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The Science Behind Tracky Music

October 21, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

I will always remember that day in 1989 when I went to the local record shop after school to see if they had received some rare techno records that had just been released. There were about 5 of us in town who were eager to get our hands on them, and it was a race to who would grab them first. This might sound surreal to you if you’re younger, but those were the days when each record you bought was precious. You’d often even buy the ones you were unsure of in case you liked it later… or because you didn’t want other DJs to have it. Funny, eh? We were at the opposite edge from our current times with music accessibility.

So that day, I was listening to records in the “Techno – Fresh Arrivals” section of the shop. There were these 3 odd-looking ones (I still have them) with no information on them but colours. The green one had the same loop playing all the way through, from beginning to end. There were basically no variations, from what I could tell. “This is really weird!” I thought. I didn’t get the purpose of it. Then I listened to the second record — same concept, different colour. Last record, same thing. Puzzled, something inside of me pushed me to buy them. There was something about those records I just couldn’t pass up.

That was the first time I bought tracky records. 1989

I got to a friend’s place and we started to mix them, and suddenly it all started to make sense. The music was always changing, but very subtly. The records were mind-boggling, and I fell in love with them. We discovered we didn’t need songs — we had the tools to build our own stories. It was exhilarating.

Tracky music was a revelation. It taught us that no music is boring if correctly used, and that techno is not necessarily made to be listened to as is, but used as raw material.

See, the thing about tracky records is that they’re used with others in order to create something completely new. Have you ever heard of 1 + 1 = 3? One record, mixed with another, makes 3 different layers (the 3rd layer is created by combining the other 2).

Making tracky music poses some challenges and the number one is, how to not be boring with simplistic elements.

There are some basic rules for making tracky music, but the great news is that breaking them is where the fun really starts.

Organized for DJs. The more organized your track is, the easier it will be to mix. This is why it’s important to place redundant elements in multiples of 4. Very useful.
Micro vs macro repetition. Start by the smallest loop possible, and then expand it. You can start by the smallest, simplest kick-hats-snare combo, for example, and then start adding a sound looped on a longer scale to make the small loop feel scaleable. The careful addition, spread over time, will allow the listener to process it and make the repetition feel more palatable. But it’s not about making music for listening, it’s about making music as raw material for someone else.
Subtle variations. Try making automations that last over 1 minute or longer. This will create the subtle impression that something is going on, but since the changes are happening so slowly, it will be super hard to pinpoint exactly what. Some things you can automate: EQ gain, filtering, panning, volume gain, effect wet/dry.
Arrangement surprises. Mix a number of predictable arrangements with more destabilizing ones. For instance, you can throw a clap in every 3 bars so the listener will come to expect it, and then later remove one clap to throw them off, before finally bringing it back in.
Develop your vocabulary. This is a huge topic in itself. For now though, you need to know that 1 bar of tracky music may have its own vocabulary, and that it’s important to be consistent about it. So every 32 bars, for example, you could insert a little silence to accentuate the transition. If you mute something, you are muting a part of a sentence. This will be explored in greater detail in a future post…

Here are some great artists whose tracks you can use as references: Mountain People, Gez Varley, Barac, Mike Ink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQjrOHMygZ0

Enjoy!

Spending Long Hours in the Studio

October 13, 2016/in Blog, Mixing, Production, Tips/by pheek

Every now and then I’ll see people boasting in some online producers’ forum about how they spent 5 to 8 hours in the studio working on a song. The same thing sometimes goes for when I’m with fellow Ableton users, who will claim they have spent 3 days on a song. It’s a common perception that the longer you work on a song, the better it must be. Yet from my own experience and reflections, I believe it’s actually the opposite.

If you’re unconvinced, consider this: how does the producer’s experience level impact on studio time? Might it differ depending on the music genre? Does it change if gear is involved? You see, the amount of time you spend in studio can depend on many factors, and these are just a few of them.

Just think of the long list of artists who wrote their hits in very little time, from “Hotel California” to tunes from Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler or Samim. The minimal movement in contemporary music is another important example of this. By “minimal” music, I’m not referring to minimal techno but to music by the likes of Philip Glass or Steve Reich. The common denominator among these many artists and genres is the understanding that songs are built around one core idea, which is then fully supported throughout. That central concept or component is what people will hum or sing to their friends. It’s what people remember.

So that’s the ideal. But here are where the problems start:

You’re not focused on the idea itself. It should speak for itself, you don’t need 4 different layers to do it.
You’re distracted by non-essential supportive elements. Because unless you’re a producer, no one really cares if your kick is analog or not.
Your ears are tired. Ears get tired after a while and it will become impossible to mix properly. Give them a rest.
Your brain is tired. If you’ve played your tune over and over again, you’ve almost certainly lost the plot. To regain a firm grip on your initial idea, you need to take a break and refresh your perspective.
You’re forgetting the track’s lifespan. If your track is short, the idea is played for only a moment, and that will be enough. It’s not worth weeks of your time.

The crucial thing to remember is that the longer you expose yourself to the track you’re working on, the more you’ll lose your sense of what you’re making. You see, humans have evolved with an amazing skill called adaptability, which has helped our species to survive over hundreds of thousands of years, often in the face of impossible odds. This innate trait has an impact on us in the studio. For example, if you listen to something that you mildly like for a long time, you will eventually learn to either love or hate it — and then either want to alter it (to expand its longevity) or delete it completely (because you get fed up). Either way, even if your initial idea is awesome, being overexposed to it might completely ruin it.

So how to solve this?

There are many things you can do, but the main thing I recommend is to simply limit your time in studio. (Though of course, if you’re in the studio jamming away and having fun, it can still be cool to go for long hours.) Here are some other things I suggest:

Try my Non Linear Production Technique. To sum it up, don’t work on one project for a long time. Try to work on multiple at once — say 10 at a time — and then rotate between them, spending up to an hour max on each.
Swap computer for gear and vice versa. Move from one to another to get a flow.
Give yourself some moments of silence to relax your ears.
Learn to spot the distractions vs. the essential parts. Do you need to buy a new synth to finish a track? Probably not. Learn to ask yourself these questions: is there something I have already that would do the trick? Is this new idea that popped into my head worthwhile, or is it a distraction? Is there a utility to it, is am I getting carried away?

One of the most important things is to reserve a moment in your calendar for music production. Prioritize it, and learn to respect that moment and not move it. Some professional musicians dedicate one day a week to production and use a routine that is super important to the creative process.

Riding the Grooves in Ableton

September 28, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

Have you ever felt that your music’s rhythmic structure lacked a certain human touch? This seems to be the general consensus among producers, yet there is a simple solution to this hitch in the road. It’s caused by what I believe is the biggest drawback to producing music within a DAW: the musician tends to pigeonhole himself or herself by needing everything to sound perfectly aligned to the grid.

From experience, however, I think I can affirm – with a reasonable degree of certainty – that this method does not reflect how humans operate. We are not precise, monotonous machines, and we are most definitely prone to error when jamming live with acoustic instruments. There is even a certain beauty in this rawness, as music perfused with slight imperfections tends to appeal to the ear as more natural and groovy.

In order to achieve this particular “effect,” Ableton Live allows the producer to import a collection of rhythms, called grooves, into any MIDI or audio track, so as to either alter the current rhythm already written or to add an element of surprise or randomness to the audio.

The Ableton Core Library has a myriad of classic grooves that you can choose from, from MPCs to Latin percussion to hip-hop. However, in this tutorial, we’ll get really advanced and show you how to get creative by making your very own grooves.

Step 1: Record any percussive sound

I’ve recorded myself rattling my keys using nothing but a Macbook (you don’t need to get fancy).

Your recording will most likely sound like crap, so feel free to cut out excess noise with gates or tame peak transients with compressors.

Step 2: Modulation (Optional)

Add a creative effect that will automate the gain (volume) of your signal. You can draw automation curves or pump (sidechain) it with Ableton’s Autopan. The point is to create as many dynamics as possible by playing with the volume so that it translates into the clip’s velocity once we extract the groove. You shouldn’t have to do this if your signal is already very dynamic.

Step 3: Bounce

Consolidate the clip and its effects by either resampling it onto another track or simply freezing and flattening the track (by right-clicking the track).

Step 4: Extract groove

Right click on your consolidated audio sample and select “Extract groove.”

Step 5: Groove pool

Open Ableton’s groove pool by selecting the wave in the lower left side. Your groove should appear in this box.

Step 6: Add groove

You can consult the Live manual or other tutorials to better understand what things like “base” and “quantize” mean, but make sure the timing is set really high (i.e., how much the groove pattern will affect the clip). Drag the groove name onto any audio/MIDI sample or loop track, preferably something percussive like a drum loop. Notice how the rhythm of your track has changed, and how certain transients sound louder or quieter, or appear later or earlier. If you increase the velocity of your groove, your signal will respond heavily to the volume changes in your original signal (which is why I used the Autopan to create dynamics).

Press “Commit” in the clip view, to destructively write the current groove settings to your sample. This means the sample’s pseudo-markers will move in accordance with the quantization setting, and your transients will translate the rest of the settings you selected in the groove pool.

Original:

Processed:

Step 7: Layering

Hopefully, you’ve saved your original percussion loop so that you can play it with your newly made rhythm. Notice how there’s percussion a bit everywhere now, and that it’s a little bit off. Yet I’ve still opened doors to new possibilities that I couldn’t have predicted by simply drawing in MIDI notes. I even got a wonderful slap-back delay on the snare, which I can edit to my liking.

I’ll go so far as layering the two sounds with a reversed sample of my new groove, which gives me this:

I’ve then added back the original keys rattle sample, and simply applied sidechain compression to get this beat:

Although it sounds a little all over the place, I can always go back and edit it how I want, or even apply some effects! Note how it sounds more human now and not perfectly cut to grid.

Bonus: Step 8

Go back to Step 6, and drag your groove to an empty MIDI channel instead of an audio or instrument track. An empty MIDI clip will appear with notes matching the groove you created. Drag an instrument onto it to hear how it sounds. Although it will probably sound awful, you can always edit the MIDI notes to your liking!

Bonus: Step 9

You can even get away with layering organic textures such as strings, or pad with grooves. Make sure to apply different groove settings to each layer by duplicating the groove (CTRL+D/CMD+D) and dragging it onto the track that you want. You can control all the different grooves together with the Global Amount value at the bottom right of your groove pool.

Examples:

Getting Lost in the Sea of Tracks

September 22, 2016/in Blog, Mixing, Tips/by pheek

Searching for music these days has become a real skill. I was in a few music stores recently browsing for new tracks for an upcoming DJ gig, and I realized just how counter-intuitive the experience had become — not only because music stores are, in general, a huge mess, but also because the noise factor was so high that I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. By “noise factor,” I’m referring to the ratio of songs I found that were irrelevant to my search.

We can attribute part of this to the accessibility of music softwares today, which helped democratize electronic music by bringing production within reach for so many people. Part of it can also be blamed on the fact that launching a label has become so simple that basically anyone with the resources can start one. It might seem ironic for a music production blog to point this out, but this is the reality. I’m pretty sure that if you’re reading this, you’re someone who is dedicated to your art and is looking to really make something happen.

But how do you find your way through this wall of noise?

Consumers have more difficulty than ever finding the music they like. Scroll back in time and you’ll understand that the invention of records was to answer a simple need: to be able to play something again. Once that need was met, a lot of the innovations were centred on making the music sound better. Radio appeared later as a way of broadcasting over distances. Then, at the same time as music was becoming easier to make, the internet came along to dramatically expand its accessibility and reach, leading to an overall decrease in the quality of what’s available. The sea of music out there today is the result of this over-proliferation caused by these technological advances all converging at the same time. For the consumer faced with thousands of new songs daily, it can be very disorienting. One’s community of peers therefore become an important reference.

Artists have difficulty finding appropriate labels to release their music. If you’ve overcome the technical challenges and are now hunting for a label, you might feel overwhelmed. Like I explained in a previous post, you’ll have to spend a considerable amount of time in music shops and online just trying to pinpoint which labels are a good fit for your sound. But with so little time and so many choices, finding what you’re looking for can be a huge challenge.

What seems to be missing is a hub between both parties.

So what’s the solution?

Stop searching elsewhere, rely on your network. I have a few people who I follow attentively on Spotify or Soundcloud. These guys seem to either have a great radar or amazing connections, because they’re always finding gems. I’ve been told that a great way to keep up to date is to follow as many artists as you can, and then cut out those who are idle too long or change styles abruptly. I also ask my friends who are DJs or label owners to share their recent discoveries with me every now and then, and I do the same. Very efficient.

Find influencers. Influencers are individuals who seem to be at the intersection of multiple networks, who are followed by many people and will make waves with their track picks in charts or podcasts. Each genre has its own influencers, of course. Perhaps check a site like Resident Advisor to get an idea of who they think is trending currently.

SEE ALSO : The New Face Of Albums

Resistances and Procrastination

September 7, 2016/in Blog, Production/by pheek

I like to believe that creating music goes beyond simple clicking and assembling. The whole process of making music has always had, to me, a very deep feeling of inner exploration. It’s the same when it comes to listening. Apparently, music has this effect on about 60% of the population, so not everyone gets the same chills from listening to music. But if you do get a sensation like this, then you’ll try hard to get more of it.

Now, when it comes to making music, that honeymoon phase after you first discover how to make your own sounds can be an exciting moment. But for so many, soon after, a sense of frustration begins to set in. It can come from:

Not being able to get things to sound quite the way you imagined them.
Things seeming to take an awful lot of time to get done.
You feeling embarrassed by the sound of something you made.

The next thing you know, you’ll start procrastinating. You’ll feel like there’s some sort of inner balance to achieve each time you’re about to make music. As David Lynch points out in the clip below, a lot of artists think that suffering is a necessary part of creativity, when in fact any kind of suffering just cramps up the creative flow. In my view, this is not a healthy approach to getting new ideas.

So how do you avoid suffering?

That’s obviously a very difficult philosophical question to answer, though it’s clear that relying on substances is not the way to go. They might do some good in the short term, but you don’t want to develop that as a habit. To me, the essential question to ask is existential: why are you making music in the first place?

If the first answer that comes to your head is anything more than simply enjoying yourself, then you’re setting yourself up to feel resistances. When I say “resistances,” I mean those frustrations or blockages you might experience once you sit down and try to make music. You might feel like you’re wasting your time, or be tempted to just stop and play video games instead. You might conjure any range of excuses to plunge into procrastination.

The solution to this is to build up your appetite for music-making.

Here are some tips for doing this:

If you’re feeling uneasy or anxious, listen to your body and move away. Do whatever you need to do to regain your calm and motivation.
Discover your creative triggers. These can be as simple as listening to music you love, enjoying a rich cup of coffee, or going for a walk. The most important thing is to keep track of when you feel creative, and what triggered it. The more you know about your creative triggers, the more you can fuel your creativity when you’re lacking in energy or ideas.
Go to your creative place. As Lynch said, if you can go to a place that inspires you, such as to nature or on a trip, then go there if you can.
Apply a creative fast. That’s right. If you want to be hungry, you need to empty out first. This means withdrawing from making music, or if possible, from listening to any music in the genre you produce. Observe your musical fast strictly, until you feel that tingling sensation return that tells you you need to make music again.
Discover your creative downers. This is the opposite of the above point about your creative triggers. Have you noticed when you feel creatively down or uninspired to make music? In my case, as weird as this may seem, I have a physical downer around 4PM every day, when I know I need to stop and drink tea. What’s yours?

I hope this helps!

Buses vs Groups in Ableton Live

September 6, 2016/in Blog, Mixing, Production, Tips/by pheek

The word “bus” may sound foreign to many beginner- and intermediate-level music producers who were not raised during the good old days of analog mixing on consoles. But rest assured, readers: the term “bus,” in this case, does not refer to a 33,000-pound vehicle, but to an audio channel that allows a multitude of audio signals to pass through it.

Buses are used to apply general processing to the mixed signal, so as to achieve a more cohesive effect over a particular range of instruments. This may sound daunting, but allow me to provide an example to clarify. If you have several drum channels (kick, snare, hats, toms, etc.) playing in the DAW that you are using, it would be wise to send and route them to a drum bus, onto which you could then apply some warmth or glue with mix bus compression.

There are several DAWs, including Bitwig and Ableton Live, that allow you to “group” tracks together. Other DAWs prefer to emulate traditional mixing consoles by routing the desired channels through a bus. Note that neither method is better than the other: they are exactly the same. Nevertheless, Ableton aficionados may want to begin using buses more often, given that their use simply opens up more possibilities in terms of mixing the music created.

How so? There are certain techniques that just aren’t available to you when you’re “grouping tracks,” such as sending a parallel compression return track to a group, or applying effects to two groups at once by grouping them together (groupception). But by using buses, you’ll be able to route any audio signal to any channel you wish.

So with all this being said, here are some pointers for creating your first buses.

Basic I/O Routing

Open the Audio Routing section by clicking on the I/O button right below the master fader in the lower right corner (CTRL+I).
Create an audio track (CTRL+T) for your bus. In my case (see screenshot below), I called it “Drum Bus,” because I am sending all of my drum tracks through it.
Depending on how you organize your drums (I’m using a MIDI drum rack followed by several loop-based elements, like percussion, rides, etc.). Route them to the drum bus by:
1. Selecting/highlighting all of your tracks.
2. In the Audio To section, select “Drum Bus.”
Set your initial channel as Drum Bus and set Monitor to
You should now hear all of your tracks going through the drum bus.
1. Try muting some of them to hear the difference.
2. Apply a compressor to the drum bus to glue things together.
Note that you can also route return tracks through your drum bus. I’m applying New York Style Parallel Compression by sending my drum channels through a channel with heavy compression, then sending its output through my drum bus to give it more power.

If you have groups of elements that share similar sonic features and would like to EQ or compress them all together, then you can create a bus and send them through it:

When I’m mixing, I’ll even go as far as creating individual buses for every group of tracks towards the end. This helps me get the levels right and apply broader strokes for every category of sound (bass, drums, etc.)

To conclude, I’d just like to emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using groups when mixing. It’s simply that they should be used more often to organize your channels while you’re writing music, composing, doing sound design, etc. to work faster and more efficiently.

Remember, you can always group channels together by pressing CTRL+G or CMD+G on Mac! The audio channel will be automatically routed through the group fader and will function exactly the same way as a bus does.

Getting signed to a label

September 1, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

One of the things I notice most from the artists I hang out with is how obsessed they can be about getting signed to a label.

But one of the main reasons people fail is that they’re doing it wrong.

You probably already know how to send in a demo, but do you know how to pick a label? Just like when picking a reference track, you need to find all possible references of the label you want to work with. You need to do your homework.

Don’t get me wrong. Even when I make a new track, there’s always that little voice at the back of my head saying, “Oh, this might fit this or that label.” And if I’ve been contacted recently, then I might already have a lead, which makes it easier. Admittedly, at my stage I have a lot of contacts and receive a lot requests, plus I run my own record label, so the question of where to publish my music isn’t as much of an issue. But still, sometimes it is.

If your approach isn’t succeeding in getting you signed, it could be that you’re poorly targeting the labels you’re submitting to. In other words, labels don’t always sign artists for their music only.

They make decisions based on a number of considerations.

Does your approach match how they think? Getting to an A&R (the “artists and repertoire” division of labels) is not easy. You need to find who picks the label’s music so you can submit your music to them. Forget writing to random email addresses or messaging Soundcloud profiles. Trust me, it doesn’t work this way. Instead, try reaching out to an artist who’s already on board to find the right contact. If you can meet them in person, it’s always the best thing to do.

Do you share the same networks? Are you friends with artists on the label? Are you following the same artists on Soundcloud? Is the A&R friends with some of your friends on Facebook? Being socially close to them can really help.

Does your profile answer a need? This one is crucial. Each label has its own ways of doing things and is carefully building up its catalogue just like a DJ prepares their set for a gig. If you’re a DJ, you know that you want certain tracks in your set. You’re avidly searching for a specific sound or rhythm, or a particular song structure, mood, or tone. A label owner has musical needs too. They usually follow trends partly, but they also flow from past influences. It helps to refer to the label’s past releases, but it’s even better if you’re up on what they’re into now. This can be a game-changer.

FINDING YOUR LABEL MATCH

The biggest challenge nowadays is to find the perfect match between a label and an artist. Exactly like love, there’s a perfect match for you out there, but how to find it is something that technology has yet to achieve. So, how do you find your label?

Well, first let’s examine a little scenario to give us some context. Let’s say you finished a track based on a reference track by X artist. That reference track is your biggest lead for whom to send it to. But if you’re not yet well known or have very few releases to your name, then sending it to the best or biggest label out there — even if your reference track is released with them — is a very bad idea. Not only are huge labels swamped with demo submissions, but they’re also super picky. The fact is that your reference track likely had to follow a winding road to get that label. So let’s investigate.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL OF REFERENCES

Finding your label match takes time, patience, and lots of research. Here are a few cues of where to start.

Soundcloud. The holy grail of every possible kind of music, from unreleased to released, and featuring every possible label out there. Have a close look at your potential labels, and check out who they follow and who follows them. Dig, dig, and keep on digging. Give attention to who leaves comments. Those guys can be really useful because they might like various labels/artists you’re investigating.

DJ sets. Listen to DJ sets to find who plays music like yours. Get the track lists to find out what they play, find what other tracks DJs like to mix those with, and then investigate the artists similar to you and see what labels they’re on. Mixcloud also provides tracklists for DJ sets.

Charts. Once you have a track list, go on Beatport to find charts and recommendations. You can find a bunch of labels there, so check out their back catalogues and investigate some more.

Discogs. Browse the discographies and look at past releases. When you select one, Discogs will offer you album suggestions, which in turn can point you to more labels. You can really dig deep that way.

Spotify. This is another way to find new music. When you select an artist, it will give you suggestions. Note how whenever you swap from one to another, the algorithms will formulate new recommendations.

Conclusion

Think away, do your homework, and plan carefully before submitting your demos. Our label gets so many demos that we can allow ourselves to be very picky, and it’s the same for many of them out there. It’s about much more than presentation at this point — it’s about being spot on with who you target, and then selling yourself with a push from someone they know and respect. You’ll have a much harder time if you try to go it alone.

Dealing with Past Mistakes

August 22, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

I was chatting with a producer friend of mine recently, and he mentioned that he was currently contacting some record labels he had released with in the past to ask them to remove his music from digital stores. I didn’t get why he would ask for such a thing, but he explained that he felt embarrassed by his past tracks and that he didn’t want them to represent him anymore.

“What was I thinking? I have no idea, but it’s embarrassing!” he explained.

He said he feels that most of the music he made back then was directionless and tailored for specific labels, and that it has nothing to do with the artist he is now. So the big question is: do I live with the past, or do I try to erase the music that I don’t want to be associated with anymore?

Well, let’s try to unpack what happened in order to avoid falling into the same trap. What were the main factors that caused my friend to react towards his past in this way?

Technical challenges. This one is pretty obvious. Let’s say you start making music, and one of your main focuses is to release on label X. All of your efforts will logically be channelled towards making music that’s an aesthetic fit for the label. But then again, you’re only just starting to produce. So you’ll find samples and presets that sound alike, try to make everything fit together, and then when you think it’s ready, send it off. You have no idea though how many demos we (as record labels) receive from people who didn’t do their homework, and who haven’t listened to our last 3-4 releases to see if their productions are up to par. For example, most problems my friend had were related to the mixdown and arrangements, which are due to simple lack of experience. As you produce, you gain experience and whatever you release will always reflect where you were technically, at that point of your life. You can remove it from stores, but not from people’s computers.

Lack of music testers. Have you played your music for people who you know are reliable sources of criticism? This might sound obvious, but a lot of producers will just finish a track and send it off to a label right away. This is a very bad habit to develop, because a second pair of ears might be the best tool out there for gaining a fresh perspective on potential issues with your tracks.

You might think you can disown the problem by relying on the label owner to take care of the technical aspects, but the truth is that a lot of label owners aren’t always technically savvy. This is how my friend and I were wondering, “How did the label owner let that get past them without sending it back to have those issues fixed?” Mainly because it’s up to the artist to ensure their track is solid enough for them to be proud of — and for it to pass muster with reliable critics too.

Lack of direction. This one is tricky. How do you know if the music you’re making now will still hold up in 4-5 years from now? Well, you’ll never really know. But making timeless music should be more of your goal than making music that would sell, at the precise moment. Many DJs change styles and genres every year, whether because they jump from one bandwagon to the next to chase the trends, because they’re lacking gigs and choose to adjust their sets, or simply because they get bored. This can become a real issue, because if a release takes a few months to a year to get published, then by the time your music is out, you’ll have already moved on. For producers, this presents one big existential question: “What is my voice?”

If you’re spending most of your time trying to sound like others, you’ll be trailing behind all the time, trying to adjust yourself to their sound even after they’ve moved on. This is not an issue if you’re sounding like yourself.

But how do you know what your voice is?

This is a difficult question to answer. If listeners can recognize your sound from one song to another, there’s a good chance that you’ve found it. And if you tend to return instinctively to a particular musical direction when you’re having fun in the studio, this can also be a strong indication of your voice.

Try these tips to find your own voice:

Don’t buy samples anymore. Try to make your own.
Don’t use presets. Again, make your own.
Pick a few effects you love and use them in all your productions.
Spend time learning sound design.
Build a reference folder with tracks that inspire you no matter what.

In conclusion, I’d really encourage you not to remove music you made in the past. It is you, and old productions can be very useful for keeping track of how much you have evolved. Besides, some people might have loved what you made, and keeping the music out there is a good way to reach appropriate people.

Should I Remix for Free?

August 18, 2016/in Blog, Tips/by pheek

If you’ve been hanging out on SoundCloud, uploading some of your music productions, commenting on other artists’ tracks, and exchanging a few words here and there, you may have been invited to collaborate at some point. If you haven’t invested much time in networking on SoundCloud, you’re really missing out on one of the most important hubs for music producers.

There’s been a huge emphasis in recent years placed on the number of followers producers can rack up. I even get people hitting me up every now and again to offer me 10,000 new followers, if I pay them 100$ or so.

Yet this craze over followers is nothing but a mirage.

Record labels won’t bite if they see an empty profile with two songs, but 1000 followers. And it’s not only labels who’ll see right through this. Anyone who’s even slightly curious or discerning will be struck by the awkwardness of such a hollow presentation.

Genuine connections, however, can go a long way. The more you interact with people directly (through SoundCloud’s horrible messaging system…), the more you run the chance of being invited to do a podcast or a remix. It’s even a pretty frequent occurence for active users.

Yet with this being said, if you’re at the beginning of your musical journey as a producer, you honestly shouldn’t expect to get money for this, not even if they propose royalties on sales. The truth is that the current state of sales in the industry is pretty discouraging for all but the larger record labels. Exposure and connections are thus the name of the game, and networking is the way to get you there.

It comes down to these key points:

Gain exposure, get heard. Considering that there’s not much money to be made, and that you want to expand your visibility on SoundCloud, one thing you can hope for is that the remix or podcast you make will help you reach a new audience. The music scene is composed of countless separate micro-worlds, and you’ll never manage to reach them all. Be strategic: try to reach the ones that are looking for music like yours. It’s a common mistake to assume that casting a wide net will succeed in garnering you enough people who will love what you do. But that’s actually counter-productive. You’re better off reaching one true fan than 100 people who care more or less. That one impassioned fan will spread the word and carry your music around. But you need to be exposed.

Target the right people, make your network work. Following the previous point, if you connect with people who love the same music as you, your music will find its way to the appropriate people. Again, you have to think strategically. Too often I see someone agree to do a remix without first having done research into who they are about to work with. On the other end, you could end up saying no to someone who is close friends with one of your favourite artists, or who attends a club regularly and passes music he discovers off to local DJs who love the kind of music you craft. The point is that good networking involves enlisting others to spread the wheel of music for you. And the same goes for you if you ask other DJs to remix your music productions: if someone believes in the music, they’ll pass it to people who will play it.

The rocky road. The state of DJing is pretty interesting these days. If you think about it, a lot of DJs play digital music they get for free, and will only pay for vinyls. Digital sales, at least for underground music, are somewhat stable, but haven’t evolved much at all in the last 5 years. For some reason, people have a hard time paying for underground music. They prefer to get it for free through their DJ friends. So with this in mind, accepting to remix for a label or a fellow producer is more about hoping that you’ll connect with someone who will get you closer to your goals: to release with a specific label; to be associated with a producer that inspires you; to get more gigs; or whatever they may be. This comes with a price though, and remixing for free might be one of those little discomforts that are necessary to get you closer to your destination.

So as a producer, if you’re facing the option of being invited to work for free, consider these 3 things:

Are you inspired by the original song?
Is the invitation coming from someone with an interesting reach (fans, artists, community, promo)?
Who else is involved? Is there anyone in their circle that inspires you?

Ask yourself these questions, and feel free to ask the people who are inviting you to collaborate. If you’re going to do it for free or for a few bucks, it’d better be a fun gig!

Now just one final tip: you too may at one point invite someone to remix your music, and they might be considering these same points. So if you really want to work with an artist you love, it could be worthwhile to invest some money into having that special artist remix your track. Paid artists are often a good source of promotion to get your music where you want it to be.

Deconstructing A Reference Track

August 11, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

Note: This article is partly related to the Non-Linear Music Production technique explained in my previous post. It offers a complementary method for finding inspiration in your workflow.

Now that you’ve been exposed to my non-linear approach to music production, you know that the early stages of production are focused on building ideas and content. Once that has been attacked, you can start looking into creating a temporary structure for a loop. If you’ve also checked out my One Loop Per Day challenge on YouTube, then you’ll see that the following step is to build a storyline around the idea.

One of the best and fastest ways is to devote your time to carefully analyzing the work of artists you admire. This entails actively analyzing and interpreting others’ work within your DAW so as to carve out a path that you can easily implement in your own production.

But before you dive into your sources of influence and follow the process outlined below, I’d like you to consider this famous quote:

“Art is theft” – Pablo Picasso

Step 1: Finding Your Track

Pick a track that you really like and whose arrangements you would like to more or less imitate.
Make sure that the track is un-warped so that it doesn’t sync with your DAW’s BPM, and so that it’s unaffected by any transient markers you might have set.
If your track is in Ableton’s Session View, drag it into the Arrangement View by hovering over the 3 vertical lines at the top-right corner of your screen, or by simply pressing the tab key.

Step 2: Correcting Grid Settings

In order to properly match the grid with your track’s tempo so that you can use the waveform to spot what happens at what time, you need to find the BPM. You can do this in many ways, by:
- Finding your track on Beatport. The track information should include its key and BPM.
- Accessing the track’s metadata by right-clicking on it in Windows and then clicking on “Properties>Details” (if it’s available).
- Finding the BPM on your own using Ableton’s Tempo Tap.
  - Make sure to tap “tempo” in the Session View or else it will fall out of sync in the Arrangement View.
- Type in the appropriate BPM.
  - Manually adjust the track with Ableton’s grid so that the sections of your track begin on beat.

You will notice this will help you to analyze your track’s arrangements by determining at which bar a section will start.e.g.: The breakdown starts at 80 bars.
- Feel free to cut out any elements such as silence,noise, or “pre-intros” before the actual intro, as in my example above.

Step 3: Placing Markers and Locators

If your sections are starting on beat and are properly aligned with Ableton’s grid, this is where you will be able to start learning how tracks are arranged.
Listen to the track a couple of times, and mark its waveform with appropriate section locators. To do this:
- Right-click in the Scrub Area.
- Click on “Add Locator.”
Mark all relevant sections with locators throughout the whole song. It should look like this:
- Note that you can label your sections however you wish, depending on the style of music you’re writing. You don’t need to call a section a chorus, for example, if you just want to call it A or B.

Step 4: Analyzing

Now for the important part…

Pull out Ableton’s Loop Brace in the Scrub Area above the track’s waveform, and stretch it from the beginning of a musical section to its end (from verse to chorus).
Count the amount of bars there are within that section by subtracting the last bar of the section from its first.
- Example: If your section starts at 61 and ends at 93, do 93-61. That’s 32 bars.
Count the amount of bars for each section and you’ll start to notice when new elements emerge: sections and themes begin and end every 8 to 32 bars. That’s just how dance music works.
For example:
- Everything works in multiples of 4.
- You won’t hear a new section begin on bar 5 unless you’re not writing in 4/4.
Once you analyze how many bars are within a section,it becomes easy to understand how long your instrumental arrangements should be and where to place them in your own track.
- Example: “My reference track has a chorus that lasts 16 bars. It also has a pad for that entire section. I can apply this to my own productions by placing a pad in my chorus for 16 bars only and making sure that it doesn’t overlap with the bridge.”

Step 5: Taking Notes

Once you map the structure of the track with locators, it’s important to take note of all the musical elements that come into play for each section. This is how you’ll get to understand what to place and when within the sections of your own track.

You can take notes down on a piece of paper, or even simpler, directly into Ableton’s clips. Here’s how:
- Split the waveform into multiple clips by clicking on it and pressing [CTRL+E/CMD+E], or right-clicking on it and then selecting “Split.”
- Once you’ve split the waveform into multiple clips, write down the most important elements for each section.
- Then right-click on the Ableton clip and select “Edit info text.”
For the build-up section, you can write things like “white noise sweeps, risers, automated filter cut-off, percussion repeating faster and faster,” etc.

Bonus Tip: Creating Ghost MIDI Clips

The last trick I want to show you for deconstructing your reference tracks element by element is to create ghost MIDI clips for every instrument. This is the best way to learn from other people’s tracks, because it will allow you to break them down layer by layer.

Create MIDI channels for every instrument you hear in a section, and label them.
Make sure there’s nothing in them.

Using this method, you can even go as far as deleting your chosen reference track and just filling in the MIDI skeleton with your own synths, pads, drums, effects and more! You’ll have the same arrangements as the artist you chose to mimic, but it will be your sound!

Non-Linear Music Production

August 3, 2016/in Blog, Tips/by pheek

One of my goals is to help people be more productive and finish more tracks. I’ve learned that for many people out there, getting a project done can seem overwhelming. Many will never complete them, because the sole thought of finishing it to perfection stalls the whole process. We could even call this a form of writer’s block, even though the blockage occurs mid-project instead of at the start.

But starting new projects is and should be fun. That’s why I’ve even been encouraging people I coach to try to start one project a day.

Having multiple projects on the go is not only a great investment in your own potential, but it also forces you to practice, learn new techniques, and get outside of your comfort zone.

I swear, it will even become addictive.

So you might be wondering: how does this help you finish tracks if you just keep starting new ones?

Have a look at my Discogs page and you’ll see that I’ve released many EPs and albums. This is the technique that I’ve been using, which I call Non-linear Music Production (NLMP). And I can honestly say that I couldn’t have done it any other way.

The main mistake many producers make is to tackle a project from start to finish in a single sequence. This is how they operate:

Find a hook, idea, main loop.
Develop the idea into a structure.
Do the arrangements.
Do the mixdown.
Finalize the track.

The problem here is that producers also tend to move back and forth between the steps as adjustments are required. This often results in artists hearing their own track so many times that they can’t even tell what’s working or not anymore – and they start to go a little crazy! This way of organizing your production workflow might be motivated by your love for the idea you found, and by your desire to finish up the project so you can share it with your friends. But it forces it too much.

By comparison, Non-linear music production, or NLMP, works very differently. But after introducing it to people, I started seeing them improve.

The first thing that’s different is the introduction of what I call “rounds.“ A round is an iteration of the same work process. But to define your round, first you need to decide how many tracks you need in your project. Usually, an EP will be 4 tracks and an album, 8 to 10. The number of tracks will decide the number of rounds.

Let me explain.

Once you have decided on the number of tracks, here’s how to work rounds:

Find a hook, idea, main loop. Try to spend less than an hour on this at once.
Save the project and close it.
Create a new project, then repeat step 1.

Now, you will repeat this for each track on your EP or album, and each of them will evolve in parallel instead of one after the next. It will give you the impression that you’re not going fast enough, but you are actually farming your tracks all at once. Once you have your X number of tracks, all with an idea/hook, then you can move to the next stage of rounds.

Develop the idea into a structure.
Add more elements as needed.
Save the project and close it.
Open the next project, then repeat step 1.

Again, try to not spend too much time at once on each project. Plus you should try to space out each of your sessions by at least 24 hours. Rested ears know better. Then the final stage will follow:

Arrangements.
Add more elements as needed.
Save the project and close it.
Open the next project, repeat step 1.

As you can see, whenever you start a new round, you then repeat it for all of the other tracks. This goes as well for the mixing and such. You can develop your own workflow too, but in the end, what matters is that each track evolves in parallel.

What’s really exciting about this technique is when you get to the last week and finish all the tracks. You’ll see the end results all together, then you’ll just have some final touches to make, and boom, your project is done.

I’m currently working on a document that describes the whole process in detail. If you subscribe to my free coaching service, you’ll get the training and more news as it comes.

When Do You Know A Track Is Finished?

July 29, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

Are you one of those perfectionists that has a hard time finishing a project because they feel there’s always one more detail that needs fixing? I’ve published a few posts with tips on how to finish tracks, but maybe you’re still spending countless hours on minor tweaks. You’re not alone. I’ve long been like that too, but with time I’ve learned to find a happy balance between embracing my perfectionist side and staying spontaneous.

I remember seeing a very inspiring video about Fellini, who felt that the only art possible was that which emerged from spontaneity, not from trying to control the uncontrollable. In other words, if you try to control your initial impulses, you might ruin what your instincts had naturally proposed. Overworking your production, after all, often comes from being excessively concerned with others’ feedback, but that’s completely out of your hands.

For all you know, people might love the exact things you were trying to suppress.

Here’s where it can become a problem:

You’ve been adjusting (and readjusting) the same project for months. Each time you listen to your track, you hear some new detail that you’d forgotten about or hadn’t noticed before.

This might be because:

You’re spending too much time on your track in one sitting. If you spend 4 hours in a row on a track, you’ll lose the perspective you need to hear things properly. I’ve stressed this before, but I always recommend taking tons of breaks, and to space out your sessions too. Letting your project sit for a few days before opening it again can really help. A week is even better. Months can do magic.

Your listening environment might not be perfect. This is why listening outside can help you figure out what needs tweaking. Try to always refer back to tracks that you know sound right, and insert your track into the same playlist. You can then put your player on shuffle to discover if your track sounds like it fits in.

But remember: achieving perfection is an illusion. What you hear on the 1000th listen is only what someone who has been listening to a track on non-stop repeat will hear. The chances are very low that anyone on earth will listen to your track as much as you do. And even if they did, by that point there’s actually a mental mechanism that kicks in, where people’s brains will adapt their perceptions to the track so as to accept it as it is. This might be a bit hard to swallow at first, but it is factual.

To cite a good example, every time I play live, I’ll spend innumerable hours preparing my sounds in advance. But then as I’m juggling with them live, they’re only being played for a few minutes each. The ones I think don’t sound so great are often perceived as really cool by the crowds. People will think that the sound, as they heard it, was made that way for a reason. They’re not totally wrong. You’ve created your music in a specific environment, and that is how your music sounds — there. Even if you get a mastering engineer to look over it all and make sure it sounds right, it’s honestly very rare that they’ll adjust more than 3 or 4 things at most.

Which is all to say that spending countless hours on that snare just might be a bit overkill.

In conclusion, you never really know if your track will be done. It is just a matter of accepting to move on and leave that track living it’s own, watching where it will end and accomplish. Go focus on the next work. You can always leave a track sleeping for a few months and get back to it later. That is always a way to see what’s left to be done.

SEE MORE: What Is A Mature Sounding Track?

Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks

July 25, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

One of the questions I used to get the most from my students was how to come up with new ideas when making music. Unlike with jazz or rock, the options for creating electronic sounds are limitless, and so the range of electronic music genres and sub-genres is vast. Because of this, it becomes particularly easy to get lost in the innumerable possibilities and directions your music could take.

For many, just the pressure of trying to come up with new ideas can generate a writer’s block. And asking someone like me for tips on where to start could also lead to more questions, since I’ve developed my own ways of approaching the process over the years. With that said, I’ve personally found it essential to bear these 3 things in mind:

Music is a shared experience. The more you live your music, the clearer your ideas get.
Your experience of the music may not be the same as the listener’s. Let go of your desire for people to “get it,” and accept that they might see or feel something you don’t.
Creativity starts with embracing the endless recycling of sounds and ideas. Don’t think you’ll reinvent the wheel, if you know what I mean. Expectations kill creativity.

While you might have an intellectual understanding of the whole process of making music, there’s another dimension, that of intuition and feelings. So this involves two things:

Jamming. Play with gear, softwares.
Recycling. Inspiration from other songs, samples, presets, artists.

Everyone’s different, but if you think of bands for example, they jam together for a while until they uncover an idea they like. Then they will nail it down or record it to make it into a song. But before they can get there, they need to just let loose, go wild, and explore. In jazz, it’s well known that the masters would play for hours on end in little clubs, pushing themselves beyond the point of exhaustion until they reached a level of pure creativity, discovering new paths that they never would have found in a short session.

Basically, your brain needs a little push. You can’t just sit there and think you’ll have something fresh and innovative by opening your DAW and tweaking for 30 minutes. It demands patience, and giving yourself the permission to get a bit wild and break your own rules.

Many people find that jamming isn’t really their thing, and they’ll get great ideas if they already have material to work from. This is why sampling has become so popular in the last 30 years. Musicians take something they love, and then change the context to give it a whole new life. Using other people’s music can a bit of a legal nightmare though, so thankfully, as you know, there are tons of options out there — but maybe the best way is to learn to make your own sounds.

Fact: Doing arrangements in your DAW isn’t really “playing your music.” Have you developed the skill of playing it?

This is why learning to jam can be really useful. But how do you do it?

Try this simple exercise:

Open any soft synth in your DAW, and pick a preset or make yourself one.
Write a few few notes, but keep it simple. Play it in a loop.
Play with the parameters and record everything. Also, record the midi in case you’ll be changing that.
Listen to what you recorded, isolate the best parts, and then jam over it some more.
Repeat.

That’s it. You’re jamming. You have no idea how many people don’t realize how easy it is until they try it. And how fun. Just do it and PLAY your music.

On a final note, remember that inspiration also comes from listening to music, and lots of it — whether it’s music in the genre you want to make or something completely different, since you can translate ideas into your own world. One thing people sometimes forget is how listening to music with friends or in another context (walking, driving, commuting) can be especially useful, since it provides perspective on how the sound feels when doing daily activities. Ideas will then sprout.

SEE MORE: Recycling Your Tracks Into Fresh New Ideas

The Rule Of 10: Production in Rotation for Big Results

June 14, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

I was speaking with a friend about my approach to making music, and I explained my rule of 10. Most people, especially new producers, will work a song until it’s done. But this is actually a huge mistake. The reason is simple:

after working hours on the same track, these guys have a hard time knowing if it’s still good or making any sense at all.

Plus they fall into the trap of tweaking things endlessly for that one track.

You might already see how this can be quite limiting from a learning perspective. Or maybe you don’t agree. So let me throw a few ideas out there that could help you jumpstart your inspiration.

Let’s compare making music to planting vegetables. You’re not going to plant one tomato plant and then wait for it to produce a tomato before planting something else, are you? To get big crops, you’ll need to plant a whole bunch at once, and nurture them all at the same time. Then you harvest.

The same goes for your songs. Start multiple at a time, and while one is progressing, don’t hesitate to stop yourself and let it sleep for a week or two, especially when you’re entering a very productive phase. This is to make sure you’re always fresh when you open a project and know exactly what needs to be done next. You’ll observe that your perspective on your work will be more accurate. If you open your project and it’s a mess, leave it to rest some more, or maybe recycle it into another, ongoing project.

There are two approaches to the rule of 10:

10 different projects.

Create 10 folders, and drop an Ableton project that you want to develop into each. Also, take the time to insert reference tracks that you love. This is music that you’d like your project to sound like but not necessarily mimic. Don’t hesitate to drop anything in there — get some classical or jazz, record some field recordings, anything. No rules should limit you.

You should also do some careful sample hunting on a site like Splice, for instance. Drop various sounds in there you like, along with presets you want to use. Save some in there in a specific folder.

1 project, 10 songs.

This one might surprise you, but I love this trick.

Open one project and build your 10 songs inside it, one after the next. They will all share the same number of channels, effects, and so on.

This is also an excellent way to keep a particular mood from one song to another.

You will run into interesting results by having some sounds go through the effect chain from the previous song. You can also be creative and not use all the same hi-hats in the same channel. For example, one song could use channel 3 for claps, then the same channel for toms. Don’t alter the EQ and compression on the other tracks. Try instead to take advantage of the settings from the previous track to see how to tweak the following one.

It’s rare that you’ll think you can create multiple songs in one project, but the idea came to me while I was turning parts of a live set into various songs. I thought it was really interesting to try a different way of working.

For me, two things have always enabled new ideas: limitations, and being forced to work or think in a new way. Both go hand in hand. I know that most people feel like the more gear and gizmos they have, the more productive they’ll be. Yet getting more usually leads to procrastination, since you feel confident that you can do it in the end. I call that the runner’s syndrome: you bought your running shoes and shorts, so you feel you can run. But are you, really?

SEE MORE: Spending Long Hours in the Studio

Find a track tester for your productions

June 10, 2016/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

This might be one important post, so consider taking 5 minutes to go through it carefully. You probably already know how important it is to test the music you’re creating, but the big question is, how do you test your music effectively?

First, there are a few traps people fall into. I’ve said it many times, but succumbing to the myth that your music isn’t important if it isn’t signed to a label is a very common mistake — even for experienced producers. No joke. The truth is that your music is important simply because it’s yours. It deserves real love and attention, and that means proper treatment.

So how do you make sure to test your music properly?

In a word: you need beta-testers.

Track testers are experienced DJs who regularly play in all kinds of events, both big and small. The fact that someone plays often will ensure that your music gets inserted into their sets alongside other tracks, and that it will be heard by live crowds. The great news is that thanks to the internet, you can work with DJs across the globe and test its reception in different countries.

Here are a few tips on how to proceed:

Follow artists/DJs on Soundcloud. I’ve said it in past posts, but the importance of connecting with people on Soundcloud can’t be overstated. If you follow artists and DJs and engage with them, you can make some great contacts that will be beneficial to you both. Find people who enjoy, support, and comment on the music you really love. This is a good way to make sure the people you invest your time and energy into genuinely share the same tastes, which is a crucial factor in finding your beta-tester.

Share music in private. If you’ve gotten into the game of sending music to labels only to have your experiences end in frustration, then working in a one-on-one setting can be much more interesting. Don’t just send a random link to a DJ though. Take the time to connect with the person first, and then share a track after you’ve made contact. It feels special to receive music privately after a nice introduction — and even more so if the music fits.

Get feedback and tweak. This part is a bit trickier. If you want the DJ to play your song in a club, you’ll need to let them download it first. Be sure your mixdown is right, and it’s even better if the track is mastered too. Once the track is played, try to follow up to get some feedback. Be clear that you’re not fishing for compliments, but that you’re genuinely seeking constructive criticism. This is the only way to improve your track.

And very importantly, make sure the person will not share the track with their DJ friends!

You have no control over this of course, and that’s why you need to be extra careful about whom you share your music with. I’ve seen some really awkward situations where unreleased material accidentally got into the hands of a vast network of people. There are even online groups where members create pools of music to be shared abroad. If your music finds it way into one of these groups, the good news is that you’ll be known by a lot of music collectors (who for the most part aren’t DJs). The bad news, though, is that your track will have been burned, and there’s basically no way to release it after that.

So sometimes, a smart strategy could be to sacrifice a great track you feel could get you attention, even if it means giving it away. If it works, then the benefit in the end could be much higher than the loss. I myself have done this multiple times with netlabels, and it often paid off.

SEE MORE: Guide to shameless self-promotion

Wisdom From Experienced Producers

May 29, 2016/in Blog/by pheek

So you’ve decided to make music, bought the minimum to get going, and started to learn. But now you have this internal voice that keeps popping up, telling you that you’ll soon need to look for a label to get signed. No matter what you do, that little voice just keeps coming back. One of the reasons you welcome it and listen to it is because it opens the door to the dream of a release.

Well, not so fast. Before making music seriously or getting signed comes a very important step, which is to spend time with established producers. We admire artists who make music we love, and we want to meet them to see how they are in real life.

Just by listening to their music, we often get the feeling of knowing and understanding them, and even of connecting with them on a deeper level than with close peers.

But above all, we can also learn a lot from them, no matter what stage of your career you’re at.

So how do you approach an artist?

Volunteer for events or labels. This is a great way to encourage encounters. It’s hard to be around tons of people, so by volunteering, you get to help your community, support something that’s important to you, and meet experienced producers, all at once. Plus it’s a lot of fun.

Befriend them. Artists love company in general, but are sometimes socially awkward. Being warm and friendly to someone really is a good starting point. I’m saying this because sometimes people approach artists in the most bizarre way, as if trying to impress them or something.

Avoid being starstruck. It’s hard not to be impressed by someone you admire, but if you feel intimidated, try to focus on asking questions, and then enjoy the moment just listening. The important thing to realize is that some heroes you meet won’t actually fit who you are (any more than when you meet random people), so it’s nice to first see who you’re dealing with.

It’s not to brag, but for me, being involved at MUTEK was a great example of this. Aside from performing, I also got to drive artists around as a volunteer, which is how I made some really remarkable encounters. Some of the discussions we had were so interesting and enriching that they had a lasting influence on my career. Like I explained before, meeting Richie Hawtin was a very positive experience for me, and we got to talk a lot about career choices. But one of the most influential people I met was without a doubt Ricardo Villalobos.

While I don’t necessarily approve of his lifestyle, it always breaks my heart when I read some trashy comments about it, because hanging out with him gave me the privilege of discovering a truly unique and sensitive soul. The first time I met him was at MUTEK 2002, where I had the chance to drive him to his gig. I went to his hotel room to find him running around getting ready, clothes everywhere. Imagine this 6′ 6″ giant, a total goofball, chuckling like a kid as he tried to find all his cables and personal things. It was the first meeting of many to follow. Whenever he would see me, he would remember our hilarious time hanging out. One time I caught him on the street while he was shopping, and we spent an afternoon discussing life, music, careers, creativity, and the philosophies behind our common passion.

I’d like to share with you some of his thoughts that have stayed with me to this day. Often, I pass them on to others when I teach or coach.

“Music should be effortless.” As in, you should aim to achieve a state of flow while performing or producing.

“Events are about being with friends, tracks are messages being exchanged.” Rich has a very personal view about music, and for him, each track he plays has a story. Learn it before playing it.

“Be different, be personal, be bold and subtle, all at once.”

“Take the time to listen. To music, to people, to situations.” If you have ever seen him play in front of a crowd, it’s quite something to see him read it and control it.

So before dealing with labels, try getting involved in the community and meeting people you love. And whether it’s a Hawtin, a Villalobos, or just an experienced local you admire, you’ll find a good dose of inspiration, knowledge, and wisdom — and if you’re lucky, a new friend.

SEE ALSO: Creating Timeless Music

Conversations with Clients: Luis Rivera

May 19, 2016/in Blog, Mastering, Production, Products, Song Finalizing and Arrangements/by pheek

In Conversations with Clients, we bring you an honest and unfiltered look at Pheek’s services, straight from the mouths of those who know — and want you to know too! For this second piece in our series, I spoke with Luis Rivera (artist name LRb), a minimal techno producer based in Puebla, Mexico.

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Hi Luis, thanks for taking the time to chat with us! To start off, why don’t you tell us how long you’ve been producing music for?

Well electronic music I’ve been producing in Ableton for 5 years now, but I started making songs with my sister when I was very young. I played the guitar and my sister sang and we used to record it on an old tape recorder my dad has. So I’ve been making songs and music all my life, but producing electronic music for 5 years.

Now tell me a bit about your projects. Do you have any releases yet or are you working on that?

No, actually I’m working with Pheek because we want to release an EP. That’s the idea behind me using his services, the song finalization and analog mastering services. There’s an app, a KORG app, and I started making songs with it, and I won a contest they had 4 years ago, which led to a release on a compilation of tracks. But I’m working right now on my first EP.

When did you realize that you wanted help with your EP?

Well the thing is, if you start making one kind of music, in my case it’s techno minimal, you tend to repeat the same things. Like in your workflow, you always start, in my case, with drum groove, and even with the drum groove, you always start with a perfect kick, then some hi-hats, then some claps, and you start doing things methodically. You can hear your tracks, and you think they’re all different, but if you leave them for 2 or 3 days and you hear them again, you’re like, “This sounds exactly the same as the track I made a month ago.” So to try to do things differently, you need help, somebody from the outside, an educated ear. I realized that I had 10 tracks that were pretty good for me, I had stuff that I really liked, but – I didn’t know if it needed polishing or what – but I didn’t want to leave the songs as they were. I thought I could improve them. So that was the point where I knew I needed help, but you need help that is very specialized in this type of music.

How long have you been working on the tracks that you’ll be releasing?

There are tracks that I’ve made in the past 2 to 3 years. When I started talking with Pheek, he suggested one thing. He told me, “You know, you should get those tracks out of the closet and listen to them again, with all the knowledge you have right now, with everything you’ve learned through the years, you’re gonna listen to them differently. Maybe you can combine your current drums or groove with a bass you really like from a song you did 3 years ago.” So I did exactly that, I spent 2 to 3 weeks listening to tracks I remember I liked – you don’t remember anything though, you don’t even remember making the track!

We’re looking right now at 8 tracks – the idea is to release 4 – but 80% of these are tracks that I did 3 years ago, and we’re reinventing and smashing things up, et cetera.

How did you find out about Pheek’s services?

I am really a fan of his music. I had an album that was released by Minus and I really liked the tracks. Actually, they were very inspiring for me at the beginning of my work in electronic music, because I was more oriented towards dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass, and then eventually I started listening to house and techno music – I mean, I loved techno from when I was very little – but there was a track from Pheek on the record, and I started following him on Soundcloud and Facebook. I saw that he posted about his services, so I checked them out on his website, and I just sent him an email. It was super fast and easy. So it was very easy for me to establish contact with him.

Had you ever heard of song finalization services before or was this something new to you?

No, it was something completely new for me. And it was very attractive, but also very scary for me at the beginning. It was very attractive, because I thought I have an opportunity to have an artist, a real artist, whose music I really like, in the same genre I produce – and he has so many years of experience, et cetera, et cetera – so I thought it would be very, very productive for me to have someone like him hear my songs. But at the same time I was very scared, because I still want the songs to be my songs. I don’t want them to be completely changed or anything like that.

And what led you to decide in the end to book him?

Well you know, I simply said “okay, let’s try it.” I talked to Pheek two times before I sent him tracks. We were very clear on the idea I had for the EP, we talked about the general idea, the theme behind the EP. And then I just sent him the track, and he works very fast. Two or three days after he sent me his version, his arrangements, and I immediately loved them.

So it has been a very productive and very easy working relationship. I like to say to him – he laughs, but I like to tell him, “I’m not your client, I’m your friend, and let’s do this like we’re friends.” And it has been flow, flow, flow from there.

What was the thing that struck you the most about working with Pheek, was there anything that surprised you?

Well first of all, he’s always available. You would imagine that a person with his record label, with his mastering work – he does a lot of mastering for a lot of producers – you’re gonna think, “well he has a very busy agenda.” But he’s always available. That was the first thing that really connected with me, that I know I can ask him for advice on many other subjects, not just, “Okay, what arrangement did you do on this or that track?” I can ask him, “What are you listening to right now?” and stuff like that.

And second, definitely the arrangements, the things he sends back to me, they’re things you can only do with experience, with all those years you have working in the studio, mastering, hearing music. All those little things, in the end, they make a huge difference on your tracks. Like for example, I had a song that was driven with very dark synths, it has a very heavy bass, but I didn’t know where to put the percussions. I sent it to him, and 3 days later he sent me a song with just a ride on the percussion, just a cymbal, and it was amazing. He did 2 or 3 things there that were amazing, that completely changed the vibe of the song, and I really liked it. You know, those kinds of things, only a person with experience can really give you.

So in the longer term, what do you think you’ve gained from this experience of working with Pheek? What has it brought to your music production in a lasting way?

Oh a lot of stuff, it’s definitely a lot. Well actually, first, I hope I can continue working with him. He’s very active in other things too. Like right now we’re preparing the EP – we have some labels in mind – but the idea is to make this kind of big. He offers you help in that aspect too. So first of all I don’t wan’t this to be a one-time experience, I am definitely going to continue working with him. The mastering he does – his studio is filled with analog stuff, I produce mainly with analog instruments, and the sound is amazing when he sends back the songs.

But you know, those little pieces of advice, the way he sees things musically speaking, you learn a lot, you learn very very much, in very short conversations, and you can soak up all the knowledge he gives you. It’s like a graduate course!

Check out Luis Rivera (LRb) on Soundcloud here.

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This interview has been edited.