you have skills, this will come by itself.
  • Gigs, bookings, money: Some people believe if they don’t have gigs, it means their music isn’t good or there’s something not good going on.
  • Be part of a community: If your music is good enough, you’ll be accepted and seen as important.

Your needs can be satisfied in many others ways and falling victim to musical competition by believing you’re behind might actually be the wrong way to think about it. Are you really behind others? or are you just in a different position?

Since I’m not alien to that feeling myself, I’ve often battled my inner dialogue about the competitive aspects of being a musician. I came up with a very solid way to calm myself down by reminding myself of the following points:

  • Your tastes > technical skills. No matter where you stand in terms of what you know, your tastes will always be your primary sense to help you find good ideas. Great songs are amazing because of the content they have; they are rarely good for their technical bravado. Sometimes, I find that overly produced music sounds cold and soulless. If you have great ideas, you can find people or resources online to help you consolidate it into something polished.
  • Distractions are disruptive. If your eyes and ears are looking/listening some place other than your music and the music you love, you have lost your focus. Spending time on magazines and social media make you lose track of what you’re doing. I’d rather be in my bubble until a song/album is completed than be distracted by the noise and lose my flow. For example, seeing your friends be signed a label or playing an event while you aren’t doesn’t mean anything at all; the good side of something like this is that your free time can be used in creating more music.
  • Is your network solid? Do you have supportive friends for what you do? Many people end up to having to change their “listening circle” and decide who they share their music with. If you understand that each time you send your music to X, he always bring you down, it’s definitely not someone reliable. Pick people who want to listen to your music, who have the same tastes as you do and give them feedback too.
  • How many projects do you have on the go? Crucial point here. I always encourage people to try to make music everyday, start many, many new projects and then surf around them to find the ones that are working best to push forward. It’s more important to get things done than for them all to be perfect.

The ego that loves to let itself drift into competition, once pushed aside, has a lot of room for creativity. But you must learn to understand when the ego takes over.

 

SEE ALSO :  Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks 

Free Ableton Live Mixing Template

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(Update May 2023: When we moved to the new site, the template was lost. It was obsolete anyway as I’ve learned so much since that I can do better. I did a new one, but it’s more basic. In my opinion, it also does a better job. You can still gather ideas from this post and I will make another one but the basic is at the end of this post. The information below is for the old template, but the one to download is the new version. Sorry for the confusion. I will fix this soon.)

I’ve put together a free Ableton template after receiving feedback that it was very helpful for many people I’ve worked with. The template available on this page is aimed specifically at mixing. I’ve noticed that many aspects of mixing are often misunderstood; I’ve assembled a starting template that has bundled together many useful tools to deal with basic things – this free Ableton template will be useful for those involved in music making!

This template includes:

  • 6 Groups: Kick, Bass/low end, Percussions, Hihats, Atmosphere, Melodic.
  • 3 Busses: Low end (Where kick + bass are routed), Percussion, Melodic.
  • 1 MIXBUS: Where the busses are routed and is actually your pre-master channel.
  • 1 Reference channel: Where you drop the your reference track.
  • Multiple Sends as enhancers.
  • Macro tools on each groups and busses to help you tackle tone and potential issues.

This template looks very close to what pro engineers use like the one Andrew Scheps did for Puremix, but I found Andrew’s template wasn’t really as suitable for electronic music. I’m sure he would disagree but underground music isn’t really handled like commercial music is.

 

Is this template for producing or just mixing?

You could use this template to start producing with if you feel comfortable with it, but I’d encourage you to export stems from a project and then use this template to mix. Yes, it’s a bit more work, but it will also make free up your CPU and make your project ready for a new phase of production. It’s fun also to put an end to tweaking details and then focus on the mix alone.

 

How do I use this template?

There are many ways you could potentially use a template like this but I’d like to explain a few things to get you started quickly. First off, grouping your sounds is always a good start. I like to to think of it this way:

  • Kick group: This group is made to hold the different layers of your kick(s); the best way to make full range kick is to have up to 3 layers, but that will be handled by the group’s macro tool that uses compression and saturation. I created another little macro tool to help beef up your kick with a sub generator and a transient enhancer. I included some sounds from my collection for you and feel free to add more. If you balance everything properly, you’ll have beautiful, warm and punchy kicks.
  • Bass/Low end: This group is essentially the same thing as kicks, but to be used as the bass. Include the multiple layers of your bass (sub/mids), and I’d encourage you to also include anything that is below 200hz such as toms, synth, pads. The macro on that group will help balance it out.
  • Percussions: Anything percussive from bongos, claps, snares or percussive synthetic sounds. This group can get busy so don’t be afraid to add multiple new channels in the group itself.
  • Hihats: Hats or anything that is regular in your group and an important part of your groove could be put in this area. In my case, I sometimes include snares. Please note that there’s no right away to use the Percussion & Hihats group and experimenting might get you some interesting results.
  • Melodic groups: These two work hand in hand. One is for anything in the background and the other is for the melodic elements to be forward. The way the macros work, they will help you position properly the sounds and make the best of them. Try playing with the various knobs to see how they influence the groups.

Please note – I’m applying high pass on these groups and feel free to change the steep which can influence the sound in some good ways, sometimes.

The three busses are quite interesting to work with once you get the levels of your groups finished. For instance, you want to find the best relationship between bass and kick that are routed together. Once they are balanced, the bus allows you to control both the bass and kick at once; this can help you more easily decide on the tone of your track by moving the bus up and down.

I’ve also included a reference channel to remind you to use a track that can be used as a mood and reference board. Reference tracks are great to help you to take inspiration from parts of other tracks you like and would potentially like to use in your mix.

The various sends are simple tools to just beef up or open up your sound. Sends are really for finishing touches to your mix and they’re meant to be used as gently as they can be; subtlety can also make things intense.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback for the development of this free Ableton template; I am glad I can continue to help everyone enjoy making music!

Click to download this free Ableton template: (New version 2023)

Pheek’s template 2.0 for Ableton Live 11.3+

My tracks always have the same song structure

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(Cover Photo by Luca Bravo)

One of the common things I often see and also struggle with myself is that sometimes I feel like my songs are always arranged in the same way; my song structure is often the same. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with following a regular song structure, often I feel like I need to have more arrangement variations in my work and new ways to present my music.

ableton live, ableton, structure, arrangements

So, what’s wrong with repeating song structures you already know work?

There are secret ways to consistently get great results with certain arrangements that, for the most part, will always “work”. When I used to DJ hard techno or drum and bass in the late 90s, eventually I became really bored of all the tracks had the exact same structure. Yes, it was extremely easy to mix the tracks together once you understood the “tricks” but at the same time, it was also underwhelming for listeners and DJs with a creative minds who preferred more challenging music and mixing.

It’s important not to fall into repetitive habits and patterns; you might find new arrangement tricks while exploring and experimenting with new song structures.

Before jumping into slice mode to get your arrangements upgraded, let’s outline a few rules that will be very useful to consider before we actually begin editing:

  1. Export a wav file of the last track worked on (any project!), finished or unfinished. Especially if you’re working using my method of Parallel Music Production; this technique will be very useful. Start a new habit of not only saving your project at the end of your session, but also bouncing a wav file of what you have.
  2. Import your file into the current project you’re about to work on. By importing, I’m referring to the arrangement section where you can drop in an empty, dedicated channel.
  3. Use markers for the arrangements as for where there are key points, changes, transition. With these references, you can see if your current project has similar points as your previous wav file, and then you might want to change it up if they are similar.
  4. See if the two projects can be easily mixed by a DJ. This is a good test to see if your track has too much going on, or if things will be fun to mix. I’ve said countless times before that if your music is fun to mix, DJs will carry a copy of your track for all their sets.

Slice your song structure

With your new habits in place, now go into slicing mode and get things started. As I’ve discussed before in a previous article, How to Turn a Loop Into a Song, you’ll need to decide the bpm and length of your track as starting point and build from there. I invite you to refer to the post if you need the full tutorial on that topic.

So let’s say you finally have a structure made up that you’re happy with. Here are the main key points I often use to avoid redundancy:

  1. Find the main sections of your song, and slice off the beginning and the end. A “section” of a song is a part that is different than others for its content. In pop music, we refer to these sections as bridges, breakdowns, choruses, etc. In electronic music, these types of sections might be a bit more subtle or non-traditional, but they’re still there.
  2. With your sections isolated, determine if your perspectives are balanced. By “perspective”, I mean this just like it is used in photography; see if your track has balanced ratio.
  3. Insert empty slices in middle of the parts as well as some random points in the song. Check some “winks” that you might be able to make from the reference track you originally imported. “Winks” are when one song might “talk or reply” another if mixed properly.
  4. Move around your sliced blocks/sections. Try wild swaps and mess with perspective. Be creative. In contrast to the often useful “use your ears not your eyes” advice, in this case I highly suggest working on your structure visually alone without any sound at all so you’re not biased or held back in your arranging experimentation. If you’re new to the idea, make sure you make a backup copy first of your project. Personally, I spend quite some time to make something visually appealing with my blocks even before listening.
  5. Intentionally leave mistakes. Did you move something slightly off the grid? Did you paste a section at the wrong place? Try leaving in it the structure until next time you come back to it.

Try messing with your song structure; let me know how it goes!

SEE ALSO :   Lego Blocks as Song Structures 

Are online communities replacing labels?

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I’ve recently been wondering what will be the future for labels. Are streaming services replacing labels? Or are other communities? I’ve been running my label Archipel since 2004 and I’ve never really made money from it, if you discount using it as a business card for gigs and contacts. The money and time invested in Archipel have been very high, so it’s hard to say if it’s been good on for ROI. The further and faster the digital music world develops, it seems less and less obvious what roles labels will play for artists. Streaming platforms like Spotify give little to no importance to labels, and since basically anyone can start one, running one nowadays doesn’t have the same aura it once did.

In mid 2016, I offered free coaching to everyone who joined my mailing list, and while this turned out to be a success which I didn’t expect, I had to put it on hold until I could find someone who could help manage the work involved. In the meantime, I created a Facebook group for people I’d worked with to join so I could provide them with feedback and support. There are many Facebook and social media groups for producers out there and many have themes and rules. I’m part of a few that I enjoy; I’ve used them to learn tricks and something get informed of certain music related news. So, for me creating a group was an opportunity to give people a place to feel open to share what they’re working on, to get feedback, and provide words of encouragement to anyone else.

The great thing about this initiative was that people started to really participate and interact, even more than I thought they would. It was pretty amazing to see some people join forces and collaborate, and to see others help out by giving advice with regards to where to send music to get signed. This community has become autonomous; it’s doing what I was doing myself before, through email. I’ve been thrilled by it!

Somehow, when I was running my label, I was hoping to create that same sort of synergy, but for some reason it never came. My label manager and I posted regularly through Archipel, trying to come up with ideas, proposals, concepts…but it was pretty much always the same guys that were interested. That was cool, but it was also puzzling me to have such a huge line up of artists (Archipel has almost 200 people who collaborated through years!) but that only 5-6 people were really into it.

I fundamentally believe that most people want to join a specific label to be part of its community and get closer to the artists they’ve worked with.

Of course, the exposure and networking from a label also play an important role in an artist’s motivation to get signed, but the community is another major part of this motivation.

As it stands, I think these types of online groups like the one I’ve described could be as beneficial as a label because:

  • You have people active in the groups whom most likely the same goals, motivations and tastes.
  • It’s much easier to connect with DJs who can play your music.
  • People are open to communication and giving & receiving feedback.

 

Your music has an impact. A major issue with the current music business is that there’s a huge feeling of hopelessness in the air, which can drain out all the juice we have as artists and creators. Most artists have the energy to build projects or beautiful products, but will their work be something that will remain hidden away on the “bookshelves” of the internet because it doesn’t sell? Are all songs worth being turned into records? Is there that much of a demand to keep working so hard creating?

The ego plays tricks on us. One of the biggest is to believe that our music is worth more attention than it is, in reality. Many artists feel anxious and depressed because of this reality check. We want to share the music but the low hits are depressing us. That said, this major issue can be addressed by being in a community: one of any types of communities that are seemingly replacing labels.

Personally, after years of releasing countless albums and EPs, I’m now more excited to know if my five closest and most trusted friends like my newest song. I know for sure they will listen to it and provide feedback. I’ve decided to share my work with a selective number of people who can echo back the energy I put in it. I’m fed up of running after people and saying, in essence, “listen to my song bro! you’ll like it! leave me feedback!”

Labels won’t be replaced as long as the music industry need representatives for the artists. Every artists dreams to be able to live off music full time but it is becoming clear that it’s not once central thing as a label who will make it happen.

This spammy approach does nothing at all for all parties involved. But sharing your music with five people who care is worth 1,500 who were more or less not into it. I really believe that approach as stopped me from crashing into obscure thoughts.

SEE ALSO :  The Changing Dos and Don’ts of Contacting Record Labels 

Intuition for decisions in music production

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In a sense, musical intuition is what defines someone who can bring a bit of creative magic into something, in comparison to someone who sticks to truly technical application of software. I’ve often had the chance to watch experienced producers make music, either while I was visiting one’s studio or on the spur of the moment of a jam. For instance, we once had the infamous Narod Niki experience at Montreal’s MUTEK in the early 2000’s where Zip, Villalobos, Dan Bell, Akufen, Cabanne, Dandy Jack, Monolake (even Cassy sang for some minutes) all synced their laptop and gear to improvise a show for us. Our local festival gave us many opportunities to watch, what I would call, masters in what they do, play in front of a crowd to present how to create and perform. The live act itself, when done properly, should sort of represent what the artist is doing in his or her studio, but in a way that can bring the crowd on a journey.

When I state a live set done properly, I refer to something that is partly prepared, partly improvised: a set that relies partly on musical intuition. Musical intuition is the happy combo that allows for “happy accidents” and creates a sense of risk-taking. There are a lot of pre-recorded performances that I don’t get the point of. What interests me here, is the topic of musical intuition. Ever since I started teaching, this one question is often brought up:

How does one teach musical intuition, or intuition at all?

There are 3 points about intuition that we need to discuss first. Intuition can be:

  1. immediate apprehension or cognition without reasoning or inferring.
  2.  knowledge or conviction gained only by intuition.
  3. the power or faculty of gaining direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.

What I refer to by using the word intuition is a bit different from those three points. For me, intuition in music is how someone does something that seems to be random, but is actually done in a very effective way. Partly unpredictable, partly guided by experience, but entirely guided by a personal vision to arrive at a specific result. This is musical intuition.

A notable example would be an artist, during a live show, dropping some sounds or a musical idea that was unexpected but works with what’s happening at the current moment completely. Another example could be a musician proposing a random idea and having that incomprehensible idea make total sense after 2-3 minutes or development.

Can musical intuition be learned or developed in music making?

I firmly believe it can be. Some ways to get there would imply:

  • Listening to a lot of music genres, be diverse in the selection. The best way to get new ideas for one song and bring a wind of freshness into something is to translate an idea from somewhere else. The number of ideas I get from free jazz or Indian music are too large to count, but I find a lot of depth into these genres; they have been around for so long that they have developed so much maturity. Try to dig into realms that seem obscure or spend time listening to folkloric music as a starting point.
  • Knowing your tools. This one is overwhelming as there’s always something to learn. I often say to people, what you need to know about your DAW should be just enough to make blocks and build tracks. The rest of it, you learn as you go. But the main part is that you should be at ease with the DAW, and using it should be second nature to you. Moving blocks around, copying & pasting, and arranging basics must be something you can do fast so you never lose your flow. It’s when you start looking for how to do something very simple when you struggle too much and lose your initial idea. Imagine you couldn’t explain to a friend how to get to the nearest grocery store because there are too many details to explain; it would be confusing for him and you.
  • Be attentive to your routines and things you don’t like. We get caught up in what has previously worked, and will tend to repeat it ad nauseum. While part of what attracts people to our music sometimes one specific sound, if we become a slave to ourselves and to people’s expectations, we will fail to grow as artists. Musical intuition progresses with your personal dedication to grow and stepping outside your comfort zone. The easier it gets for you to explore, the more easily you can express yourself. The sense of becoming fluent in music-making will allow you to become more spontaneous and able to come up with new ideas.
  • Nurture technical curiosity. Spend tons of time reading about music, but also, non-music related topics. I have had so many ideas come to me by reading sci-fi novels, watching dancers, reading about architecture, drawing with my son, running in the woods, etc. Your brain needs to do other things other than spending time in the studio. You can only learn to a certain extent in there, you open yourself up to new ideas by doing other things.
  • Rehearse alone and with others. If you can jam on your own to get comfortable in your art, that is one important thing. But when you can then play with a friend, it becomes very interesting as the dialog forces you to interact/propose/listen/adjust. This will improve your communicative music skills by a few notches.
  • Play for friends. I used to do intimate, living room concerts where I would play for 3-4 friends, sitting on the floor, sipping tea, drawing, dancing, chatting but mostly, listening carefully. Those moments are where I’ve learned the most and this is often overlooked as people think playing in front of a lot of people is where the fun is at; it can be, but it’s not the only option. The advantage of playing for a handful of guests is about getting intimate and instant feedback, which can be a very rich experience.

Experiment with these ideas and you should slowly develop your musical intuition. Let me know if you have questions or join my mentoring service to explore your music more deeply.

 

 

SEE ALSO : What Is A Mature Sounding Track? 

Pointers To Define Your Sound

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The majority of artists I work with during mastering and finishing your tracks, talk about their desire to define their own sound. It’s important to them because as a music lover many times you’ll hear a just a few seconds of a song and think that’s got to be _____ band, or producer. To achieve this ‘signature style’ there will usually be a particular production style or a sound palate one will use in a way entirely his or her own that is instantly recognizable.
Case in point – there is much talk and celebration of Burial’s album “Untrue” which is now considered to be one of the most influential albums of the last decade.

Why is this album so celebrated?
For starters, the ghostly atmospheres, foley recordings and sound effects of London at night, conjure an atmosphere of a dark, eerie space. The heavy, downtempo vibe of the music is an invitation for listeners to go to their own dark places and reflect on that. Even the titles of his tracks, “loner”, “U Hurt Me”, tap into a feeling of emotional damage, which many people can really connect with. In short, the heavy sound and persona behind the record are instantly Burial.

Taking note of the various elements artists can use to create a sound all their own, let’s analyze some of the fundamentals of what will be influencing your sound.

  • Tonality: this is hugely important as most artists will generally embrace a ‘vibe’ or ‘mood’ in their music such as happy, upbeat, or angry, melancholy. Do you often work in a similar scale or key? Are your melodies basic and straight forward, or do you write complex chord progressions?
  • Genre: picking a genre to work in is perhaps one of the most obvious choices in creating ‘your’ sound, and defining your identity as an artist. Are you embracing an existing one or will you try to fit between two? This can be a hit or miss and to do something original is taking a risk but the reward can be massive.
  • Samples: Are you using samples? Synthesis? Modular? The Orb for example, loved to use samples from specific movies (the 80’s like Flash) and Boards of Canada were famous for recording their synth parts to old tapes and resampling that back into the session. Consider the possibilities of your sound source.
  • Rhythms: Are you more 4 to the floor? Breakbeat influenced? Jazz? Hip-hop? Latin rooted? Take note of where you’re most comfortable and what is your go-to groove.
  • Technicalities: This is where I can help you most and have been helping clients with on their way to creating ‘their sound’.
  • Mistake. Are you going for something slightly sloppy or very tight and quantized? Try to see what mistakes can bring to your music and if something wrong can develop something interesting. Don’t be afraid to try something you might never do as a starting point to your next track. 

The tools and effects you use can also have a major impact on your sound. I’ve covered this before but it’s important to refresh your mind when considering your choice of effects.

Reverb, Delay. You might pick one plugin to work with all the time for consistency. Reverb – maybe you always go for a plate or perhaps you prefer to use huge spaces and long tails. Are you going to use dub delays or short ones to go for a Haas effect?

Compression. Do you want your sound to be compressed or not? This is something think about. Find a compressor that can be your swiss army knife for all occasions, and stick to using that.

The process of defining your sound is much like a designer developing the branding elements for a client.

While not essential but certainly helpful, a designer will tell you which set of colours, fonts, images, and direction to use within all your work.

What I usually do with my clients to create more of a signature sound is take a collection of references and sounds they connect with and then work on a way to replicate similar sounds and ideas. The pad from here, the percussion and swing from there, kicks made this way, hats always that way… and so on. You cherry pick all your preferred sounds from different sources (eg. why not go for a style that is entirely alien to you like afrobeat if you’re into techno?) and make a collection. I can find which synth is excellent at creating that sound, and while playing with it, you’ll often discover so many new sounds you are drawn to that sound original, fresh, and inspiring.

The truth is that trying to define your sound will not come overnight. It’s a process that will be different for everyone, and you truly cannot speed through this and feel right about it because there is no fast track to originality.

That being said, in all honesty, working with someone who has the production and musical experience to guide you in the areas that best represent you is huge and can be a game changer in defining your sound.

As always let me know if you have any suggestions or questions about this post and leave a comment below and tell me what projects you are working on right now.

JP

 

SEE ALSO : Beats and Melodies

The next big thing?

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During a conference I was recently invited to talk at, I was speaking with a group of people @ College Du Montreal and was asked a question I couldn’t answer quickly. The question that came up was what I’d consider “next level”, which I responded by saying “chances are, you’re going to be disappointed by my answer.” And in many ways, it wasn’t the answered they wanted, and I could see that a few were puzzled, hoping to hear about something new, exciting, and truly ‘next-level’.

Now that that moment is behind me, the concept of genres, and what’s the next big thing has had time to linger in my mind and I’ve thought about it more.

Can you remember a time before Soundcloud? Before iTunes playlists, a time where you literally dug deep through record bins and spent time chatting up record store employees about what was new? Have you bought records without even listening to it simply because you connected with the artwork and knew this was something you needed to have?  Whether the music was next level or not you had the feeling you discovered something special.

In many ways, the overwhelming amount of content we’re exposed nowadays can make us lose track of what’s going on. Musicians can post a track the second after finishing it, and the whole world can potentially hear it within minutes. Yet the tidal wave of self-released music is so frequent that it can also be harder than ever to get noticed. If you’re attentive and curious, you can catch people’s new ideas, yet the question now is – how can one really can keep up?

Here’s a fact to keep in mind: One doesn’t know he/she is making next level music until afterward, and it’s seen as next level.

If you focus on making music that sounds good to you, your skills and confidence will naturally grow. If you have fun making music, you’ll fall in that mind state named the zone. In that mindset, you’re able to achieve the best of yourself with little effort. This concept isn’t esoteric or religious, it’s a known experience studied in psychology and a state within the reach of everyone. But this post isn’t about that.

Most commonly new genres are created when an artist creates a bridge linking different musical styles together – think Jungle which brought Jamaican MC influences and sound effects with faster beats, and thundering sub bass. Think about underground mashups and artists like Girl Talk, which can’t be released legally but borrow music from anywhere as long as it works melodically. Think about the latest genres of dance music to emerge with significant popularity – tropical house, future bass, etc.. can you explain to me what those genres represent?

On a sound design level, I think of Serum, a wavetable synth hugely responsible for creating the growling and murderous monster bass sounds in electro/dubstep. Do entirely new sounds or production technique make that music next level?

What is next level, exactly?

For me, next level comes from one’s point of view. My perspective of what’s next level has dramatically changed in the last 10 years. My interest in sound is continually shifting, and what I feel about it today might be different next week. Sometimes I love music with low-production quality but filled with originality, sometimes I love over-produced generic pop for the crazy slick techniques in the mixing and sometimes I go back in time to revisit classics by Miles Davis to acknowledge the true masterful skills he had in performing his art.

To me, the real question is, what and why are you looking for that?

Rarely will my next level tracks make it to my day-to-day playlist I can listen to in my car. Next level music is usually something I can connect to its world/melody/content. I believe this is also what most people are connecting to with once they pick to make a playlist that moves them. It’s not always something big, loud, or obvious, often it’s a musical element already known, just done really really well, or a touch differently. If the arrangement of a song is smart and tight, often time any tricks happening in the mix won’t be the first thing the listener will hear, but more generally will feel as a whole.

To wrap this post up, focusing on sound design is critical to any producer. Your sounds are your words and your voice as an artist and remember that this is what can get the attention of your listeners more than your technique or tricks.

 

SEE ALSO : Using and Choosing an Alias