The Dysfunction of Email Promos in Music

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In an age where technology has simplified communication, it’s ironic how it has also, sometimes, made things more complicated. Take music promotion for instance. A once curated art of handpicking who you shared your work with has been lost in the deluge of the digital age. And nowhere is this more evident than in the world of email music promotions.

For a small- to medium-sized artist like me, my inbox is perpetually inundated with promotional tracks. In fact, I’ve had to set up an email rule to funnel these promos into a separate folder just to keep my primary inbox manageable. To give you a perspective, this folder recently crossed the 13,000 mark. It’s overwhelming and, frankly, dysfunctional.

Now, let’s put this into context. I’m not even a significant player in the music industry. Major artists are likely receiving 3-5 times the number of promos I get. The question then becomes, how effective is this method when even a smaller artist can’t keep up?

One of the most significant issues is the scattergun approach. I’m flooded with tracks from genres and artists that are miles apart from my musical tastes. It’s as though having access to my email address has become an open invitation to send anything and everything my way. This mass email system means that around 95% of the music I receive isn’t even relevant to me. And this poses a unique problem, not just for me, but for musicians as well. The handful of tracks that might genuinely intrigue me are lost in the noise.

 

This situation eerily mirrors another challenge – shopping for music. For every gem you find, you’re likely sifting through a mountain of tunes that aren’t quite your style. With email promos, the haystack has just grown exponentially, making the needle even harder to find.

Ironically, in this vast digital world, in-person connections seem to be the most efficient form of music promotion. When you meet artists face-to-face, there’s a directness and specificity to the exchange. But the reality is, these opportunities are limited.

Strangely, it’s hard to admit but Spotify has been my most reliable tool for discovering and curating music I listen to. I usually find music there, then continue my searches on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. But as much as I don’t like the ethics of Spotify, if there’s one thing they do right, it’s keeping me in the loop with music I will mostly like.

 

Where does this leave us?

Firstly, artists need to rethink the blind, bulk email strategy. The objective shouldn’t be about how many people you can reach, but rather about reaching the right people.

Secondly, as recipients, maybe we need platforms or systems to better communicate our music preferences. Labels have traditionally played this role to some extent, but there’s room for innovation.

Lastly, while personal connections remain invaluable, the digital age demands better solutions. We need platforms where specificity and personalization become paramount, ensuring that every promo an artist sends is a potential hit, not just another email in an overflowing folder.

 

But I also have a list of websites that can provide help with promotion.

  1. SubmitHub: A platform where artists and labels can submit their music to bloggers, playlist curators, YouTubers, and even record labels. It’s an excellent way to get feedback and potentially get your music featured.
  2. RepostExchange: This platform allows SoundCloud users to trade reposts. It’s a way to expose your music to a new audience by leveraging other artists’ followers.
  3. DistroKid: While primarily a music distribution platform, DistroKid also offers promotional tools like ‘HyperFollow’ which helps artists to maximize their pre-save counts on platforms like Spotify.
  4. PlaylistPush: Designed for artists to pitch their music to Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer playlist curators.
  5. Hypeddit: Helps you grow your fanbase on platforms like SoundCloud, YouTube, Mixcloud, and more by trading likes, reposts, comments, and follows.
  6. Feature.fm: It lets artists get their music into streaming service playlists, and they also provide tools for pre-saves and other promotional campaigns.
  7. Groover: Similar to SubmitHub, Groover allows artists to send their tracks to a wide range of bloggers, record labels, radio stations, and playlist curators.
  8. Musosoup: Artists submit their tracks, and curators (bloggers, playlisters, etc.) can browse and select tracks they’re interested in featuring.
  9. Promo.ly: A music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies to share their music to industry influencers.
  10. Echio: This is a place where you can follow artists, get workshops, pay for some feedback and more.

 

 

In conclusion, while the digital age has revolutionized music sharing, it’s also important to recognize its pitfalls. As we move forward, it’s crucial to find harmony between the old and new, ensuring that quality music doesn’t get lost in the digital shuffle.

Rituals, Routines, and Habits in Music Production

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For us musicians, where creativity meets discipline, the secret symphony lies in the art of rituals, routines, and habits. Like the intricate notes of a melody, these elements intertwine to create a harmonious process that elevates musicians from novices to virtuosos. From finding the perfect hook to crafting intricate arrangements, these rituals serve as the conductor’s baton, guiding musicians through the labyrinth of creation. In this melodic exploration, we delve into the common threads that tie these practices together and uncover their transformative impact on the journey of music production.

 

One thing I observe with people I know and work with, is their lack of organization or time for making the music they want to do. Taking the time to make space for self care is an important thing for enabling more satisfying sessions. That’s what we’re all interested in, no? So why not allowing ourselves healthier skills?

Most of the time, it seems like many artists have the impression, or superstition, that their unhealthy way does it better. Call it self medication or stubbornness, one can stick to it until it works no more or because they’ve entered a self destruction phase.

So let’s talk about upgrading your sessions.

Let’s define what each mean.

1. Ritual: A ritual is a set of actions, behaviours, or practices that are carried out with a sense of purpose, intention, and often a deeper meaning. Rituals are typically associated with symbolism, significance, and a heightened sense of awareness. They are performed to mark a specific event, transition, or moment and often carry cultural, spiritual, or personal significance. In the context of music production, a ritual might involve a specific pre-recording meditation, setting up a particular workspace arrangement, or even a symbolic gesture before starting the creative process. Rituals can help create a focused and intentional mindset, bringing a sense of reverence and mindfulness to the creative endeavour.

Rituals are intentional practices with symbolic meaning, often used to bring mindfulness, focus, and deeper significance to a specific activity or event.

2. Routine: A routine is a sequence of tasks or activities that are regularly followed in a specific order. Routines provide structure and predictability to daily life. Unlike rituals, routines might not carry the same level of symbolic or spiritual significance. Instead, routines serve practical purposes and can encompass a range of activities, from the mundane tasks of daily hygiene to more complex processes like a musician’s routine for setting up equipment before a recording session. Routines provide a sense of organization, help manage time efficiently, and establish a consistent pattern for accomplishing tasks.

Routines are sequences of tasks that provide structure and organization to daily life, helping manage time and accomplish various activities in a systematic manner.

3. Habit: Habits are automatic behaviours that have been repeated consistently over time until they become ingrained in our daily lives. They require minimal conscious thought and effort to perform. Habits can be positive or negative, and they often develop as a result of repetition. In the context of music production, a habit could be a regular schedule of practicing an instrument, a daily ritual of listening to music for inspiration, or even the tendency to start each recording session with a cup of coffee. Habits are powerful because they shape our behaviour over the long term, whether for creative endeavours or daily routines.

Habits are automatic behaviours that develop through repetition and become ingrained in our routines, shaping our long-term actions and behaviours.

Rituals, Routines, and Habits: A Collective Symphony

 

1. The Prelude: Setting the Stage

Rituals, routines, and habits all share a common purpose: setting the stage for productive creativity. Just as a well-rehearsed orchestra tunes their instruments before a performance, musicians tune their minds and environment through consistent practices. These practices create a mental framework, signalling to the brain that it’s time to enter the creative zone.

There are multiple little things that you can do to enhance your studio and make it cozier and providing inspiration.

 

1. Thoughtful Lighting: Using LED lights that you can change the colors is a great way to change the mood on the fly. using candles is also lovely.

2. Comfortable Furniture: Invest in comfortable furniture, such as a cozy chair or a comfortable couch where you can take breaks and listen to your work. Also useful for visitors.

3. Personal Touches: Decorate the studio with items that inspire you, such as artwork, posters, or memorabilia related to your favorite musicians or bands. Personal touches can make the space feel uniquely yours and spark your creativity. Seeing people who inspire me to create helps but it has been shown that having picture of people you care for that look at you can raise your efficiency.

4. Acoustic Treatment: Incorporate acoustic panels, diffusers, and bass traps to improve the sound quality of your studio. Not only do these treatments enhance the acoustics, but they also contribute to a more professional and inviting atmosphere. In general, this is a must.

5. Natural Elements: Integrate natural elements like indoor plants, flowers, or even a small tabletop fountain. Greenery adds a refreshing touch to the studio and can create a calming ambiance.

6. Inspiring Colors: Choose colours that evoke the right emotions for your creative process. Soft, muted tones can promote a relaxed atmosphere, while vibrant colours might energize your space. Experiment with colour combinations that resonate with you.

7. Inspirational Quotes: Hang up motivational or inspirational quotes on the walls to keep you inspired and focused during challenging moments. These can serve as reminders of your creative journey.

8. Proper Organization: Keep your studio tidy and organized. Use shelves, storage containers, and cable management solutions to reduce clutter and create a clean workspace. An organized environment can lead to a clearer mind and more efficient work.

9. Personal Soundscapes: Play ambient sounds, like gentle rain or a crackling fireplace, to create a cozy atmosphere while you work. These sounds can help reduce stress and enhance focus.

10. Multi-Sensory Experience: Engage multiple senses by including scented candles, incense, or essential oil diffusers. A pleasant aroma can contribute to a relaxing and inspiring environment.

11. Comfortable Flooring: Choose a comfortable flooring option, such as a soft rug or carpet, to provide insulation and cushioning for long hours spent standing or sitting. Carpet can also help with acoustics.

12. Creative Break Spaces: Designate a cozy corner for relaxation and brainstorming. A bean bag chair, floor cushions, or even a hammock can provide a comfortable space to step away from your workstation and let your ideas flow.

13. Inspiring Instruments: Keep your instruments within arm’s reach to encourage spontaneous creativity. Display your guitars, keyboards, or other instruments prominently, so they serve as constant reminders of your musical pursuits.

 

2. Finding the Motif: Inspiring Creativity

 

Whether it’s a pre-recording meditation or a daily walk in nature, rituals stimulate inspiration by encouraging mindfulness and presence. Studies suggest that these practices activate the brain’s creative center, enhancing the ability to make connections and generate novel ideas—a valuable asset in the search for musical hooks.

1. Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness meditation involves focusing your attention on the present moment without judgment. You can start by focusing on your breath, gradually expanding your awareness to sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Regular practice can improve your ability to stay present and focused in various situations.

2. Guided Meditation: Guided meditation involves following the instructions of a recorded voice or a meditation app. It can lead you through visualizations, body scans, or relaxation techniques, helping you stay engaged and centered.

3. Breath Awareness: Concentrating on your breath is a simple yet effective technique. Observe each inhale and exhale, noticing the sensations as you breathe in and out. This practice can help anchor your attention and calm your mind.

4. Body Scan Meditation: In this practice, you systematically focus on different parts of your body, bringing awareness to physical sensations and releasing tension. It’s a way to cultivate bodily awareness and maintain focus.

5. Mantra Meditation: Using a repetitive word, phrase, or sound (mantra) can help direct your attention and quiet the mind. The repetition can be soothing and help prevent distractions.

6. Visualization: Visualization involves imagining a peaceful scene or a goal you want to achieve. Focusing on this mental image can help you concentrate and foster a sense of positivity.

7. Walking Meditation: Instead of sitting, you can practice meditation while walking slowly and mindfully. Pay attention to each step, the movement of your body, and your surroundings.

8. Progressive Muscle Relaxation: This technique involves tensing and then relaxing different muscle groups in your body. It can reduce physical tension and improve your ability to focus.

9. Yoga: Yoga combines physical movement, breath control, and mindfulness. The combination of these elements can help you improve focus, flexibility, and overall well-being.

10. Tai Chi: Tai Chi is a slow, flowing movement practice that promotes relaxation and mindfulness. It can enhance balance, coordination, and mental clarity.

11. Binaural Beats: Binaural beats are auditory illusions created by playing two slightly different frequencies in each ear. They’re believed to affect brainwave patterns and can aid in achieving different states of focus and relaxation.

12. Colouring or Drawing: Engaging in creative activities like colouring or drawing intricate patterns can have meditative effects, as they require sustained focus on the task at hand.

3. The Crescendo: Engaging in Routine

 

Routine, often synonymous with discipline, plays a crucial role in music production. Just as a musician practices scales daily to refine their technique, establishing routine can aid in refining skills such as recording, editing, and arrangement. Research indicates that regular routines enhance focus, memory, and overall cognitive abilities, all of which are integral in the intricate process of producing music.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I strongly encourage certain things as a routine such as:

  • Dividing your studio session in different phases (brainstorming, Concept testing, editing, loop patterns, arrangements, mixing) and approaching them one at a time.
  • Working on a song for 30 minutes and then work on another. Working on multiple tracks at once is helpful for self validation.
  • Taking breaks every 10 minutes for a few minutes.

All these will be helpful to develop as a routine as they’ll provide you the necessary to feel more satisfied with what you do.

 

4. Harmonizing the Elements: Rituals for Arrangement

Arranging a musical composition can be akin to composing a complex symphony. Here, rituals provide the structure necessary to weave different musical elements into a coherent whole. Studies highlight that rituals promote a sense of control and reduce anxiety—essential ingredients for tackling the intricate task of arranging various elements into a seamless composition.

Arrangements are to music, what the scenario is to a movie. Stories are made in so many different ways that to dive into how to do it, it’s important to get inspiration from storytellers you love. Personally, I love David Lynch and here are some of the points that he uses for his stories.

His style is characterized by surrealism, dreamlike sequences, and a blend of the mundane and the mysterious. Here are some key aspects of David Lynch’s approach to storytelling:

1. Embrace of the Subconscious: Lynch often delves into the subconscious and explores the depths of human psychology. His stories frequently incorporate dreamlike elements, blurring the lines between reality and the inner workings of the mind. This approach allows him to tap into universal emotions and fears that resonate on a deeply emotional level.

2. Dark and Mystical Atmosphere: Lynch’s storytelling often features dark and mysterious atmospheres that create a sense of unease and suspense. He blends the ordinary with the uncanny, infusing the mundane with an air of mystery that keeps viewers engaged and intrigued.

3. Visual Symbolism: Symbolism plays a significant role in Lynch’s work. He often uses visual symbols and metaphors to convey complex themes and emotions. These symbols may be recurring motifs or objects that hold deeper meanings within the context of his stories.

4. Unconventional Narrative Structures: Lynch is known for subverting traditional narrative structures. His stories may not follow a linear path, and he’s willing to leave certain aspects open to interpretation. This unconventional approach invites viewers to engage with the material on a more contemplative level, often sparking discussions and theories about the meanings behind his work.

5. Exploration of Dark Themes: Lynch’s stories frequently explore dark and taboo themes, such as violence, identity crisis, and the duality of human nature. He is unafraid to confront uncomfortable subjects and present them in a way that challenges the audience’s perceptions.

6. Use of Sound and Music: Lynch pays meticulous attention to sound and music in his storytelling. The auditory elements in his films contribute to the overall atmosphere and mood, enhancing the viewer’s experience and adding an additional layer of depth.

7. Character Depth and Ambiguity: Lynch’s characters often have hidden depths, and their motivations might remain ambiguous. This approach invites viewers to actively engage with the characters and their journeys, encouraging introspection and analysis.

8. Collaborative Approach: Lynch often collaborates closely with artists, musicians, and other creatives to bring his stories to life. This collaborative approach results in multi-dimensional works that integrate various artistic forms.

Perhaps these will raise some ideas.

Creating Your Own Musical Overture: Crafting Personal Rituals and Routines

 

1. Identify Your Goals:

Before crafting your rituals and routines, define what aspects of music production you’d like to enhance. Are you seeking greater inspiration, improved focus, or a more organized approach to arrangement?

 

2. Harness the Power of Consistency:

Choose rituals and routines that resonate with you and align with your creative process. Consistency is key—repetition helps solidify the connection between the practice and the desired outcome.

1. Set Clear Goals: Define specific and achievable goals for your music practice and performance. Having clear objectives gives you a sense of direction and purpose, making it easier to stay motivated and consistent.

2. Create a Schedule: Establish a regular practice schedule and stick to it. Consistency thrives on routine. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly, having dedicated time for practice helps build momentum.

3. Start Small: Avoid overwhelming yourself with overly ambitious goals. Start with manageable practice sessions, gradually increasing the duration and complexity as your consistency improves.

4. Break It Down: Divide your practice sessions into smaller, focused segments. This approach helps prevent burnout and allows you to work on specific areas of improvement.

5. Practice Mindfully: Quality matters more than quantity. Focus fully on your practice without distractions. Engage in deliberate practice by identifying areas that need improvement and working on them purposefully.

6. Use a Practice Journal: Keep a practice journal to track your progress, challenges, and areas of improvement. This reflection helps you identify patterns, celebrate milestones, and stay accountable.

7. Embrace Repetition: Consistency is built through repetition. Repeatedly practicing scales, exercises, and songs helps you develop muscle memory and master techniques over time.

8. Prioritize Consistency Over Intensity: Regular, shorter practice sessions are often more effective than sporadic intense sessions. Consistency builds steady progress, while intensity can lead to burnout.

9. Find Accountability: Share your goals and practice routine with a friend, teacher, or fellow musician. Accountability can motivate you to stay consistent and track your progress.

10. Reward Yourself: Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Treat yourself after reaching milestones to reinforce positive behavior.

11. Embrace Imperfection: Perfectionism can hinder consistency. Accept that progress involves making mistakes and learning from them. Focus on improvement rather than flawless execution.

12. Stay Inspired: Seek inspiration from other musicians, genres, and styles. Exploring new musical territories can reignite your passion and keep your practice engaging.

13. Be Patient: Consistency takes time to yield noticeable results. Don’t get discouraged by slow progress. Keep the long-term perspective in mind.

14. Mix It Up: Vary your practice routine to prevent monotony. Experiment with different practice techniques, styles, and genres to keep your sessions fresh.

15. Rest and Recovery: Incorporate rest days into your routine. Rest is essential for preventing burnout and maintaining physical and mental well-being.

16. Adapt and Adjust: Life can be unpredictable. If you miss a practice session, don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, adapt your schedule and get back on track as soon as possible.

3. Mindfulness and Presence:

Integrate mindfulness into your rituals. Whether it’s a pre-recording breathing exercise or a quiet moment before arrangement, cultivating mindfulness can amplify your creative presence.

My favorite book about this practice is “Wherever you go, there you are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

4. Document Your Journey:

Keep a journal to track the impact of your rituals and routines on your music production process. Reflect on moments of breakthrough, increased focus, or enhanced inspiration.

I personally love the Voice Memos on my iPhone to record some notes.

 

5. The Science Behind the Symphony: Insights from Studies

  • A study published in the “Creativity Research Journal” found that engaging in consistent creative rituals enhances creativity and provides a sense of control over the creative process.
  • Research in the “Journal of Neuroscience” reveals that mindfulness practices, often integrated into creative rituals, stimulate the brain’s default mode network, fostering divergent thinking and innovative ideas.
  • The “Journal of Experimental Psychology” suggests that routines can boost cognitive performance and improve memory, thus facilitating efficient editing and arrangement tasks.

 

In Conclusion: The Symphony of Productivity and Creativity

As musicians compose their sonic tapestries, the interplay of rituals, routines, and habits creates a symphony that resonates with discipline and inspiration. Just as a symphony conductor meticulously directs each note, crafting your own set of practices can transform your music production journey into a harmonious masterpiece. By understanding the common threads that unite these practices and embracing their transformative impact, you’ll not only find the hooks and arrangements that resonate but also unlock the full potential of your creative symphony.

References From Clients And Exercises

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When it comes to making music or mixing, you sort of need to start somewhere and to get inspired by others if often a good way to get started. There’s a lot of misconception on how to use references. While I covered that in a past article, I thought I’d go deeper on the topic. 

 

While there’s no right or wrong way to use references, I often use references for one thing in it. It can be a sound that intrigues me, a type of sequence, rhythm or concept that tickles my brain into trying to reverse engineer it. While I can most of the time understand what is going on, it doesn’t mean I can reproduce it as is. Some clients that I coach became really good at reproducing what they hear, sometimes with my help or not.

 

But the idea is to try something out and be open to where that will bring you next.

 

While I do a lot of production from clients, sometimes people wonder what others are into, who are the artists to follow but also, who are the artists that I personally follow for my own inspiration.

 

Many times, I have clients who start an idea based on a reference but they struggle to get it “right” as they want. I give here a few things to check first in order to get things started properly (in other words, this is where clients fail).

 

Load your reference song in Ableton (or other DAW) and you may solo it at first to be able to compare it to your project. I would advise to lower the volume of your reference as it may be mastered while yours isn’t.

 

There are a few initial points to consider:

 

  1. The tone: Use either an FFT analyzer (SPAN from Voxengo is free or Fabfilter ProQ3) on the master to see if the tone is similar. Is the curve similar or different from you

 

  1. Root Key/Scale: You can use a Key detector on your reference to see what is the root key and scale, then check if yours is set properly. While you don’t need to have the same as your reference, some clients don’t realize that their different elements are not in the same key. This will often translate with the feeling that the song doesn’t feel one or perhaps, that is sounds off. Note that it might sound off if you were overexposed and then you got used to it but for a fresh pair of ears, it might be awkward sounding.

 

  1. Speed and rhythm: Find the BPM of your reference and try to match it to yours. What is the time signature.

 

Lately I’ve been enjoying Decoda as a full analysis software. You can do so much with it as well as extract melodies in midi. I find it essential to work with demanding clients.

 

When it comes to artists my clients love the most, I compiled a few and will drop a few words why they are loved.

 

Ricardo Villalobos

Not a surprise here since he’s one of my favorite artists and a lot of people come to me know that I spent decades understanding his unorthodox style and can explain how certain of his songs are made. Love or hate him, that guy has certainly develop his own persona when it comes to production and his music composition is always opening new grounds to what you can do in music.

 

 

Things he has inspired us: 

 

  • Making super long tracks with more or less structure can be fun.
  • Leaving your songs sloppy has a more human side.
  • Combining really weird sounds all together can work if you keep some elements one can refer to.
  • Not afraid to sample obscure records as the main idea of his songs.

 

Ricardo is known to have a huge collection of modular synths but compared to many people who have a lot, he records new tests weekly so you can see the wide array of his tools. 

 

Exercises related to studying to his music:

 

– Use VCV to try the modular thinking he use and randomize some elements for madness.

– Polyrhythms are the key here with uneven time signature. Also look into Euclidean rhythms.

– Ric uses a lot of granular synthesis on percussion instruments or synths.

 

Vid

 

 

This is another that is often referred to as a reference. People love the simplicity and yet complex songs he makes. As opposed to Villalobos, his songs are quite polished and organized.

 

Things he has inspired us: 

 

  • Atmospheric techno is quite fun to make and is both exciting, while meditative.
  • Lush pads over field recordings are hypnotizing.
  • Dark tone gives a more mysterious vibe.

 

Exercises related to studying to his music:

 

  • Collect field recordings and ambient space sounds such as a restaurant or a church inside.
  • Grooves and beats that are groovy are worth being studied and I often recommend looking into pre-made loops and then copycat them. Removing a lot of the sustain of percussion to keep them short really helps having a minimal house feel.
  • He often doesn’t have bright elements and keeping sounds low will give a mysterious vibe.

 

Pablo Bolivar (Or Dub Techno)

 

Since I have a long background in dub techno, I get a lot of questions on how those pads are made. While it is not necessarily complicated, it still needs a bit of tweaking because what makes the dub techno pads captivating is the always moving side of them. That is coming from modulation or automation. Pablo does a great job of picking some nice sounds, pads and beautiful, lush melodies which makes him a reference for a lot of clients.

 

Things he has inspired us: 

  • A lot of classic dub techno has a 1 or 2 notes melodies, going full on minimal. Pablo brings in simple melodies but more complex than 2 notes which gives it memorable moments. 
  • Super clean production and mixes. Nothing unnecessary is ever added.
  • Just like Vid, his approach to have dynamic ambient makes it enjoyable for relaxation or dancing.

 

Exercises related to studying to his music:

 

  • Use a key root with a minor scale. Minor chords as well to complement the melody. Most of his melodies are 4-5 notes maximum. Consider doing chord progressions.
  • Use field recordings to complement the melodies.
  • Percussion are fairly straightforward here and repetitive. It does a fine job.

 

J Dilla

I wouldn’t say that anyone contacted me to make music exactly like him but I do have some clients into lofi hip hop, which in my opinion, is a derivative from J Dilla. He’s from the MPC generation where people would sample records and then play with it. His album “Donuts” is considered an innovative album for hip hop and is worth listening to it.

 

Things he has inspired us: 

 

  • Sampling blatantly and being bold about it. Sample some music from any source and use short notes of it, either to make your hook or to put an accent on whatever is happening. 
  • Go short. Learn to make songs that are under 3 minutes long. A challenge for techno but for electronic music, it’s an exercise that forces you to be straight to the point.
  • Exaggerate on swing for your percussion. Try to push it to the max to see what happens. 

 

Exercises related to studying to his music:

 

  • As stated above, those learning are also things to try. But I would recommend digging some records at a second hand shop and sample obscure parts.
  • Use a midi controller like the PUSH or with pads and try to manually punch in your beats.
  • Within a clip, play with the warp points to create weird stretches and elastic beats.
  • Slice up beats and reprogram them into a new patterns.

 

Fred Again

I’ve lost interest in pop music years ago and commercial electronic music has always been something I stay away from. But Fred Again has been impressing me for how he makes music and of course, for the end results. The thing about his music is that it’s basically the typical approach from any commercial, standard structure music that is made and good tastes is what matters here.

 

This means understanding chord progressions and working with key/scale is going to be the main focus. Using plugins like Captain Plugins suite will make a huge difference unless you have a lot of patience to learn music theory.

 

There are no shortcuts to this kind of music. But the tools you can use will make it easier.

 

His recent album with Brian Eno is what made me appreciate him. 

 

Daft Punk

 

I’ve been following the pair from 1995 until their separation. I don’t think there’s been many music acts that had the impact over their career like these guys did. It’s mostly due to their desire to innovate but also to take ideas that work really well and pull out some solid ideas to give it a new twist. 

 

In a past article, I was stating that there are 2 main modes when it comes to working on a project: you might want to repeat an idea you love from a song or artists vs you might want to innovate something from what you do.

 

The things I’ve learned from working with clients who want to get inspiration from them are mostly about, once more, digging for samples and then play with them. It’s sort of like what we covered from Dilla, but with a faster pace and 4/4 time signature. There was a point where the French Touch house/disco was all rage. That music was about using a sample with heavy filtering and the classic pumping/ducking effect. This technique is still used nowadays but with a bit more control where you perceive it less.

 

Besides filtering, some notable effects they use that you can explore today: Bit crushing, tape saturation, vocoder, heavy chorus/phaser. They also love a good 909 kit.

 

And to finish up, who are my personal references?

 

Ada Kaleh, Gigi Masin, Jan Jelinek, Rhythm and Sound, Vladislav Delay, Ricardo Villalobos, Matt Dear, Lawrence… but way too many to name.

 

The Importance of Practicing Ambient and Experimental Music

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In the vast realm of music creation, there lies an uncharted territory where boundaries are blurred, and sonic landscapes become a canvas for exploration. It is in this genre that experimental music and ambient scores find their essence, sometimes blurring the lines on which is which. These forms of music not only push the boundaries of traditional music-making but also serve as a gateway to developing skills in narrativity within musical compositions, because each song defines its own rules. 

If you’ve been following my music career or read this blog, you know that exploring and breaking the norm is an important value for me.After making music for years, I have hit some walls of frustration. Each time, it was the feeling of having the impression I had seen it all, said it all. How much can one reinvent himself within a genre?

If music is about having fun, the idea of making the same song over and over felt alienating. Exploring the techniques behind making ambient and diving in experimental helped a lot with any desire to evolve, grow.

 

 

Ambient or Experimental Music

 

To understand the significance of ambient and experimental music, it is crucial to unravel their origins and intentions. Ambient music, pioneered by visionaries such as Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream, sought to divert the focus from conventional patterns to approach music as a tool to set moods. Music becomes then a tool, a tapestry. Ambient music invites listeners to listen, attentively or not, to music that has or not, a destination or goal. By embracing ambient compositions, music creators develop a keen sense of space, dynamics, and the art of capturing evolutive ideas.

Understanding how to make ambient music opens up many opportunities for any other genres you wish to make. Especially for dance floor music, if you remove rhythmical parts, you’re left with ambient music.

 

Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think,” Eno elaborated in the record’s liner notes. “It must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular. It must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” Brian Eno

 

On the other hand, experimental music emerged from the roots of musique concrète, a genre that pushes exploring techniques and boundaries. The experimental approach to music-making involves understanding the boundaries and rules of a genre, its traditional structures, inviting artists to push the limits of their tools and venture into proposing a new approach. It encourages musicians to question the norm, embrace the unpredictable, and find harmony in chaos. In this ever-evolving landscape, experimental music fosters an environment that encourages innovation and unearths new possibilities.

If you have been working on the same genre for a while, you are totally ready for exploring experimental music. Composing without a goal else than breaking your routines is where I’d encourage you to start.

Since a lot of music that succeeds into being recognize often involves revisiting an idea, it often starts with the artists breaking rules while keeping a base. The same-same but different is a good way of describing it. What I often see as experimental music are all these attempts at taking risks, without filters. There is no right or wrong. If you are trying something new, you’re on the right path.

 

There are different axis of exploration:

    • Deconstruct arrangements or review the patterns. If a genre has a specific percussive pattern, try to move the beats around.
    • Using tools in a way they weren’t originally designed.
    • Taking an idea and shuffling it around to see all its possibilities.
    • Learn about generative techniques for music making. This can be done in Ableton Live and VCV, but also in Bitwig.
    • Spend time in the nature and listen to the sounds as they come. I love listening to bird songs and try to understand the pattern and sound design of their singing. I sometimes record them and use them in Ableton as a sequencer.

 

“Sound is the vocabulary of nature. The moment at which music reveals its true nature is contained in the ancient exercise of the theme with variations. The complete mystery of music is explained right there.” Pierre Schaeffer

 

Brian Eno made a deck of card named “Oblique Strategies” in which you pull a card to get some random inspiration or solution facing an issue. I find that it is a tool to explore and you can use an online version here.

Connecting Unrelated Concepts

 

One of the most compelling aspects of experimental music and ambient scores lies in their ability to connect unrelated concepts, looking beyond music for inspiration. Just as Rick Ruben’s book suggests, the exercise of connecting unrelated concepts can ignite an unexpected starting points. By drawing inspiration from various music genres, as well as other art forms such as visual art, literature, or film, musicians can infuse their compositions with a sense of depth and uniqueness.

Some suggestions:

  • Take a scene of a movie and put sounds over it, then keep only the audio. The images will guide the arrangements.
  • Read a book, pay attention to the story and imagine a sound track for it.
  • Get inspired from architecture. See how the importance of maths plays a crucial role in the structure of a structure. As you know, music is math and perhaps you can apply some observations to your music.
  • Learn to dance. I’ve followed so many dance classes in my life and when I get to move, it makes me understand the experience of the dan

 

Translating ideas from different domains into musical elements can yield astonishing results. For instance, by borrowing the tonal color palette from a painting, a musician can evoke specific emotions or create vivid sounds while darker colors can evoke deeper, lower tones. Similarly, incorporating elements of storytelling into musical compositions adds a narrative dimension that captivates listeners. By embracing this approach, artists can craft soundscapes that transport audiences on transformative journeys, blurring the line between music and storytelling.

 

Beat Making Revised

 

Electronic music often places emphasis on rhythm and beat making. However, by honing one’s skills in ambient and melodic composition, musicians can develop a strong core foundation that seamlessly integrates with rhythmic elements. Ambient music and experimental scores allow creators to focus on constructing melodies, exploring harmonic progressions, and crafting intricate sound design. These core strengths, when mastered, provide a solid platform upon which rhythmic elements can effortlessly blend and thrive.

One way that I love to work is to generate ideas, scores and random melodic moments which will then be material to use within sessions where I make beats. In other words, I often divide my music sessions into two categories:

  • Melodic content, hooks, sampling. Finding ideas and generating some. Arranging random ideas into one coherent hook.
  • Beats, beats, beats. Work on creating grooves, beats, sound design, complex or simple loops.

And then, two more categories:

  • Innovate. Try to invent new ideas.
  • Imitate. Try to emulate or reproduce ideas I love in other’s music.

 

Experimentation within ambient and experimental music opens doors to unexpected discoveries. Those experiments can be happening by multiple ways such as finding new free tools, new Youtube tutorials about genres or techniques that we haven’t explored yet or by simply exploring randomization within Ableton. By breaking away from conventional rhythmic patterns and exploring sounds that might be unsettling, musicians can unlock new possibilities for beat-making that take a step out of the comfort zone. 

 

TIP: I find that once you have sequences, you can then slice it in detail and then rearrange it to taste.

 

As music creators, it is vital to embrace the vast realm of experimental music and ambient scores, for they offer unparalleled opportunities for personal and artistic growth. By immersing ourselves in the sonic landscapes that these genres provide, we gain a profound understanding of space, atmosphere, and the delicate interplay between elements. Furthermore, by connecting unrelated concepts and drawing inspiration from diverse sources, we infuse our compositions with a richness and depth that transcends traditional boundaries.

 

In the realm of electronic music, where rhythm often takes precedence, developing core strengths in ambient and melodic composition lays the foundation for seamless integration with beat making. By engaging in experimental music-making, we unlock our true creative potential and embark on a journey of self-discovery, innovation, and boundless imagination.

So, let us venture forth into the realm of experimental music and ambient scores, where the uncharted territories of creativity await, ready to be explored, experienced, and shared with the world.

 

The Power of Validation: How Early Influences Shape a Musician’s Career

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Validation plays a pivotal role in shaping an individual’s path, and for aspiring musicians, it can have a profound impact on their career trajectory. This article delves into the significance of validation, exploring how it can influence young musicians, propel their passion for music, and eventually transform it into a fulfilling profession.

 

In today’s interconnected world, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in how validation influences the decisions of children and teenagers in their self-development journeys. As they explore their interests, they seek recognition and support from their peers, mentors, and communities. When it comes to music, this need for validation is no different.

 

It often begins with an innate fascination for music that prompts young individuals to embark on a journey of self-discovery. They experiment with different instruments, melodies, and rhythms, gradually honing their skills. As they immerse themselves in the world of music, they find solace and joy in their own creative expressions.

 

During this formative phase, their close circle of friends and the community they engage with plays a significant role. Positive reinforcement and validation from friends who appreciate and admire their musical talent can instill a sense of confidence and fuel their determination. These early validations act as catalysts, pushing them to explore music further, sharpen their skills, and strive for excellence.

 

Moreover, the importance of surrounding oneself with quality artists cannot be overstated. As young musicians connect with like-minded individuals who share their passion for music, they enter a realm of inspiration and artistic growth. 

 

These connections create a community of musicians who inspire and challenge each other, fostering an environment of creativity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

 

Adopting external feedback as approval

 

In the last years, I’ve had the opportunity to coach multiple artists who faced various challenges. Validation often came as something people often seek in the first place, when it comes to making music. I see artists attend events, see artists in motion, performing, networking and then they want to be part of that movement. You can’t access that easily and making music often comes as a solution to be part of a community of fellow musicians.

 

On that path of music making, one can adopt multiple sources of validation. One challenge they face is related to their level of experience. It’s rare an experimented producer will open up to connect with people who have less experience. Unless you have met them in person and have a connection, the odds that you connect with them through social media are pretty low.

 

Another point to keep in mind is while we seek for positive feedback, we might attract misleading people. Through my years of experience, so many times, people have provided feedback that made no sense, pointed me in the wrong direction and often, I could only realize it later on. When I coach people, I often have to break old patterns people have integrated from Youtube influencers or explain how to avoid simply apply a technique without knowing how and why to use it.

 

Let’s explore three examples that illustrate how artists are inspired by their close friends and community, ultimately shaping their musical journey:

 

Collaborative Exploration:

 

  • Imagine a group of teenagers with an affinity for music and festivals, forming a collective in their high school years. They share their compositions, experiment with different genres, and perform together. Within this collaborative environment, they validate each other’s ideas, talents, and potential. The group becomes a creative hub, nurturing their passion for music and encouraging them to refine their skills. Through mutual support and validation, they collectively grow as musicians, laying the foundation for their future careers.

 

Mentorship and Role Models:

 

  • In certain cases, young musicians are fortunate to have experienced mentors or role models within their community. These individuals may be established musicians or industry professionals who recognize the budding talent and potential in these aspiring artists. By offering guidance, imparting knowledge, and validating their skills, these mentors become invaluable sources of inspiration and motivation. Their validation reinforces the belief that a career in music is not only attainable but also worth pursuing.

 

The Power of Musical Networks:

 

  • In an interconnected world, musicians have the opportunity to connect with a vast network of artists and industry professionals through social media platforms, online communities, and music events. Building relationships within this network can have a profound impact on their careers. By associating with established musicians or collaborating with talented peers, young artists gain exposure to different perspectives, styles, and techniques. The validation and recognition received from these interactions bolster their confidence, expand their musical horizons, and open doors to new opportunities.

Building Self Validation

 

Ideally, one wants to create self validation. This is the hardest thing to build if you’re an artist. Understanding that you music is a form of communication in need of connection is necessary to split your needs into two parts. On one side, you’ll want to learn to cover the technical understanding of your music to fit the context your music belongs to. This implies these points:

  • Arrangements: You can validate yourself through your own references that should include music that you know works well.
  • Mixing: This can be  validated through another professional but if you learn validate yourself here, it would come to understanding your different sounds. Again, references will make a difference here.
  • Mastering: You can mostly make sure you have the same loudness and make sure you’re not having distortions, resonances.

 

Technical self validation takes a while to understand but working with fellow artists and professional will teach you to recognize what works or not.

No one expect you to cover all of this on your own.

 

The non-technical part is complicated. It’s either you have incredible trust that what you do works (which is rare), or work with your circle of 5. But everything is relative and arbitrary in that field, including your own judgement. I find that the best way to develop self validation is to learn to accept your music as it is, with it’s flaws.

 

In conclusion, validation serves as a cornerstone in the journey of a musician. Starting from the early stages of self-discovery and exploration, positive validation from friends, mentors, and communities can ignite a passion for music and drive an individual to pursue it further. Surrounding oneself with quality artists and being part of a supportive network can provide inspiration, guidance, and invaluable learning experiences. Aspiring musicians who receive validation and recognition early on are more likely to turn their passion into a fulfilling career, fuelled by the belief in their own abilities and the support of their peers.

 

Generating Ideas and the Listener’s Attention Span

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(photo credit Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash)

There’s this zone where, as an artist, you’ll sometimes land where things are a bit confusing. It is precisely when you lose your perspective as if you’re doing music for yourself or for someone listening to your song. 

 

There are multiple perspectives in music – one from the creator, the other from the listener. There’s something quite contradictory about music itself when you make it where you are performing music, it comes from you, your imagination, and current emotion but yet, musicians often also have someone else in mind when creating. That person you’re making music for isn’t there to provide feedback. 

 

As someone who runs a Facebook group about coaching as well as a Patreon program where I train people, I face this situation over and over again with my students. They worry about their song being boring or that the listener will not finish the song until the end. 

 

Is there a silver bullet to guarantee that everyone likes the song and will finish it to the end? 

The quick answer is, no. You never can control how someone will perceive your music because you can listen to music at different times of the day and have different perceptions. It can be tied to the present emotion, where you listen to it, and what you were doing before, but the most disruptive thing will undoubtedly be the expectations the listener has. 

 

However, all is not lost – there are some ways that can increase the probability that the person will enjoy the track thoroughly. In the article, we will go through a checklist of things you can do that can certainly help, technically, to have the listener more engaged. 

 

Attention Is Competitive

 

I’d like to take a moment as well to point out that we’re living in an age of attention seeking and that has created a culture of wanting attention. This desire for attention is normal but you need to understand that people don’t have much on their hands. All social media platforms are hiring teams to pull as much attention from people like us so the attention span of everyone has dramatically dropped over time due to competition. The good news is that music can be a background experience – doesn’t stop you from doing other things while listening. You can still do your laundry, talk to friends, cook food, etc, while listening to music. This is exactly undivided attention, but when it comes to music, it’s just as good as any attention.

 

You Will Get Bored Of Your Songs (which leads to doubt)

 

One thing I see when people make music, they usually reach a point where they feel a bit lost. By lost, I mean that they might have certain doubts creeping on them. This happens mostly because people spend too much time working on their track, sometimes in a row (eg. extended session of 2h+) or they’ve been tweaking it for 3+ days in a row. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll already know my thoughts on this: not spacing the time you spend on your track will most likely result in either not knowing if their idea can be understood or if it’s “good” anymore. 

 

There are multiple phases in creativity, which is the initial where you have on your hands what seems to be a good idea, then you’ll try to put that in a story and last, you’ll try to make that into a timeline. Once you have these 3 initiated, you might circle between them over and over because the more you spend time on your song, the more you’ll hear things to fix and will feel the need to adjust something because well, you’ve been listening to the same idea for hours. 

 

No one, except yourself, will listen to your song as much as you do. 

 

This is exactly why you’ll doubt yourself. Because anyone who would be exposed to that much, would get bored or fed up of it. While in reality, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

 

Don’t Fall Into Extremes

 

Now, when you make music, the balance of making music for yourself and or for others is something weird to find the sweet spot. If you, at one extreme, do music only for yourself, there is a good chance that it might be really messy and not reach out to anyone out there. But if you go to the other extreme and only make music for others, you’ll have no personality in there and be an empty shell. The right balance is understanding what works as a concept, then filling it with your ideas. In other words, what works is quite often the “same thing but different.”

 

You Have No Control Over The Listener

 

When it comes to the listener, you’ll have to accept that you have no control whatsoever over their tastes, attention span, mood, and availability. When anyone decides to listen to a song, they come from a specific need that is personal. Some will want something energetic for a task, others something smooth for relaxation, some who are DJs want music with a specific direction, others what in between for working/studying, etc. You can imagine that whoever will listen to your song, they will come with a specific need and it is also quite possible that the listener will be listening to your song along with a few before, and a few after. It’s not so often that you won’t listen to anything and then you listen suddenly to something and then nothing. 

 

Now, let’s think about someone who has a playlist and has some new tracks to add, they’ll have pretty much the same approach as a DJ curating his next set. The music they keep is mostly something emotional and tainted by tastes. They either like or dislike. Because of how music is easily available nowadays, people will just quickly move on to the next thing because they can.

 

Now that we have all this in mind, let’s see what can be a deal breaker in how people can like or dislike your music.

 

How To Keep People Interested In Your Song

 

Here are ways to keep someone interested in your song:

 

  • Mold a track upon a reference song that you know works. This one is the top because like anything in life, if you have a model of something that works, you can then replicate a concept. That works just as well for making a pizza as it does for a song. This was covered so many times in my Youtube videos but it’s basically about understanding the structure of the song, how sounds come in and out, levels, length, density, etc. Once you analyze the songs that you thought were amazing, you’ll realize that they are quite often simpler than you think.

 

  • Make your music not too predictable but just enough to keep someone interested. What usually keeps someone interested is the feeling of feeling intelligent. This comes with the idea that they can predict what will happen next in a song either in terms of chord progression or arrangement-wise. If you anticipate it and it happens, it can really trigger some excitement. But what makes you hook is when it slightly takes you off guard. On one end, too much predictability will make it boring, but on the other end, too many surprises will create confusion and irritability. So usually you want the first part of your song to create a concept of understanding what the song is about, but then you bring new ideas. For a while, this is why breakdowns were so important because they were basically the gateway to the next evolution of the song but since they became so predictable, to me, breakdowns are irrelevant now.

 

  • Have your music follow current trends but with slight novelty. I think any musician needs to spend some time every day listening to charts, new releases, what DJs play, and what people love. I find that quite often, I get ideas from the now and mix them with ideas from the past. I’ll listen to music from the 90s, hear an effect used in a way and then see how we can upgrade that old idea. Living completely in the past is not going to make your music feel fresh. But neither is being in the moment either, because you’ll either be lost in a sea of people making music like the trends or by the time your song is done, the trend is already old.

 

  • Share something personal. This one is tricky but important. In music, ultimately, you want to be yourself. That comes with spending time crafting sound until you find something you really love. I like the idea that if you stop at the first few ideas, they might be shallow ideas but if you take your time, and go deeper, you’ll find more and more complex ones. If things are that deep, and you love it, then you’re entering the realm of originality and personal space. That zone is very vulnerable though because the more personal you get, the scarier it is to share it because rejection will feel very personal. But the good news is that people who will love that space will also be really in touch with who you are.

 

  • Know who your music should reach and understand what they like. When you make music, you might follow a genre or not but if you do, try to understand what people like about it. Maybe you know it already. But mainly what makes someone skip a song are usually for the main few points: misalignment of their needs and what the song offers (ex. Songs has the wrong emotional tone or is technically overwhelming/underwhelming), clash of cultural sounds (ex. Song has a genre but is not respecting some basic concepts that might be irritating) or completely different tastes (tempo, tone, song key, production, sound use). Basically, being bold in what you love is encouraged but make sure it is also within certain limits of a genre, if you aim to be part of that direction.

 

Music techniques to find new ideas

 

Making music comes down to finding ideas. You can make music for years but a way to remain original is to have different ways to generate new ideas. Here are 3 main ideas that I use to generate ideas but there are so many others. Basically, you want, on one hand, to have original material and on the other hand, to find ways to process it. This means that you can have quality ideas that don’t need much cosmetics or have very generic ideas and add tons of processing. But both are 2 different ways which mean that you can create endless possibilities.

 

Creating new ideas can come, either from sampling/recording or generating synthetic ideas. I use quite a lot of randomization in my work because it is like a fast-forward from me fine tweaking. In other words, if I tweak a knob to find ideas it can take a while so instead, I use the computer’s power to come up with random tweaks, on multiple parameters, all at once which turns me into a curator of the best ideas coming out of that. Hitting the random button will give me in seconds, as many new ideas as the time I press that button. What’s powerful is that I can use every snapshot individually, and can also slowly morph between each snapshot, creating wonderful evolving ideas.

 

Randomize effects, modules, and macros. 

 

This is fairly easy in Ableton. You can use one or multiple plugins, then use command+G to group them together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you can link parameters to macros.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For VST plugins, you’ll need to hit the configure button, then click on the parameters you want to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you have a bunch of parameters assigned to the macros knobs, you can hit that tiny rand button to see different random ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

I encourage you to save your rack with the snapshots you can also keep with the little camera button on the left. These saved are so practical when you want to call back some past ideas. Most of my most used VSTs are all saved as a macro for fast recalling.

While we’re at it, the Shaperbox 3 is a HUGE game changer for me when it comes to sound design. You can do really, really crazy things with is and it’s also a swiss army knife for mixing, sound design, and even mastering.

 

Randomize Melodies

 

Randomizing melodies is another technique that I’ve been using for over 20 years. It’s been used in musique concrète and old early stages of electronic music. The quick way to do this is to use, for example, Rozzer. This is a free Max for Live patch that can generate ideas quite easily. Basically, you drop this on a MIDI channel, set a scale and root key, then hit random on the notes (it will generate a sequence of notes), then hit random on the Gates (which of these notes will play). That is a phrase that you can then tweak to taste or also you can explore polyrhythms by making the notes and the gate into different numbers (ex. Notes on a length of 12 and Gates, 7).

 

 

 

Sampling and resampling. This is also a fun technique. You can play a loop in your Ableton Live session and apply effects, then apply effects, but you record the whole playing around into a new clip.

 

From the recorded clip, I can then chop, reshape, reprocess, stretch etc. That is called resampling and it is a very powerful way to transform ideas. I like to say that resampling clips are generational. So a sound processed once is the first generation, then if you reprocess that clip is second, and so on. When I use sounds for my music, I usually go with sounds that are 4-5th generations. They are usually richer.

 

I hope this helps.

 

How To Compose With Consistency

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I’ve always been interested in the restaurant industry and particularly with the whole process of how they give awards like Michelin Stars. There are a number of criterias that will define if a chef will earn one and I find there is some inspiration to take from those points to apply them to one music producer’s work. While there’s no written notes on what the criteria are, what we do know is that there are key points such as ability, quality, and the chef’s personality. However, one that really stands out is consistency.

 

This is a common shared topic with clients of mine. Everyone pretty much dreams of finding a formula that will make sure each song is good and that each time they hit the studio, something worthy will come out from the time invested. There are straightforward ways to make sure we get there but there are also some points that I will explain that might be a bit unsettling.

 

Managing Expectations

It’s always a bit hard to talk about expectations with clients. There are a few points to keep in mind when it comes to that. First, many people are passionate about music in the first place and rely on that hobby for multiple hopes such as, acceptance and validation from their community or other hero producers of theirs. This alone creates some big goals, which creates stress that can glitch creativity and productivity. Same for other producers who have released some music and feel a pressure to do more, but they’re facing some tensions towards what they do: feeling of being inadequate, hitting technical limitations, unfair comparisons to others, etc.

I personally don’t really believe that having constant positive sessions from the studio, where you are 100% happy with your music, is humanly possible. For those who do, I would also question how much fun that is since in the long run it can be really stressful and tiring.

 

So rather than having perfect consistency in music, I think it’s better to change the approach to defining what your victory conditions are. In the Definition of Done article we covered how to set yourself clear points to know you’re done with a project while accepting how many imperfections you can live with. But victory conditions are slightly different, yet, also similar.

 

So for instance, I used to know some professional musicians that were forcing themselves to go to the studio everyday and make one song minimum. Since I worked with them, I had the chance to listen and I had to say I thought the songs they showered me were interesting about 5% of the time (there were a lot of them). We talked about it and realized not only was he not happy about the situation nor the outcome, but he also realized he was just not achieving anything he hoped for. So we worked together to shift his workflow and expectations.

I proposed my non-linear music making technique where he would work on several tracks at once instead of one song at a time. I also talked about what he loved doing so we can make sure that part would be at least 50% of his studio time. In his case, he loved sound design and creating new songs which are perfect. I showed him that music can also be about that and that making music is an important part of music making but it is not the only part of it. Starting new songs is, to me, just as important as finishing them. The more you start one, the better the odds to really create solid and original ideas. Then you harvest the best ones to turn them into a song. We also revised different ways to do sound design and techniques to try.

 

This changed a lot the outcomes of his music and the quality of the following tracks got much better, even if the pace of them coming out got a hit. This is why I sometimes encourage people to focus on tracks made per season instead of days, or weeks.  

 

Victory Conditions

We all have different conditions and there’s no real best way to do this but I find that victory conditions should be different than releasing goals. Some people feel victorious if they get their album out after months of work, but soon they want more of it and then they face a return to the studio that feels like a pain. In my case, after years of experience, I find that my victory conditions has boiled down to having a blast when I’m in the studio, even if that implies working hard on solving issues.

 

This implies two different things: First, there is a part of me that is there to solve issues, install gear, create an environment that is workable and fix details to ensure all is well. Second, I have to prepare for my conditions by making sure that I have all the necessary skills to make music. So, if in a Definition Of Done, we set the points that would make us see we’re done, in the Victory Conditions, we establish what is needed to go there and what is also to make it possible. 

Since for me, it is related to fun, I had to reverse engineer it. 

 

That implied that I had to look back at a really fun session and see what happened to make it work, and to enjoy it. More often than not, while a session can be ruined by technical problems, it’s clear that some sessions in the studio should be dedicated to preventing issues, but also, some other sessions would be dedicated to practicing a technique or new concept, so that when I hit the zone, I have all on hand.

 

So what about you?

 

In the development of an artist, there are numerous stages and phases. You might be in one that is so challenging that the fun doesn’t happen too much. It might be because you feel overwhelmed by a specific issue, some software limitation, lack of knowledge on a topic and aiming for fun might seem a bit of frustration. The thing is, if that can help, I have to say that there has been many years in my life where I accomplished so many things without knowing much and that the more I knew, the more I slowed down. I often say that it’s important to finish something and learn rather than chase perfection.

 

In other words, whatever you are struggling with might actually be a distraction. There are a lot of things to learn on Youtube and if you can’t find it, there are always people to help – that includes me. You don’t have to stay with a problem for long nowadays, compared to times before the internet’s abundant tutorials.

 

Perhaps you can create conditions where you work on a few things at once, small things and try to make the most of that.

 

Quality Control, being practical

We talked about the philosophical and workflow part of this topic but what about the technical side of things? What are some of the main elements that do maintain consistency between songs?

 

There are multiple points you could use a checklist. After years and years of working on music, I do see correlations between songs that manage to get some kind of success. I won’t dive into the promotion, releasing and anything unrelated to production though because that’s a bit of a rabbit hole which changes every 3-6 months. I can’t follow.

 

In music making, I feel there are 2 types: commercial and artistic.

 

By commercial, I don’t mean it in a derogatory way. I’m basically relating to music that is intended to be pushed for sales. If you make music and want distribution, there are chances the distributor might turn it down if they consider it will not sell enough. This is a norm for P&D (press and distribution) deals, because the distribution is basically covering the costs and will expect a ROI (return on investment). In my book, if you make music with the idea to make sales, it is mostly and clearly commercial (eg. we’re producing it in a sales angle). 

On the other hand, artistic music might be simply digital or released at the expense of the artist, without distribution and there is very little expectation of sales. This kind of music is often a bit more edgy, abstract, risky, not following many rules and has a bigger chance of not being able to be fitting any rules.

 

If we compare that to a restaurant, the commercial one is often knowing what sells and will feature a direction, style with some star dishes that people want each time they visit. The artistic ones would be a restaurant where they change the menu each day and take risks. 

They both need consistency on a number of things: fresh ingredients, recipes being respected, taste being coherent on each serving, temperature, etc.

 

It’s pretty much the same with music as well. There are certain criterias you can follow that will ensure that your songs will always deliver. Sometimes it might not have the same punch but if you cover the basics, you’ll have for sure some coherence.

 

Here are the criterias I have in mind:

 

  • Solid hook, main idea. What makes the reason for a song to exist is that you found a solid idea you want to share a story about. That’s how I see music. If you think of traditional music, people write a story and that will be the main idea. For electronic music, more than often there will be no vocals so the sounds and ideas are your story. Don’t make songs for the sake of it (note: I encourage people to make music for the sake of it though, which is different). Find an idea and build a story about it. It can be a sample, a pattern, a fun sound… There’s no rule here but to find one thing you want to listen for 3-6 minutes and really push forward that idea. 

 

  • Song in key, scale. This might sound weird, especially for people making atonal music or industrial techno who use a chromatic scale, but making sure all your elements are in key will give the song a much more wholeness to it. Not all songs follow one but having a coherent harmony will please many people, especially if in a specific genre, some scales are respected. Optional point here would be chord progression. You don’t always need one but if you have one, make sure that it is solid and coherent. Often when I give feedback to people who are starting in music production, I notice they aren’t respecting this basic point and once they do, they really bring it to another level already.

 

  • Rule of thirds in arrangements. This is a bit of a concept I bring up in feedback where I explain to producers that if they divide their song in 3 sections, they all should have some variation, to give the listener a sense of evolution and to keep the attention. If you understand the listening experience as a challenge of keeping attention, you know you need to bring new ideas, but not too much. The rule of third never fails. If you compose pop or anything needing a structure, keep that in mind as well.

 

  • Flat mix, coloured master. Clients don’t always understand what a good mix is. If you keep your tone flat but work with an engineer that can color it to match similar songs on the market, you’ll most likely always have a solid, enjoyable song that can compete well. Also, a flat mix means that your elements are not too all over the place, which is important.

 

  • Avoid masking, phasing. This is more technical but if you have a busy mix where many elements are used, you’ll most likely end up having a muddy mix. I won’t go into how to fix this in this post and you can google about it but keep in mind that it’s essential to quality.

 

  • Get Feedback. Show it to people you trust and ask for specific feedback. Otherwise people will say its cool. Be technical about what you need from them.

 

  • Get help. I don’t understand why people want to do everything themselves. It’s basically setting you up for average music. You’ll learn yes, but why not become a master at making music you love doing and get a master to help you mix so you get the most of it? It’s like, if you want to make a sandwich but you want to make the bread yourself, mayonnaise from scratch, grow the veggies, make the cheese, etc. Yes you can, but you could also buy the best ingredients possible and have a killer sandwich too.

 

  • Quantity for quality digging. If you see each song as an experiment to learn something new or master a technique, you can speed up your process and make more music. A good way to keep up with quality is to producer many, many songs and then trim down your output to the ones you know are shining. The more you finishing music, the more you’ll develop skills, which make sure the following tracks are better quality. Then when you can pick what you share abroad, to the outside world, they’ll only see quality.

 

If you cover these points, you’ll most likely have something you’ll be proud of and when you share a song, people will know what to expect from you, even if you take risks, creatively wise.

 

Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production

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Perhaps you’ve been making music for a little while or you’re completely new to it, perhaps on the verge of jumping in this as a new hobby, and you have this overwhelming feeling of being overwhelmed or lost. Let’s be fair, some hobbies are easier than others to start with. Maybe you’ve tried DJing and you saw how fast it is to get into it and then tried producing and found it to be a steep learning curve. Therefore, I thought I’d write about the different challenges people face when they start and the workaround or strategies that I give to students in order to get through the difficult emotions. 

 

Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production

 

There are so many different misconceptions about our passion that it’s a bit difficult to list them but I’ll try to debunk many ideas that confuse people I work with.

“Electronic music is easy to do” or a variant, “If you have everything you need, then it’s easy to do.”

 

This is honestly the one I debunk on a regular basis. I often also argue with strangers about it and I gathered so much theory. So to start with how easy it is, that’s absolutely not true. I’ve explored making music for 30 years and  there are still times where I’m not totally sure what I’m doing. Also, I learn something new every single day I practice. 

 

Do I need to know everything to make music? No, absolutely not. I’ve been able to make over 20 albums and on some of them, I was just scratching the surface of what production is about. 

 

The idea that it’s easy comes from the idea that compared to someone who grabs a guitar and performs music theory, rhythms and all that is related to music perfectly is harder, that’s something not everyone can do. On the surface, technology has democratically opened music making by making so many tools, software, and hardware that can let many do more than anyone could, 30+ years ago. It doesn’t mean it’s easier.

 

If you want to make a loop and play music, yes, it can be similar to video games and that part is honestly where most of the fun is. Anyone that wants to go deeper will soon feel like that will not be enough and want more.

 

This is where the second variant kicks in, with the idea that you need something else to do that. You’ll also be exposed that you need something from all the ads we are exposed to or if you talk to other producers, they’ll quickly tell you all the things you need… Which is a bit of a trap.

 

I’ve said it many times before, but to do music you basically, at minimum, need one device that can make a sound(mobile phone, tablet, hardware, computer) t and something to listen to (headphones, speakers). That’s really all you need. 

 

When I tell that to people, I often then get the famous “I knew it was easy!” response. 

 

That’s when I drop the bomb. 

 

Oh yeah, it’s easy… You’ll just need to understand the basic theory of sound design, signal flow, music fundamentals, engineering, storytelling, and perhaps also recording too, to name a few. So then again, it’s confusing because as a newcomer, you might be aware of how little you know and this triggers confusion and frustration. 

 

So this is where there’s a paradox. On one hand, everything is there, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll know how to get your way through to achieve what you want to do. 

 

My approach is simple – it’s about convincing  anyone diving into music  to start with little steps. I saw many people wanting to learn how to play piano and some of the first exercises they’ll start with is to get familiar with hands on the notes, play around with scales, and basically just practice going up and down the keys. If you learn piano, this is what you expect to do at first because it’s the basis of playing. 

 

When it comes to electronic music, people are all over the place. They want to make a song, they want to make music like an artist they love, they want to try this and that… So much to do and there’s not much of a methodology anywhere so people try things and it often fails.

 

So, more myths follow.

 

“You make a song by starting from the beginning and then finish it”

 

This one is probably the most damaging of all because it puts people in a workflow that is counterproductive, alienating and just not fun at all. If you are familiar with this blog, you’ll be familiar with my idea that making one song at a time is one of the worst ways to work. So perhaps let’s think about what it means to you to make a song, or what a song is supposed to be.

 

For some, it’s a little story, for others it’s an experiment, or it can be something for a DJ to play. The thing they all have in common is that they have a beginning and an end, plus some ideas that evolve (or not) in the middle. Some songs have one idea, others multiple. But what this means is that each song needs at least one idea. This is where music starts, by finding ideas. That means you can probably listen to music you like and love something in it. Perhaps you want to sample something from an old record or just want to write notes of a melody yourself.

 

I usually stress the importance of finding ideas as one of the main things to do because it’s not hard to do and because it’s fun. The other thing I tell people who start is to spend countless hours in their music software and not have any goals other than to basically test everything with intense curiosity and openness. The more you are goal driven in front of something you don’t understand, the more you might be lost and lose interest. One of the main conditions for finding flow in an activity is to do something that seems doable but a bit challenging while having fun. 

 

Exploring, getting familiar with your software, and doing little experiments is where you start.

 

Here are some little projects you can do if you’re really new to it:

 1- Drag a song or samples you like in your DAW and play with it

chop it, add effects, stretch it, pitch it up or down, destroy it wildly and see what happens. Note what you do and be aware that certain tools bring specific results.

 

 2- Spend time playing 1-2 notes on a keyboard and listen to the results.

This means, test all the synths you have, samplers. Play long or short notes, and see how they behave. Record the notes and try to record the sound, destroy it.

 

3- Be responsive instead of curating.

One of my approaches with music is to pick any sound and have the attitude that if someone paid me $1000 to do a song with this, what would I do?  The problem for many people is that they have access to way too much and they’ll spend the entire studio session searching for a specific sound they’ll never find. This makes you creatively lazy. You’ll learn more working with something crap  than searching for the perfect sound. You might actually learn how to make sounds you love by goofing around.

 

If we agree that ideas make songs and that you like specific ideas, you need to practice playing to gain ease, spontaneity and control in order to eventually make your own ideas. This is why I invite people to play with what they have to become fluent. 

 

So, to sum it up:

 

To make music you don’t need a lot.

There’s a lot to know but you don’t need to know everything to have fun.

If you have fun, you’ll want to spend time exploring.

Remain curious of what you think is useless or too complicated.

Exploration means practice.

Practice brings new ideas. 

Ideas can be turned into songs.

It’s easier to get the most out of a sound than searching for the perfect one.

Simplicity is sophistication.

 

Making music is about having fun. If it doesn’t feel fun, you’re not seeing it from the right angle.

 

Last belief that causes harm:

 

“I have great ideas in my mind but I can’t put them all together in my songs”

 

Anything one has in mind is wonderful but once you try to replicate it, things are never really exactly the same as what you’d expect. In years of making music, I never really was able to translate my inner world to sound. Perhaps if you’re a singer or folk artist, this is easier but in the realm of electronic music, things are completely different. You can have a nice melody idea but you’ll need the right sound. You might have the right sound, but then the melody might not fit. The more you chase something abstract, the less grasp you’ll have on what you actually control.

 

There’s a vast number of elements that can really cloud your judgment and to chase something, always brought me frustration. I sometimes had way more fun working on simplistic ideas than going for a very ambitious project. It doesn’t mean that you have to stop yourself, but it’s important to understand where you stand, technically, and operate with your current skills.

 

Someone was asking, how do I make very long techno tracks like some artists do? My answer was, don’t do that. He was surprised and disappointed. My explanation was that it’s more important that he becomes really good first at doing what he’s doing now. Then you expand and do something a little more challenging once your basis is solid. I explored longer tracks once I managed to make solid 6 minutes ones, then moved to 8, then 10, and then up.

 

Bonus tip here:

 

“My friend told me this software is crap”

 

I could have added a lot of quotes here but my point is that many people will tell you what their experience is, and how they came to some conclusions but in the end, it’s just someone’s perspective. I’m always a bit cautious of people telling me to not do something (especially if I never asked for advice) and will be more curious of people explaining how they managed to do something I like. Many people have self imposed rules that are super weird, not backed by anything technical. Many times I heard some bogus claims that some software wasn’t good enough (FLStudio, for instance is often put down)  or that a plugin isn’t for music, while I know so many people that made amazing ideas with the most ridiculous setup and ressources. It’s not what you use, it’s really what you do with it that matters.

 

How To Prepare To Make Music

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When I was 10 I was invited to be part of the track and field crew at my middle school. While I always considered myself a proficient runner, one thing that we started to do more was stretch. At first, it seemed like a huge waste of time, since all I wanted to do was run. Instead, we were spending all this time doing these exercises that, to me, had nothing to do with running. However, after months of stretching, I started to realize that I was getting significantly faster. This is because I was warming up. Just like you have to warm up to prepare for running, the same goes for music. In this post, we’re going to discuss warm-up techniques that help you prepare to make music. 

 

Your Tools Aren’t That Important

I’ve talked about this frequently in previous articles, but it deserves to be reiterated. In music production, clients often think that they can buy all the equipment they want, and somehow, miraculously, they will be inspired to create. However, more often than not, they get stuck and the most productive thing that happens is my client cleans the dust off their wall of useless gear. 

Just buying equipment doesn’t do anything if you’re not intimately familiar with it. Imagine buying a nice guitar and thinking you can play it right away despite not knowing how to play guitar. Sounds ridiculous, right? Of course, it does! It takes time to learn a new instrument. It takes frustration. It takes commitment. However, sometimes they do know how to use this gear, and still, nothing happens. More often than not, their problem is they don’t know how to prepare to make music. And just like I was warming up for track and field, so must a producer. 

 

Come Up With Your Own System When Preparing To Make Music

Now people think there is a uniform way to prepare, however, everyone is different. The mind is not a quadricep, where there are standardized stretches that make it more functional. So what we do in coaching is to come up with a system that works for them. I start with figuring out what their current habits are because one thing we do know is that what they have been doing isn’t working. 

So once we figure out what they have been doing it’s time to figure out a system that works for them. Like I said earlier, everyone is different, so everything I’m about to make is a suggestion, not a catch-all. 

 

Actively Listen To Music To Prepare To Make Music

a photo of preparing to make music by actively listening to musicThe first thing producers can do is listen to music before they make it. This might be a huge “duh” statement, but how many people actively listen to music? How many people come home, crack a beer, put on a record, and then just sit there, doing nothing else, except engaging with the music? 10%, maybe? However, it’s this 10% of people who have set themselves up for success if they are music writers themselves.

When listening to music actively, it’s best to think of it as a reference track, in a way. Listen to the song over and over again. Note the timbre and structure of the song. Like actually note it in a notebook. This will get your mind prepared to make music by actively engaging it.

When actively listening to music, make sure to concentrate on the appropriate parts of a song. Lots of producers obsess over the kicks, hi-hats, and the bass, but at the end of the day, it’s the melody that people remember. So do yourself a favor and try to concrete things that you can easily absorb. You will probably not remember the exact timbre of a hi-hat, but you might remember the melody enough to replicate something similar later.

 

Listening To A DJ Set Will Help You Prepare To Make Music

Many students tell me that they find inspiration while they are in the club, and can’t get home quick enough in order to harness it. A solution? Listen to a DJ set for 20 minutes to an hour. The longer you prepare the better. 

An image of someone DJing, which is a great way to prepare to make music

You can take notes on the transitions and compositional intricacies, something that you couldn’t do while in a club. While not exactly the same as a club, I often find that my students say that all the ideas they had in the club start manifesting themselves again.

One thing I like to do is put on a mix while scrolling through and listening back to the samples on my hard drive. By doing so, you can hear when a sample fits nicely into the mix, which you can categorize, and use later. Just make sure the volume levels match what you’re doing in Ableton. You want your samples to vaguely fit inside the mix, rather than being the predominant sound. This is a helpful way of managing samples as well, because otherwise when you’re just scrolling through samples, and not comparing it to music, you’re just comparing the samples to air.


DJing To Help Prepare To Make Music

I think DJing is a great way to prepare to make music. Similar to the other suggestions, DJing is a powerful form of active listening. DJing trains your ears to deeply understand the structure and mix of a song. You can easily add or subtract frequencies to see how they modify the song. You can also hear where transitions happen, allowing you to build your tracks out to be more DJ-friendly (if that is one of your goals). 

 

Build Categorized Playlists To Help Prepare To Make Music

I know earlier I said that it’s easier to concentrate on the melody of the song, rather than the rhythm of it. So what are you supposed to do when you want to work on a specific aspect of a song? Well, as you’re listening, throw the songs into playlists that are labeled based on the aspects of the song that are inspiring. So have one for the melody, have one for that really specific hi-hat or kick. Have one for a bassline. Then when you want to prepare to make music, you can go back to those playlists and warm-up actively listening to those.

 

Take Inspiration From Your Inspiration’s Inspirations

Another way to prepare to make music is to learn from the people who inspire your inspiration. For instance, I’m inspired by Ricardo Villalobos, so I often read articles about him. Through these articles, I found out that he’s inspired by pianist Keith Jarrett. Jarrett does not make electronic music, however, he’s clearly had a large influence on the genre, whether he knows it or not. So, naturally, I listen to Jarrett to see if I can’t harness some of that inspiration.

 

There Are Many Ways To Prepare Your Brain

At the end of the day, the goal is to get your brain engaged. You can play video games while listening to music, read a book, or go for a run. You can also paint, or write. These are all just suggestions and you should find the one that gets your mind warmed up, since as I stated at the beginning of the article, a mind is not a leg – there is no uniformity.

 

Ableton-Hardware Hybrid Setup

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Producers often get comfortable in the computer and feel they are not getting enough, so they decide to invest in hardware.

Once you get good at something, it’s only natural to want to upgrade to the next level. You may get that feeling that you aren’t getting enough out of it, or that the medium is limiting in some way. With my students, often this feeling means leaping from a DAW like Abelton to a hardware-based setup. 

They often think that by doing so, they’re going to unlock a richer sound, and a more intuitive, instrumental interface. They believe they will be liberated, able to just jam out compositions without having to rely on an “unnatural” mouse click or MIDI mapping inside a DAW. 

The truth is that once they make this leap, and ditch Ableton for an Electron Octatrak, and a modular, they often find themselves being even more limited by the foreign user interface and the fact that modular doesn’t have an “undo” button, or patch saves.

That’s why I always recommend that they use an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup that incorporates the best of both worlds, where the tactile, plug and play nature of hardware meets the convenience of being able to easily save, and revert back to settings on the computer. 

Over the years, I think I have a pretty rounded philosophy of how to tackle this integration, which I would like to share with you in this post.

However, let’s talk about hardware first, so that you can understand its strengths and weaknesses. 

A photo of a simple example of an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup.

 

Myths About Hardware

It automatically Sounds Better

Just because something is hardware, doesn’t mean that it’s going to mythically sound better. In some cases, analog summing can fix some issues and enhance certain things but it can also be sounding different than digital and since our ears are used to the digital realm, it might be misleading. It’s not 2005 anymore; virtual instruments have grown leaps and bounds over the years. Even to a trained ear, it’s hard to tell the difference between an emulated TB303 and the Roland Cloud version. Analog does have charm and specific texture but it’s different than digital. Some people get confused once in front of certain pieces of gear.

However, there are things that happen with the sound in hardware that is difficult to emulate in software. For instance, the “ghost in the sound’ – that almost invisible hand that creates random, happy accidents due to the fact that you are working with pure electrical current, rather than a binary representation of it. 

This “hand” often results in sounds that are impossible to replicate, existing for only as long as they project from the speakers. To me, this is the magic of hardware – that unpredictability that exists for a fleeting moment, until it’s gone, never to be heard again, unless you capture it. 

In other words, analog has a sound that digital doesn’t have and that’s an aesthetic that pleases many people. Believe it or not, some people really do prefer the digital sound, mostly because our ears have got used to it.

However, what is this capability worth, if you can’t capture it properly? That’s why it’s imperative when buying hardware that you also buy a solid audio interface to be able to record the sound at the highest fidelity. Because at the end of the day, your hardware will only sound as good as the weakest part of the chain.

It’s More Intuitive

This is another fallacy. If anything, analog hardware can create a new set of problems, with the main problem being that you can’t just pull up a setting or patch. You also can’t revert back to a previous setting if something gets all messed up. 

Instead, you have to work backward in order to figure out where it went wrong. And if it’s analog, chances are that due to the “ghost in the machine” you won’t be able to get back to where you were. This results in endless hours of fruitless tinkering.

This also poses problems for live performance as well. I remember when I was performing at MUTEK with a modular setup. I was in the middle of soundcheck, jamming on my modular, getting lost in the frequencies. Then at the end of the check, I realized that I had to repatch everything back to where I wanted it for the beginning of the set. It was frustrating, to say the least. On a computer, I could have just reloaded the project. 

If you’re allergic to the mouse and sceen, perhaps hardware might be closer to your needs but it doesn’t mean it will be easier.

It’s DAWless

What is an MPC, Octotrak, Deluge if not a Digital Audio Workstation? They are digital, process audio, and they are a workshop. If anything, you are just substituting an intuitive interface that looks like a laptop, for a complicated interface that looks like a box with buttons on it (wait, isn’t that what a laptop is; just a box with buttons?). 

If you can’t stand the aesthetic of a laptop and want something sleeker, then that is your right as a creative. Just know, it’s way harder to drop a drum sample into an MPC than Ableton assisted by a Push or Maschine. If you hate the look of a laptop on stage, disguise it in a case.

 

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Hardware

Learn One Piece At A Time

People will often buy a lot of gear all at once without understanding their needs. Unless you are copying someone’s setup exactly from a YouTube video, and want their exact same sound, chances are people want their own thing to fit their artistic vision. 

So people will often be like ok, I need a synth, a drum machine, a set of effects, and a “brain” that I can route this all into. Then they set this all up, and realize that they are totally overwhelmed and have no idea how to use it, because there is no blueprint for it.

That’s why I recommend starting out with one piece of gear and getting really good at it. Once you know how it plays, then you can start thinking about the next part of the chain. 

So, let’s say you start with an analog synth. First, you must understand where all the filters are, and what they do. Understand how the oscillators sound, and how you can route them. Then you can consider your next addition.

So if you got a synth, the next thing you’re probably going to want is a way to sequence it. That is often a drum machine with a VC gate that can signal the synth to play (or not play) certain parameters. I recommend Beatstep Pro (Arturia) or Pioneer DJ Toraiz Squid. Of course, there are many you could add but those 2 are very versatile and fast to learn.

Once you figure that out, maybe you want an effect in order to get some more character out of the synth. Make sure that the effects that you buy are exactly what you want by testing it on the sequenced synthesizer. If they don’t create exactly what you want, then get new ones. No need to move on until you figure this out. 

By moving on too soon, you may just get tangled in your new setup, and not realize how to use it. Now you’re $5,000 deep into a headache, and not any more or less creative.

However, if you understand your pieces inside and out before expanding the chain, then you will run into fewer obstacles.

Record Everything

Remember, often with analog hardware, what you made will only exist at that moment. You may never be able to record that again. Therefore, make sure that you have plenty of space on whatever device you are recording onto because you should be recording nearly everything.

This works especially well if your creative process is to create a bunch of loops, and then assemble your loops into a song.

Truth be told, hardware doesn’t require endless MIDI mappings, and clicking, and is more instrumental, in a lot of ways. The knobs are properly dialed in with the circuits, and the keys are weighted to interact with the synth in ways that a standard MIDI controller may not be. Therefore, the loops that you create may very well be more interesting than anything you could have made with a soft-synth. 

Make Sure Your Recording Is Clean

Like I mentioned before, you need a good audio interface. I recommend Focusrite Scarlett or SSL2. These record at a high sample rate, and will capture the purest representation of what’s outputting from your setup. 

Also, you have to record it properly. Therefore, the signal has to come as close as possible to 0dB because the noise floor will always be the same on hardware. So if you’re recording at -6dB as you would with digital instruments, when your hardware recording is loaded into your “brain”, it will not seem loud enough in many cases. 

That’s because -6dB in the physical world is quiet. So, naturally, you will turn it up. However, when you turn it up you add 6dB of noise to the recording. Maybe you want this noise, but it won’t be accurate to the fidelity of your original recording. Therefore, always make sure that when recording, that it is as close to 0DB as possible.  

Realize You Will Be A Noob, Again

Just because you were a proficient Ableton user, doesn’t mean you will be a proficient hardware user. You will have to pick up the user manual again and start watching copious YouTube videos in order to get back up to speed. 

Your first stuff will probably sound terrible. This may be discouraging, but this is the reality you will have to accept. Just because you made electronic music “in the box”, doesn’t mean you will be able to “out of the box”

another photo of an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup

How To Get The Most Out Of An ABleton-Hardware Hybrid Setup

 

For the sake of this article, we’re going to assume you’re proficient with your DAW. In this article, we’ll use Ableton as our primary example. 

Play To Each Other’s Strengths

The goal with a hybrid setup is to buy what the computer can’t give you, and/or compliment what you’re doing on the computer with hardware. 

As you know, the process in Ableton is pretty intuitive, and not destructive in nature. If you screw something up, you can always undo, or revert to a previous version of the project.

It’s also way easier to visualize a song’s arrangement on Ableton than it is on an MPC. 

However, perhaps you like the playability of the MPC. Well, there is a solution to that – it’s called Ableton Push. I use it for basically everything; it’s amazing. It adds that tactile instrumentation that’s missing when dealing with a mouse. Additionally, all its MIDI mappings are designed to be standardized and intuitive with Ableton. 

Use Ableton As A Band Member

A good way to use Ableton in conjunction with your hardware is to use it as a session musician/band member. Write out a basic structure of a song on Ableton, MIDI clock it with your hardware, and then route your hardware into channels, and start jamming. Inside Ableton you can also create some complex effects chains that can modulate the hardware in unexpected ways, giving you something entirely fresh.

Use Ableton To Preserve Sounds

Another way you can use Ableton to compliment your hardware in an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup is to be able to have multiple versions of the same project that contains all the hardware loops that you recorded. Since Ableton’s environment isn’t destructive to waveforms like something like the MPC would be due to its limited hard drive space, you can modify the waveforms, without having to have multiple large files. Instead, you just have individual projects for different versions of the recording. 

Split Your Time Into Technical And Creative Sessions

This kind of works whether you are pure hardware, or using an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup. The fact remains, whenever you are integrating analog gear, there will be a setup process. You can’t just load settings. So you have to get all your patches set up, your effects set up and properly bypassed, your sequencer running, and your patterns in order. You then have to make sure that everything is playing back close to 0dB to avoid the dreaded noise. 

This will consume a good amount of brainpower. 

Therefore, once this is all ready, make sure to take a break. Go drink a beer, meditate, exercise, or do whatever you do to reset your mind.

Then come back and start jamming and being creative with your Ableton-hardware hybrid setup.

MIDI Controllers Are Your Friend

MIDI mapping is really easy on Ableton. Sure, it takes a little bit of time to set up, but it’s often nothing compared to the amount of time you will be tweaking hardware to get a similar result. Therefore, get some MIDI faders and knobs to control some internal processes in Ableton. 

MIDI will create that tactile sensation that hardware provides. The Push is, once again, a great way of accomplishing this, since it’s intuitive with Ableton. However, some people don’t want to spend that much money on a MIDI controller. In that case, there are dozens of great controllers out there that allow you to essentially create your own instruments on the fly.

Some suggestions: AKAI midimix, Novation Launch Control

These mappings will also affect your hardware as well, since you can map them to different internal faders that change the sound of the hardware, such as channel volume, or surgical EQ parameters. 

 

Ultimately, do what works best for your creative process. These are just my recommendations from my experiences using both exclusively, and then integrating the two. Just remember, there is a learning curve with everything, and things that were true for one, will not be for the other. There is no magic bullet when it comes to making music. Hardware won’t make you amazing, software won’t make you amazing. Only talent and dedication will.

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Electronic Music Coaching Lessons

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There is this attitude in electronic music that if you share your secrets and techniques that somehow an essence of it will get lost, and some of the magic will dissipate. Additionally, people may take that advice, utilize it, and somehow outgrow and surpass the teacher. And nobody wants to feel like they dug their own grave. This philosophy about electronic music coaching took me some time to overcome, and I’m glad I did. 

Instead of the relationship between teacher and student becoming parasitic, instead I have found it to be purely symbiotic. Sure, some students have surpassed me in many aspects, but I find that they are reciprocal about their newfound knowledge. Now I have many people who are happy to help me with aspects of music making that I don’t enjoy doing as much as they do.

A photo of George Martin coaching the Beatles.

George Martin helping The Beatles. He would have been excellent at electronic music coaching.

Success Takes A Team

As I’ve harped on in previous posts, it makes sense to delegate some of the tasks of your music making, as this is what happens in every other genre of music, yet, for some reason, seems to be stigmatized in electronic music. Think about it, The Beatles had George Martin, Miles Davis had Herbie Hancock. Michael Jackson had Quincy Jones (as did Frank Sinatra). It doesn’t make you less of a musician to be the teacher and embolden your students; it empowers you and propels you to greatness.

That’s why, around Spring of 2016, I announced on my Facebook page that I’d do free electronic music coaching to anyone who would come to me. Back then, it was just a pure invitation to share my knowledge to people and using Mailchimp’s newsletter technology, I was hoping I could send emails to people and guide them in exercises. 

Initial Experiments In Electronic Music Coaching And The Lessons Learned

My initial attempt kinda failed pretty quickly as my lack of understanding of the email technology drove some of the participants mad and I had more damage control to do than coaching. So I closed that option and decided to open an electronic music collective / Facebook group with a precise goal – to provide a safe space for anyone who was unsure about their music before posting it publicly or sending it to a label. Of course, any question would be welcomed and we would have a hive mind to answer questions from various people.

As I’m approaching 5 years of free electronic music coaching, I’ve learned a lot from this. From giving feedback and to seeing mentees grow into solid musicians, these are the scenarios I saw play out.

Common scenarios In Electronic Music Coaching

Pretty much everyone who came to me to get some help had one thing that was blocking them from something. A minority would come to perfect their skills and some would come to have guidance in different situations but in the most part, people come to me because they’re blocked. In our electronic music collective, the more specific questions are usually searching for a specific effect used to replicate a sound or getting feedback on a song. These are quickly answered by the community that share a few ideas and hints. Often, it might not be exactly what the person needs but it often guides them down a path that may lead them to something more proactive.

However when doing one-on-one electronic music coaching, I often am presented with the same problems:

  • People who are experiencing a major writer’s block and are feeling helpless.
  • Aspiring artists that have worked really hard and are feeling stuck, not seeing improvements.
  • People who have the loopy syndrome, having countless loops but not being able to finish songs.
  • People who have deep love for what they create and are stubborn about any criticism, or conversely, they have intense hate towards what they create, and beat themselves up over it.

How Evolution Impacts Knowledge

If you look in hindsight at what happened in the world of electronic music production in the last 20 years, the software world paired with the internet has made it much simpler. 20 years ago, we were limited to a few resources and we’d always be in stasis waiting for our answers to come (if they ever did). We are now living in a world where we are constantly having our attention pulled in multiple directions, with each direction espousing that “this is the true way,” when there is rarely a “true way” for anything, especially in art.

It’s these conflicting statements that seeds a ton of doubt, or unnecessary confidence in their practitioners. This doubt, or this overconfidence that my one on one sessions seek to remedy. 

There is nothing wrong with being confident in your work, but overconfidence creates barriers to learning, and conflicts with progress. Sometimes I wonder why these people want electronic music coaching at all, but the fact that they get it, shows they at least have a conscious understanding of its importance, even if their subconscious confidence conflicts with it. 

Conversely, the doubt that many musicians have creates a similar problem. They may be in coaching to become more confident, but their lack of confidence results in that sort of barking little dog syndrome, where any bit of critique damages their already delicate creative ego, even if they consciously know it’s necessary. This can be likened to something like physical therapy; it’s going to hurt to walk again if you broke both your legs, and you’re going to hate it, but you know it’s necessary.

Successful Students

After coaching for over 15 years total, I had noticed that some people did better than others. At the beginning, I was working with a plan, and would teach all the people the same things but I quickly adapted that because it was not working well. Some were learning fast and would provide some interesting challenges or questions while others had some of the same questions but were always struggling on basic issues.

I understood one thing which is, you can’t really teach electronic music theory and music production training from a rigid approach because what makes it successful is to understand someone globally and then, as a team, find strategies to build a routine and work habits. More importantly, I tried to help the person find its own way of learning through the internet jungle.

Here are common points that people who succeeded had:

  • They had a clear direction: People that I see with a clear intention and direction, such as “wanting to sound like X”, are the easiest to guide. If you have a target and goal, you can always try to push what you do and technically study how it is done with music you have on hand.  With my help, we can reverse engineer some songs and try different things. Once that target is mostly reached, what’s interesting is how it leads them elsewhere. The fact that they know how something is done allows them to discover other artists or songs that are itching their curiosity. But working with targets, is always a clear indication of improvement.
  • They showed consistency: Anyone who works on a regular basis, over a constant time, has shown great improvement. More than people who started really strong but couldn’t keep up the pace. Working hard isn’t always smart. It’s more about knowing what you can do and try to consistently learn something new, practice it and then putting it into context of a song.
  • They asked a lot of questions: Often creative success and inquisitivity go hand in hand. Asking for advice and technical guidance is a must if you wish to go far. You can do everything yourself but you’re not giving yourself the chance to grow adequately. Even if someone thinks otherwise than you, there’s some part of his view that can be useful.
  • They stayed humble and always wanted to learn. If you come with the idea that you’ll learn something everyday, you won’t be stagnant in whatever you do and will always be looking forward.
  • They were not afraid of rejection and criticism. Because each song is an experiment in itself and anyone’s point of view is arbitrary.

electronic music coaching photo

Struggling points

These are individuals who have been facing a number of problems in the learning and while have learned a lot and improved much, they unfortunately haven’t rolled out as much as they wished. These are what commonly hinder them.

  • The student focuses on the success of a specific song.
  • They work in a linear fashion and won’t change.
  • Insisting on doing everything themselves.
  • The musician is often convinced they know more than they do.
  • Their expectations are set really high.
  • The belief that hard work brings success is deeply ingrained in them.
  • They see music in a hierarchical way.

 

What I’ve Learned In Electronic Music Coaching

The Latin proverb docendo discimus translates to “by teaching, we learn.” These are some of the lessons I’ve learned by teaching others.

Free isn’t always a good thing

If you give something for free, it doesn’t always have value. Free advice is cheap advice. Unless people pay for it, there is less of a chance that they will anchor said advice. Not saying that giving free advice is bad; that’s what these blog posts and the group flourishes on. It’s just that they can be easily dismissed. However, if you paid for advice, there is a greater chance that you implement it.

Consistency is key to development

Think of it like training for a sport. If you are training for a marathon, and decide to take a month off, you’re going to have to spend time ramping back up to that level. Additionally, the longer you put something off, the more chance you have to disregard it.  

Not be afraid of making mistakes

The comic strip artist Scott Adams has a really poignant quote about mistakes in the creative journey. He says, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” I find this statement to be very true. Many of my favorite parts of my works have come unintentionally, or are a result of seriously messing something up. 

Bob Ross would have been great at electronic music coaching.

Being part of the community

No man is an island. Civilization was built by teams, and communities, not individuals. Teaching has allowed me to be part of a vibrant community, and for that I am extremely grateful. It has taught me at least as much, and provided me as many resources, as I have provided others.

Other Benefits of Electronic Music Coaching

Since my music is pretty esoteric, I learned over decades of performing that the people who attended my shows were cut from a similar cloth. They were musicians, and sound designers, eager to absorb some of the essence of the performance in order to translate it into their own creations. 

This gave me the realization that in order to grow and keep my fan base engaged, I had to give the people what they wanted. Therefore, electronic coaching became not only empowering creatively, it became a solid marketing channel. 

If you’re interested in becoming part of our community and getting some free coaching, join our electronic music collective, Pheek’s Coaching Corner. We also have a bunch of tutorials on YouTube as well. If you want more personalized coaching, I offer that as well.