Creating Timeless Music

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Recently my Facebook page was flooded in a fantastic way. This thread became overwhelmed with comments I was happy to read because it reminded me of how much music can drive and affect our emotions. We’re talking about timeless music.

I asked my FB followers to name some music that hadn’t left their DJ bag for years. These were the records that passed the test of time, and truly stood out as ‘timeless’ music. Which brings up the question, what is it about some music that makes it sound timeless? In many cases, music that has content touching on deeper themes can be easier to connect with since right away it feels more personal. Music can have a way of suggesting and expressing emotions which words sometimes cannot, which is why music is often such a powerful medium of expression.

A friend of mine mentioned that music with a particular sound or mood would seem to have a personality of its own, which is a similar comment my friend Vera told me about the records she always carries with her – that certain records were like friends or companions to her. Some records work better with others and some work really well in a very specific context. Some people talked about keeping certain records to close out their sets, and others perfect for a sunrise.

In a past article, I covered how to develop many ideas quickly, but also explained the lottery of finding a good one. This can be quite a complicated topic and in some ways impossible to pin down as a science. Despite the fact that so many popular songs can, and have been written very quickly, there is still no exact science to writing great music. That being said, it’s worth spending a minute to look at a few common denominator between these examples.

Let’s explore some theories you can put in place so that hopefully, you may one day create timeless music of your own.

First, some will say achieving a state of grace, which in psychology, is often labeled as being in a state of flow. Many artists have, and can touch that feeling yet sadly will often rely on substances to reach it again, which is in many cases counter-productive. What exactly is flow?

 

In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow can be characterized by a complete absorption in what one does and loses a sense of space and time.

You could also see this state of ‘flow’ as an activity where time flies by so quickly, and you are so absorbed by what you do that you can feel it is being made by nearly itself, in the most natural way. I would say that this is not something essential, but usually, as you make music and have experienced this state you’ll agree that some of your best music will be written during this time.

Another way you can approach writing music that sounds more timeless is to be aware of current trends in music, and understand what really defines what’s popular. There is no shortage of studies that have looked look at chord progressions common throughout different eras, and identified a winning formula. The use of the right chord progression mixed with innovative techniques of an era will make a musical and well-written song truly stand out. David Bowie is one artist who always had the flair to find and collaborate with upcoming, creative people to push the edge creatively.

 Get it done, and get a lot of it done.
Being productive helps if you avoid censoring yourself, and not to overthink the process. In other words, if you made 50 tracks over a span of time and 5 of those were truly excellent, will always be more prolific than spending years having only made five great tracks.

Below you’ll find some tracks that made it to the suggestions people did and what made the tracks timeless would be categorized to a few main points.

Melodies: More than often, a haunting melody or something very catchy will make you remember a track.

Innovation: Using some new technology or personalizing a technique. Sometimes what you can do is take a way used in another genre and apply it to what you do.

Arrangements: There’s no secret here to say humans love surprises and arrangements are the art of playing with expectations, unexpected moments, gratifying cues and misleading ideas. The balance of these elements, the ratio of events in your track, spread in the right perspective, will make your timeline, timeless.

Mood and emotions: When you hear an accordion playing in a restaurant in Paris, even though the song is probably 100 years old, you’ll automatically connect to the mood, the emotion and understand why that musicality belongs to the streets of Paris. You know that will still be played in 100 years too. It fits. Using triggers as these in some ways can really help your music to connect with a context.

To finish my point of view, I’ll share some of the tracks people suggested that got attention and I’ll try to explain why the track can be seen as timeless.

This track by Maurizio (Moritz Von Oswald) was when I felt I really clicked to the more minimal movement back around 1996. It was one of the first low key track that was completely hypnotizing and that could be played at pretty much any moment, mixed with anything (almost) and up until now, it has been copied, influenced the whole dub techno movement. It’s for sure, a well-known classic by any DJ that’s been digging for a while. Excellent to drop in any set, it’s one of those tracks that you can’t go wrong with. Would this record have the same appeal if it was released today? It’s still strong!

Timeless for: Innovation, use of pads, groove and endless feel.

Isolé got really big through the release of his track “Beau Mot Plage” which, when released, automatically went in most of DJs bag, listening to techno, house, etc… It’s just a beautiful, well-produced record that brings a smile when played. There’s no doubt it will be a classic for the next 20 years as well.

Timeless factor: Melodies and arrangements.

We were lucky enough to first see Ric play this during his live set at MUTEK in 2002. He had it sketched out and played it at the festival. It’s one of those records that, when played, often get people to ask what song is this. Mainly because there’s a super catchy bass at first then the guitar drops and it automatically creates an atmosphere where things feel suspended. The nostalgic, yet profound feel, and tone of it makes you want to listen to it on repeat. There’s no doubt the guitar use is what makes this track memorable.

I’m flattered this track came as a suggestion to have in the bag. When Hubble and I made this track, we weren’t expecting it to get the attention it got (it was on sale on Discogs for 150 euros at one point before the repress). Soon we saw videos of DJs playing it and gave us goosebumps. It seems that this track is one that you can drop in any set, mixed with other songs or by itself and it locks you in. I’m biased because I was involved in its creation but I get the attraction by DJs to play it.

Laurent Garnier is the man behind this track, and even though it’s from 1993 is still playable right now. It’s romantic to think back then, we were making music of the future yet this one really made it there. This acid bass and melody are making things work so well in many situations, and there’s no doubt it’s a classic now, raising hands when dropped. I believe it has made a good job at grabbing a snapshot of what was rave music of the early 90’s.

Very beautifully made, catchy melody and overall, this is the kind of song that can seduce pretty much anyone. You’ll feel Paris and you’ll feel love. It’s certainly not something you can play anytime you’d like in your set but I can imagine someone playing this to end an event and would have exactly the right effect.

SEE ALSO : The Art of Keeping People on Their Toes 

Goals You Set For Yourself

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As many of you already know, I’ve been offering personal coaching services since 2016, and seen some amazing breakthroughs with my clients. In every case, it’s best to get a conversation going to learn about what goals you set for yourself. In many cases, I help them to see the bigger picture and then find ways achieve those goals in a way that is very personal, and unique to each of them.

There are many myths about making music that floats around, which aren’t helpful for producers. I feel it’s important to debunk misinformation and share the most common goals I hear from my clients to help do that.

The two most common goals I hear from my clients are:
I want to become a known producer and get signed to multiple labels.
I want to become respected enough so I can tour.

The whole point of offering my coaching service is to help people get from where they are now to where they want to be in the future.

Having someone there to push you creatively can make a world of difference, so we might as well think big right? Big goals will often require big change, and I want to share my strategy to achieving the goals my clients wanted, but couldn’t imagine achieving themselves.

After you’ve set a goal, you need to imagine working backward to determining all the small, and many steps you’ll need to make to arrive there. The thing is, hard work will keep you focused on achieving your goals, but occasionally forces out of your control will make a big difference, one being known as luck.

There are many things you can’t control in your quest to become a known producer, mainly because getting known implies that you’ve been at the right place, at the right moment. Even an attempt to duplicate the step by step actions of another artist who achieved some level of success doesn’t mean those actions will work for you.

It’s very common for artists to try and replicate what others before him/her have done, which can work of course, but, the more likely result will be to be known as someone without originality if you follow someone’s steps to closely.

Now, thinking wide, long term is all fine and good and will test your vision, but often thinking too far ahead will distract you from what must be set in motion in the short term.

The truth is, wherever you want to go in music, you first need to produce a ton of tracks and find your path in that process. Bonus (check out a fool-proof way to know if your tracks sound good)

Now, one of the most common goals I bring people to set is to begin completing one track per week. Their main enemy in this process is getting attached to where the track will end up. It’s safe to say we all hope our music will get attention, will be played, will get signed, but these points are often uncontrollable. Bonus – easy ways to create tracks, and multiple tracks from just one idea.

Being signed, heard, or played out at clubs should not your final destination, this is simply one stage in the every growing process of your life as a musician. The proof is, low-quality music can often get a lot of attention while some fantastic tunes are ignored and get no play time. Why?

This leads me to the second most important goal I generally work towards, (which has been written about often on my blog) developing your network. In my opinion and in one way or another, everything comes down to that. SO much more than your gear, or the number of remixes under your belt, the support you can really count on is the people around you in the long run. Your network can help push you towards making bold work and great things, to outdo yourself, to grow via collaboration and inspiration.

In a very digital age many people have become less social, which can make going out and meeting new people harder. I get that. Yet, not being part of a strong network doesn’t mean you won’t create great music, it simply means without having that support you may not be pushed to create your best music.

Lastly, finding your path is a matter of what path you actually want. This can come to you in two ways: knowing what you love, what you love doing and what you do magnificently well. Whether you believe it or not, everyone has a talent, and through work and practice, that talent can be recognized world wide. So what’s yours? Some people are amazing at creating dynamic arrangements, others at running a label. When you can connect what you do naturally well with what you love doing, you’ll enter a zone of flow where you can achieve truly great things.

My destination as a coach is that zone ~ This is where I want to be leading people to. I find a lot of comfort in seeing my clients reach that point as it truly creates a fullness and purpose to the work they’re creating, as well as my role in the partnership.

In the end, am I trying to divert them from their initial goal of getting signed to labels and touring? No, not at all. What is true is that I’m preparing them to get there by focusing on the only thing they can control themselves: their own personal growth. To tour and be signed, implies to be in control of your art, part of a healthy and strong network, and finding a flow and confidence in yourself as an artist.

 

SEE ALSO :  Make Your Music Bucket List Happen

Besides music, labels are searching for these traits

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If your productions are tight and ready to go, and you have been looking for ways to get labels to sign your tracks, the natural next step would be to send out a ton of demos to labels and wait for them to call you back with a deal. It’s time to start living the dream right? You’ve done all your homework and followed the advice you’ve read online about how to get the attention of label reps. The thing is, and I hate to break it to you, there is another bit of info you probably don’t want to hear, but it’s important that you know.

Labels don’t want you to contact them. 

Many labels won’t come out and actually say, stay away don’t bother, but before you throw in the towel let me try to explain what this means in the most helpful, and constructive way. I’m also speaking from experience here, so please don’t assume this is standard for every label.

artist, electronic music, demos, label

Photo credit John Hult.

With the enormous and ever increasing stage called social media, a never-ending flood of new artists emerging daily, all wanting the same thing – your attention. With free and new tools available to make marketing and promotion easier by the day, the credibility of the ‘artist’ has become diluted from the perspective of the consumer.
Whether you believe this is good or bad, a new impression has been created which is:

  • Everyone is a producer, and,
  • They all seek some level of attention because they’re not getting in touch. Ironically, people want to listen to music more than ever, but the vast flood of new music leaves many listeners overwhelmed by it all. It’s the same experience for labels.

After such an onslaught of new artists sending in demos many labels become numb to the possibility of finding something great. This makes it harder for those who are truly deserving of attention and recognition.

Does this all mean to give up and stop sending in demos? I would say not necessarily. I’ve covered this topic in previous posts, but I’ll cover this point a more in depth here.

There is one important statement I’d like to point make out about our industry though: The whole concept of promotion has become obsolete and alienated. I’m talking specifically about the promotion from artists to label, artists to fans, artists to promoters as well as labels to DJs and labels to fans.

But still, labels will always find quality music and prefer if they find you. This is a fact. Think of Perlon for instance, they largely release music from their circle of friends and the track to be released will need to be tested by the core of the label (Zip mainly, but Ricardo too) in multiple contexts to see how well it’s received by the crowd. Serious label owners have a very particular vision of their sound platform, and your music will (in many cases) need to follow their established sound to get signed.

In my honest opinion: if you want to be on a label’s radar, you will get better results by getting played by DJs. 

Besides music, labels are searching for these traits in you:

Patience. this is perhaps the most prized trait a label will appreciate from you. In this fast paced world, patience is not only rare but it is also a quality that we all need to work on. It’s about having trust that things will work out in the end and that one’s results will be something that happens in some distant future. Parallel to patience, this goes hand in hand with trust. One goes with the other. It means to be able to have a bigger picture of things, that perhaps somewhere down the road, something great will be happening. Maybe not… but to not lose patience over delays is critical as these are common in the music industry.

Get organized. Being organized is super important and will make everything easier. An organized artist should have a solid promo kit on hand – professional photos, your music project and files in order, ready to be retouched or fixed in case of a problem. There’s nothing more annoying than having to go back to fix a sound, but if you’re all over the place, you might cause delays which then moves the entire schedule, or can even destroy your opportunity for exposure. It’s helpful to start off your productions right, follow these mixing and production tips and save yourself headaches later.

Reactivity. Fast replies to emails, answering promptly, precision with your communication will make you pretty awesome to work with. Busy people appreciate this, and it goes a long way.

Flexibility. This is the opposite of being finicky. Things will never be perfect so let’s try to make the best of it.

In the end, it’s up to you to put in the work, which can be made easier when you step back and look at the big picture. What are your goals? Work backward and determine what action needs to be taken in order to achieve your goals. Take a minute and check out my guide to shameless self-promotion here. Add in a little good luck, some magic here and there, and consistent focused daily efforts. Best of luck to you ~

JP

SEE ALSO :    Are online communities replacing labels? 

My Music Doesn’t Sound Like Me

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Does this happen to you? You start a project with an idea and a direction, “I’m going to make a techno track”, you fire up a drum machine, get a baseline going, start jamming, looking for sounds, creating a groove, and an hour later you listen back to an 8 bar loop that sounds totally different than what you set out to make? “My music doesn’t sound like me”. Yeah, it happens to a lot of people, and it can be really frustrating to make music that sounds totally alien to you.

There is a special kind of disappointment that comes with not being able to make the kind of music you want to create. Many producers I’ve worked with talk about starting a project with one direction in mind but as the track evolves they find the sounds they’ve chosen and feel of the song completely opposite to their original direction.

Why does this keep happening? What is going on here?

From experiencing this myself, I understand the confusion. I want to suggest looking at this situation from another perspective, which I believe will be much more positive, and productive for you as a producer. It’s all about context.

Firstly, our moods and our thoughts are always changing. We are dynamic, and there are multiple versions of us. What I mean is, you are one person when driving with very loud music on, there is one while enjoying music at a party, there is another you while listening to music made for earphones. There is a big difference between the person you are enjoying music and the person you are when making music. Both matter, both are ok.
Tip– as soon as you start a project, save it right away with a name that describes the genre or feel of the song you want to create. A name as straightforward as “techno …. ” or “house ….” is easy enough.

It’s helpful to start your productions with a clear focus and intent in mind – otherwise, it’s quite easy to drift off. That being said, my personal opinion is that drifting is a good thing, and goes hand in hand with being in the moment, and more in touch with the YOU who is in the studio in that moment.
If you are truly in touch with your emotions or follow the sounds you are excited by, drifting off into other directions is going to happen. It’s simply a process of discovery.

The way I see music is similar to the birth of a strange, alien creature that has come out from nowhere. Even if the music you’ve created sounds completely foreign to you, it’s important to be patient with the material as later in the production or mixing phases, you learn to gently tame something raw and undeveloped into an evolved creature with a unique personality. If your music sounds a little different than what you set out to do, I believe that’s a good thing.

If you’ve been reading my posts over time, you’ll know I strongly encourage The Bonsai Method, and the habit of not spending too much time on any one track. Working quickly and finishing fast will significantly sharpen up your production skills, and you’ll be a much more prolific producer for it. You want your sounds to be a little raw, out of control, and strange. These sounds are the unsculpted gems you can only do when you stop censoring yourself. This is the stuff you are striving for.

Embrace unexpected results, and embrace change.

Imagine the number of ideas you’ll have to work with if you start 20 tracks from scratch as opposed to trying to polish one song for 20 hours. Spending too much time on one track will often take away from the rawness of your initial recording. This liveliness is precisely the sound that made us excited in the first place, and it’s important to embrace these unexpected noises, rhythms, and grooves. Taking away all the rough  charm of your material could be compared to photoshopping a beautiful and natural adult woman’s body into the thinness of a child to achive some measure of perfection. Here are a few essential tips to starting your tracks off right ~

Your work is whatever you want it to be.

As a people, we are always evolving, and our tastes in music will evolve as well. It’s ideal for your music to sound alien to you and progress yet understand that your progression may happen in an order you can’t predict. Through time and work, who you really are as a musician will begin to take shape.

Hearing the music you’ve made in the past is like looking at pictures of yourself from another time. It leaves a stamp. Find the photos of yourself from the past and pay attention to the ones you love. They might be aesthetically good, but I’ll bet that your favorite images will be the ones that recall a particular moment in your life. See it with raw, original sounds you find. The ones that are bold are the sounds that will stand out through years and perhaps bring you unexpected attention.

Tip: Bounce a version of your track before saving and closing your project. Compare how it evolves. Share it to people who know you. See what freak them…

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

JP

SEE ALSO : Deconstructing A Reference Track

Deleting all yours tracks and selling your gear.

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Since the very beginning, I can remember many times I’ve questioned my abilities as a music producer. Feeling stuck on a project or coping with negative feedback from a track I was proud of left me wondering if I was starring down the path of a musical dead end. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to consider unplugging, and putting it all away for good. Several colleagues of mine have similar stories, and more than once I’ve seen someone debate deleting all their tracks and selling all their gear.

High highs and low lows. There is a wealth of research which supports the fact that making music can produce a massive dose of satisfaction, a high similar to the effect of drugs or the rush of an intense workout. The thrill after completing a track is huge, yet on the flip side when things aren’t working out the low can often be depressing. At times it can feel like you’re living in a constant state of low-grade misery. Our perspective often governs our moods, and with just a twist our outlook can turn from sour to super very quickly.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading comments within Facebook groups from people flirting with the idea of selling their gear and calling it quits. On the digital side, I hear people talk about deleting entire hard drives filled with a rough version of tracks, and I think about the hard work and time they’ve invested in projects that will never be completed. They feel the work is simply not worth the effort. So often the feeling of excitement and energy from listening back to our next best track can be replaced by frustration and self-doubt when seeing it stored away in the unfinished bin. Another great idea that stays just that, and idea – incomplete, unheard. Back to the drawing board. Again.

A personal rule of mine is never to delete any project or sample. I just won’t do it. 0% chance.

I believe the main enemies that alter our judgment are overexposure and adverse reaction. If I am working on a project that just isn’t happening, I remind myself to simply store it away and come back to it after a time has passed. Once re-opened and listened to with a new perspective, you’ll likely find something that inspires you, or at the very least – something you can work off of right away. As artists, we are always changing. The artist you’ll be a year from now might like or dislike what you’re producing right now. By keeping your unfinished projects somewhere safe, you are investing in your time and talent for tomorrow rather than throw away what you’re frustrated with today.

Tip: This might feel silly but if you don’t feel good about music, try simply saying:”For the moment, I don’t feel like making music.” Insist on “for the moment“, because it takes away the idea that your mindset is permanent.

In past posts I’ve talked at length about the benefit of planting seeds, creating a master project where all your ideas can be grabbed from and used as a springboard to something great with minimal effort. The benefits of having a library of sounds and tools custom-made, ready at a moments notice, is huge because momentum is critical to completing your tracks.

One thing that’s common is the search for old gear to achieve a particular sound. At some point, it’s natural to feel like you’ve outgrown your equipment and you’re sure that buying new (old) gear will solve the problem. We are constantly being tempted with new products and tools that promise to solve our problems and make everything that much easier. Even after buying new gear we sometimes don’t take time to truly audition them. How often do we ask ourselves what it is we truly need to fix? Can gear solve this? The hype and marketing work for sure, yet without fail the next time we turn around there is yet another must-have tool we’re after, because this one…. man this one, is going to make the difference.

Tip: Some gear can be rented. If you can test drive what you want, that can be really useful.

Take a minute to reflect what your goals are before making another investment.

To truly move on as a producer the best personal investment I can think of is to simply finish something, anything. I believe deleting your tracks reinforces your inability to finish what you started, and doesn’t bring anything good. You certainly aren’t farther ahead as a producer, and you’ll never have anything to show without completing your projects.

Take a moment to look at your progress or lack thereof. Where do you get stuck? Where does it come to and end? Is your sound design weak, do you break apart while arranging it? Find your weakness and draw a circle around it with a big, red, pen. That is your problem area. This is the tough part for you. This is where you give up and call it quits. Nothing you can buy is going to fix this for you. The good part is that now you know where you break down you can learn ways to improve on it.

Youtube. Thank the Lord. Whatever you are looking for I promise there will be a video to help you overcome your sticking point. Just don’t get stuck endlessly watching videos that hours later morph into a totally different topic (it’s easy to do). Also, to wrap things up, here’s a production tip I love doing: At the end of a session, bounce whatever you have, then store this in the folder of the production. Always do “collect all and save” It can be a 30-second loop ,the arrangements you have ongoing, or even export all your session stems.  Doing this is extremely useful when going through older projects but also, you can open a blank project and then import several bounces and play with them straight away. This tip has been so useful for my past albums!

 

SEE ALSO :  Finishing Your Projects

Use a main project for organizing yourself

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Over the years I’ve talked with dozens and dozens of people from various backgrounds that would love to begin producing music but simply don’t know how or where to start. On the other hand, if you’ve already been creating music but lately have become overwhelmed with too many sounds, too many vsts, and are less productive in the studio, this post is for you. We’ll focus on using a main Ableton project to organize your sessions, which will make for a productive and efficient time in the studio.

For your studio time to be productive and enjoyable, it’s essential that you are organized, and have a solid grasp on your sounds and tools.

DJ’s who’ve listened to hundreds of top quality, finely mastered tracks, will often complain that the quality and sound of their first efforts in the studio will clash with the loudness and polish of the music they’re used to hearing. This frustration is predictable, but also preventable, and it’s one reason I strongly encourage beginners to start by using pre-made loops or simply remixing the tracks they already have. To keep things organized and productive, select just two tracks with the sound and style you’d like your own productions to have, and work on just one project at a time.

Speaking of bought loops – I want to debunk the myth or opinion that using pre-made loops is cheating. This is 100% wrong, and counter productive to making music.

I believe the perfect mindset to approach music production is very much like that of a moderator, you must work with that which is in front of you.

This idea requires a lot of openness and humbleness, but using this approach will make you much stronger at being resourceful in the face of adversity.

The internet is an endless source of tools and options, and it’s critical at one point to stop consuming ideas and make the best out of the material you have. My rule: never buy a new VST until I have gotten a true and complete hold of the ones I already have. That being said, if you need a tip to help organize yourself, I highly recommend to create one main Ableton project that will be your mothership, your sound compendium, your personal lab for growing ideas.

  • Buying new effects for our synth: to truly get a hand of what your new effects can do, just drop your new effects in one channel and experiment. I highly recommend you record the entire session of exploration as wav file but also as a session where automation and knob movement will be recorded.
  • Gathering leftovers: Whenever you finish a song, there will be sounds you haven’t used. You can copy and paste theses into your main project. Using your audio leftovers is an excellent way to create fast and great sounding starting point ideas for your next song.
  • Building macros: Building macros can be time-consuming. Some macros I like to build are usually ones that involve a good use of the macro knobs because when I’m recording a session, I can just drop them on a channel and quickly controller parameters using PUSH which has the excellent automap feature.
  • Gathering new sounds: Because I don’t have the time and energy to record all the sounds I want I’ll just buy the few that I need. I’ll also purchase sounds that I don’t have resources to make such as sounds from a plane. Some sounds that you’ll use often will be a great investment, but there’s also many that are available for free.
  • Building drumkits: This one area where I often spend a lot of time. When I start an idea, I want to be able to throw in a good combination of percussion. With the huge selection available to me choosing the right sound can take forever. Check out this nice video here that shows how to create a tool to test many sounds at once. This is great but you still need to make your kits.
  • Creating layers: This is a bit of the following logic from the previous tip. Once you have multiple kits, you can work on assembling them in a drum rack in order to create layers. As you probably know, in sound design, one sound is very often made of up many sounds that have been layered correctly. It’s a good idea to make multiple kits in advance, organized well, and ready to perform when the session gets rolling.
  • Making categories with your channels: Each channel should have sounds of the same family. So perhaps, you can make one channel that has pads and another channel with kicks. This is useful because when you go in Ableton’s browser and open your main project, you have access to all the sounds from each channel, which makes it much faster to find a specific sound. Another big benefit in doing this is exporting your channels as stems will make for efficient mixing later on. (Read more about that article here – Bouncing Stems)  

When I look at how I work, I often see that I spend way more time preparing my music session than producing a track itself. The better your organization, the easier it gets in your workflow.

JP

SEE ALSO : Music Production Tips: How To Start A Track 

 

Templates As Seeds

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As a producer, you’re likely trying to balance several tasks all at once while working on your music. If you’re spending time to look through four or five reverbs in search of the perfect sound, setting up buses and groups to pre-mix your tracks while you arrange it, or just feeling frozen looking at a blank project screen and finding it hard to get going, it’s no wonder you aren’t as productive as you’d like to be.

Good news, this post is all about setting yourself up to win before you begin. Begin to see your templates as seeds. 

Many DAWs can be setup to load a template as an initial starting point. Reason will propose a pre-made environment, and Studio One will propose if you’d like to setup a project for mixing to speed up your getting started time. Ableton Live doesn’t have that feature by default, but you can easily change that to open a custom startup project.

Even though most DAWs have this helpful feature, that wasn’t enough for me. But it felt like I could do better.

In one way this is a follow-up post to the previous Bonsai Technique that I shared a few weeks back. It was super popular, and many people sent in comments about how it really helped them develop tracks from little ideas. Now, I’d like to follow up with this idea as I realized that many people are missing out on the fun of using a template to get their projects started. Also, there are a few things we can add in that will also be valuable for your next productions. Let’s have a look at the techniques to get rolling fast.

I’m going to suggest something simple in essence, but it’s very effective to get new projects sounding great right from step one.

Start your next project using the last song used. I heard about this technique from Matthew Herbert’s manifesto, and it got me inspired. Herbert would pick up the mixing board where he left things off from the last session. Why is this a good idea?
Starting from the last mix would provide a faster workflow but also, the random EQs, compression, effects, would be set to something he would never have set up beforehand. I thought this concept was brilliant and began doing this myself. Very often I would start with the last project loaded but would make the next song right after the end of the previous one. The same configuration and settings for the kick, percussion etc… were the same, which often led me into directions I didn’t expect at all. This is a big advantage. 

Consider keeping the effects on each channel as is, but drop your new clips into existing channels at random. In some situations, I also would copy the arrangement of one song and paste it into another song’s arrangement view. Very strange results would come up, often leading to unexpected yet very usable sound design results. I often have one “mother” project which will be a safe place for me to develop and grow these ideas. Then I will copy some loops into another project’s arrangement view, and sometimes move the clips between channels to see which one fits the best. I even did the exercise of dropping a full arrangement into another project keeping it as intact as possible. From there I wouldn’t even listen to it before bouncing it out. I’d then listen to it weeks later and get blown away. I made a handful of tracks from my album Intra or White Raven this way.
Next, challenge yourself to keep your bus routing and groups intact. It’s great to have pre-made sends channels or busses that you can re-use quickly. Of course, an easy way would be to be to assemble a macro of the chain of effects you’ve used, but I like the idea of opening a template and have no idea what effects would be awaiting me. I will sometimes swap my most used effects with others I newly acquired or some I’ve forgotten about. It’s often nice to dig up older, legacy plugins that can bring up a particular grain to your sound.

Clear your finished project from the clips and save it as a template.

One exercise you can start applying today would be:

  1. Create a folder for your templates.
  2. Each time you finish a song, you do a “save as…” to that folder. You’ll then clean it from the clips in the Arranger view. I will often leave what I call ‘leftover’ sounds that weren’t used in the project. I’ll set these clips in the session view in a channel named “Leftovers.” Doing this allows you to re-purpose those sounds, which may be a perfect fit in your new project.
  3. Midi clips could be left there as well because it is usually interesting to have on hand some midi material you can quickly throw new sounds onto and see what it gets that sounds like.

Now, an extra tip, which is to make a template for the design of an EP/LP. As you know, it’s always great to have a common feel for an entire release, and one of the things I would recommend would be in the way you apply your effects.

  • Reverb. Either you pick a reverb from one specific company (ex. Altiverb) and use some presets to get started, or you try to remain in the same family of space such as Plates.
  • Delays. Using the same plugin but changing the delay speed.
  • Saturation. Try to pick one type and stick to it. I recommend applying this through a send channel where you have more control over how each sound is colored.
  • Compression/EQ. Some apply a distinct color and are more or less transparent. It can be a good idea to keep the same type of combination through your channels.

As always I want to hear your feedback on anything mentioned in this post. Feel free to share this post or leave a comment below and tell me how these creative, and time-saving techniques are working for you. 

 

 

SEE ALSO :  Pointers To Define Your Sound

What Is A Mature Sounding Track?

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Recently, a video artist friend of mine was critical of a clip we were watching, and I was commenting about the audio portion of the video. We were both interested in each other’s point of view to better understand what a professional in different fields felt the video could improve on.

In any domain you’ll eventually find the connoisseur, this is someone with a great depth of knowledge in his/her field, and is always searching for the best within his area of expertise. We can think of wine, poetry, painting, fields where true excellence is sought after. In any area of interest the more you are part of that which you love, the more you’ll be able to distinguish the highest quality.

People with years of experience in any field will have a much deeper understanding and perspective than those fresh to the scene. Without question, an experienced ear will recognize fine details and maturity in the music and can quickly tell if the producer has been around for a little while. This brings up the question –

What is a mature sounding track?

Sometimes I hear sarcastic questions such as “how can dance music be mature”? Different people will always have different standards, yet in this post, I thought I’d share how I perceive a song, both from my engineering point of view but also from the perspective of a label owner.

Firstly, I believe song maturity goes beyond if “it’s good (or not).”  I’ve talked about if a song is good or not before but I’ll comment again because many people confuse maturity with if the track sounds good or not. I believe it has nothing to do with that. If we compare it to food or art, highly acclaimed works are often not accessible from the general public opinion. In music, the more you discover and expose yourself to, the more you recognize patterns, ideas, clichés. To sum up a song by “this is good” has no resemblance to what the track/song may have been intended to do. You’re likely judging based on your preferences, which is biased by how you feel or what trends you are following.

The song brings to light it’s initial intention. An experienced producer will have a particular idea in mind that will be made fairly clear when he makes his song. In some cases, he may have a second purpose working within that track. What I mean here is, what the listener decodes from the song might not be what it is initially suggested, as there might be a second, hidden message behind what is going on sound wise. This depth of songwriting can play a huge factor in demonstrating the craftsmanship of the producer.

The song has a clear voice and something to say. Hence the “aha” moment or the “wow” you might have after listening to just a few seconds of a song. Sometimes the light bulb moment may come only after an exhaustive and focused listening session, or after listening to the full song several times. What’s unique about electronic music is that very often there are no lyrics, yet through the use of sound textures, melodies, tensions, and releases, a producer can communicate a state of mind and emotion that words may not be able to express. Just like the word Saudade which comes from the Portuguese from Brazil only, describes a definite feeling that other languages can’t clearly relate to. The use of certain frequencies can suggest specific feelings, and moods, quite powerfully.  I’ve always felt the title of a song is critical and provides context for the music. As artists, we have the power to shape information to make a statement, which can be very powerful when presented right.

It’s not a matter of complexity or simplicity. I’ve had someone who felt that complexity was a sign of maturity. All the crazy tricks and effects up front,  yet the thing is, with experience, you realize that sometimes doing less will often have more impact than overdoing it. Like I said above, creating a wow effect on people is something, but to capture their attention over the whole duration of a song is often a wow effect in a more subtle way.

Time invested in the song doesn’t make it mature. If you spend 5 hours in a row working on a song, you might bring maturity to the song yet perhaps you’ll dilute the original essence of what you originally heard. Over the years, I’ve noticed the significant benefits of letting a project in early development sleep and settle for a time before returning to develop it further.

Timelessness is one of the central points. Songs that don’t age and those that seem to haunt you are often the results of something very well planned or completely improvised. But in one way, this is the often the result of well-paired elements coming together in the right way. There’s part knowledge, culture, innovation, exploration, risk and good taste. The thing that is magical is when someone, no matter how experienced, gets inspired by a moment of grace and comes up with something even himself, cannot explain. That part, which is often pure intuition, is what fascinates me. It is in those moments that you get the best out of yourself.

Bouncing stems and mix

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Recently I’ve been weighing the benefits of focusing on just one part of my production process exclusively, or, working on all the steps of a production simultaneously – arranging, mixing, pre-mastering, etc.. Very often producers ask me to explain a perfect workflow recipe and the truth is, there really isn’t a one size fits all answer.

But in theory, there are 2 main approaches I’ve been seeing in production to make a song.

  1. Classic way. Which involves taking one phase at a time but with the option to roll back to go fix something.
  2. Modern way. You go from one phase to the other in no particular order, as your needs change. You’ll mix as your arrange, change sounds of the percussion to match a melody, add saturation for aesthetics, etc.

One of Ableton’s feature that I find killer is the option to export all channels as separate stems. It really is great for so many reasons but also allows your to really divide the production from the mixdown, which you could do in another DAW.

There are many reasons why you’d like to do your mixdown into another DAW. One of the reason is, you’re basically blending, what I call, software grains. Think of the various apps on your smartphone that offer various filters for your images, where you can go from one to another, taking advantage of each strength. I would say it’s the same for DAWs.

  • Workflow. Each DAW has its own workflow, appearance, feel. Sometimes, just a change of platform is enough to, psychologically, feel your track in a different way. There are countless researches that have been done in between DAW, to which has the best sound, but in terms of summing, if you take a file with nothing on it and bounce it, they will all provide the exact same file. Where there will be a difference is on automation, interface and that alone can make you behave differently in a mix situation. There’s also all the macros and gizmos they all offer too.
  • Native plugins. Again, this might be a game changer. This of an any DAW, they will offer different plugins doing different things. Now, just for compression and EQ, it becomes a serious business. Mostly because there’s a big difference between what you see and hear, plus no one really does things the same way.

That last point is crucial here. You can take the same compressor concept (ex. FET compression), but it will sound different from one company to another. There are no real universal standards on how to approach compression or EQing. An EQ can show you a curve but the filter in the back might slightly be different to give a color, for instance.

So, when it comes to Ableton, I now export all channels as stems to do the mixdown. No more mixing as a arrange. I put a wall between the 2 phases. Some of the reasons are:

  • It liberates CPU usage. No surprises here. When you deal with a heavy load of VST’s and plugins it can often be a lot to manage. The act of bouncing out and mixing stems will force you to focus on only mix related plugins such as EQ and compression. No more delays, chorus and reverb adjustments. At this stage, you’ll focus on the volume levels alone.
  • It put’s an end to the endless adjustments you can make to every sound. You’ll have the option of correcting that little hihat detail that’s been bothering after hearing your track 100 times, but honestly, someone who has just heard your song for the first time will interpret that sound as part of the track, not as a mistake. It’s good to put an end to endless changes and adjustments and move on to finishing your production. Professionals keep their eye on the prize and get things done.
  • The audio summing seems to reveal imperfections. I’m not sure what’s happening here but sometimes, when you bounce the stems, things are just slightly different. I can’t pinpoint why and in theory, it’s not supposed to be but sometimes, it does sound slightly different. In fact, once you bounce it, that’s when you know exactly how it will be so it’s interesting to bounce all channels apart.
  • Ability to use other DAWs. As described earlier, this is the ultimate way to move from one platform to another. You’ll be to leverage the strength of each DAW.
    • Build live sets or NI Stems. Having stems on hand can be useful to create live sets. Native Instruments offers a technology for creating a stems release to be played in Traktor, which is really cool, and super in demand by many of the world’s top dj’s.
  • Backup and remixing. Having stems is the ultimate way to have a real backup of your music. In 10 years time no one can predict what technology will be available, but having stems will prove useful as a way to be used with any new technology.

All an all, try it and see for yourself. Bouncing stems can only bring advantages to your workflow and I’d love to hear about it.

SEE ALSO : Use a main project for organizing yourself 

How To Quickly Audition New Plugins

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Plugins – it seems every week there is a wave of new and exciting plugins released to producers. It’s true that using the right tools can make producing music more enjoyable, and help you make better sounding music. This post is very technical, but by the end of this you’ll know how to quickly audition new plugins and find the best way to use them.

With each new tool comes a learning process, and some plugins are more straightforward than others. As an audio engineer I often assume that music producers of all experiences know exactly how to use their tools, but during a recent coaching session I realized that this is not always the case.

For many music producers, finding a new plugin is a trip, a quest for the next great tool.

This post is very technical, but by the end of this you’ll know how to quickly audition new plugins and find the best way to use them.

What are some of the problems with learning something new?

  • Lack of patience: We all have busy lives and when you finally have the time to sit to make music, you often don’t want to dedicate time learning the science of sound, you just want to rock out and have fun.
  • Preset limitation syndrome: Some plugins aren’t very well laid out, and their knobs might have been labeled in counter-intuitive way. In that case, I’ve seen people only using presets to get their way through.
  • Lack of knowledge: I’ve seen people getting lost while learning how compression works, what the attack vs release means, and often listening to bad advice from the internet.

There are a many ways to audition your new tools, but what’s the best way to find out how a plugin really works?

brainworx, eqThrough years of exploring plugins, I’ve found the best way to learn what a plugin can do for you is to use it in test environment before using on a serious project.
1. Create an Ableton Lab Project. I’ve said this many times before but it’s really helpful to create and use a dummy project where you conduct all your experiments. When it comes to exploring new plugins, synth or techniques you’ve learned from a video. This will a testing ground where things can safely go wrong, and it also can be the nursery for your next great ideas.
2. Import specific ‘dummy’ sounds. You’ll need to equip yourself with specific types of different sounds to see what your new acquisition can do for you.

My selection will include these sounds/loops:
1. 2 bar percussive loop. I’m talking about something fairly busy like kick-clap-hihats.
2. 2 bar hi hat loop. This is an important one. Hi hats are very sharp which often makes it easy to hear the new effect.
3. 1 bar bass loop. A simple low bass with maybe 2 notes. Simple.
4. 1 to 4 bar Pads loop. This is to have something with a long sustain to easily hear what happens with a specific effect on something long.
5. Give full attention to specific details. This is where you need to be really attentive and undisturbed, especially when you first try this technique.

The use of headphones can be very helpful too. What I’ll listen for is this:

  1. Texture change. This is the first thing I listen for. Some plugins, by their simple presence turned on will change the sound somehow. With your eyes closed listen to how the sound changes simply by turning the plugin on and off.
  2. The length of effect. Is it short or long?
  3. Volume change. Is it altering the loudness of the sounds?
  4. Movement. Is it producing movement somehow?
  5. Dynamics. Do the sounds appear to be more flat or popping out? This means the dynamics might have been affected.
  6. Record the experiment’s results.
  7. Always use a limiter on the master to avoid your ears bleeding after something goes crazy.

Lastly, once you’ve got your testing ground project ready, I’ll now describe my own audition/exploration technique. This is quite easy to apply and will forever be useful. If you can map your knobs/faders to a controller this will be a real advantage. Ableton’s Push is also great for this.

  1. Play one of the loops to be tested.
  2. Chose a knob to start with, dial this knob at its minimum. Make a mental sonic image of your sound.
  3. Put the knob at it’s maxed level (the completely opposite of where it was). Did something happen? What was the noticeable change?
  4. Gradually bring it to the middle, where it’s exactly sitting in the 50%
  5. Repeat this with all knobs but explore leaving some at 50%, others at 25% and see what happens. Sometimes you need a combination of 2-3 knobs adjusted to really see something happening.
  6. Once you’ve found something interesting, change the loop to see how it behaves on something else.
  7. Try randomizing the knobs with Max4Live’s randomizer. This can also bring fun results.

As I said at the beginning there is no shortage of new tools available to producers, yet finding the right plugins for you will be a process of trial and experimentation. The process of learning something new and auditioning your plugins can be really fun and will hopefully make you a better producer.

SEE ALSO :  Plugin Review: Circle 2 VSTi 

Two birds one stone. Separating ideas.

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I’m really excited to share a killer new exercise with you that I know will help you become really creative and productive. I’m using this exercise in my own productions and it’s a little like the Bonsai Method I wrote about in my last post. The key focus of this exercise is to duplicate your output in different ways with big benefits. Let’s call it Two birds one stone, and trust me, the takeaway from this exercise is huge.

This technique will improve your productivity in the studio, aid you in finishing more music, train your ears to produce better music, and creating tracks DJ’s will find easier to play and mix. 

When people ask me to listen to their tracks and provide feedback, most of the time I feel there is enough material in one track to make two entirely different songs.Why do I feel this way? DJ’s often prefer to mix tracks that are often stripped back, and have less sounds going on. They do so in order to blend one track with a complimentary one to make something new, and create an original mix. For your tracks to please the DJ consider producing songs that are less busy, and have less sounds going on. Doing this will give the sounds you do have more room to breathe, flex, and develop dynamically. These tracks that follow this production style allow the DJ to creatively mix and eq their tracks in very creative ways.

The objective in this exercise is to take whatever song you have and find a way to separate the elements in order to make 2 different songs out of the original idea.

When producing music, think of your track as a tool, and less of a song to be played on it’s own from start to finish. To some degree, let it be incomplete, and be created as part of an equation that will sum up to something out of your control. As a creator of music, it might be difficult to conceive but I believe that letting tracks be something someone else can mould and play with will attract the right person who can do the most with that track.
Related: How to create tracky music blog post.

Another interesting element in spreading your ideas across two tracks is that in doing so you’ll create a sister, or b-side for the initial track (hence the two birds one stone reference). When you are playing these tracks live you’ll know and hear they’re meant to work together well, hand in hand.

Now let’s get to business and see how to do so.

ideas, ableton, productivity, how to

 

  1. Select a track that you want to use for this exercise. It could be a track that you feel a little lost on, or some long forgotten project that was never finished.
  2. session view, arrangements, ableton

    Session view in Ableton

    Bring all your sounds to the session view. (This will make it easier to see what’s going on).

  3. Mute all percussions that are not related to the main idea of the song. Although, sometimes a conga or snare could be part of the hook, if so try to mute it and see how much of the main idea is affected.
  4. Organize your sounds in 2 groups. There’s no good or bad way to select the sounds, but by splitting the group you’ll see some sounds are complementary to the other. Sometimes, certain sounds are calling, and some are answering to the other, and for those, you want to separate in two different groups.
  5. Activate the crossfader option so you can see/hear the A/B.

    ableton crossfade

    Make sure the “x” is in yellow to activate the crossfader

  6. Assign your sounds to either A or B on the crossfader. Don’t assign any of the percussions on the crossfader.
  7. Do a “Save as…” to create a sibling to this project.

 

After you’ve gone through the previous steps you should be able to play with the crossfader and hear how well the sounds blend together. Hearing things in the middle of the crossfader will give you an idea of what a DJ will hear if he/she merges both ideas.

Let’s go back to your new project. Since you already have the percussion from the original track, you can use the sprouting technique to create complementary beats. Once you have main idea, you may then mute or delete the original percussions and you’ll have your second track’s main idea.
In both cases you’ll need to play with compression and perhaps add a bit more material to get your track moving along. But now, the great thing is, you have created two totally new tracks from one that might have been sleeping in your HD. It’s a killer two track combo ready to go. Win-win.

I hope this post will get you into the habit of creating tracks that avoid the busyness that often robs  a track from reaching it’s fullest potential. It’s natural to come to a point where your track has too many ideas going on and will begin to lack direction, which is the perfect time to use this technique.

The two birds one stone technique will improve your productivity in the studio, aid you in finishing more music, train your ears to produce better music, and creating tracks DJ’s will find easier to play and mix. 

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

JP

SEE ALSO : Pheek Talk 3: Productivity Tips 

Bonsai Method

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Are you having a hard time writing music? Are you confused what DAW to begin using, what plugins to download, what samples to get started with? Never before have producers had so many questions to answer, and to be honest, if you are struggling to make music with such a wealth of options and tools at your fingertips you might be simply overwhelmed by all the options.
This frustration also carries over into production itself. So many possibilities can be done from what you have that even making music can be frustrating. Given that, it’s no surprise that many producers fall into making music that sounds very similar to others because the process of making music is easier to do what other producers have already done. What gear others use, what techniques people use, (we can thank Youtube for exposing all the secrets) and all too often we try to replicate one’s success instead of focusing on the act of our own personal creation.

With so many tools anything is possible.

It’s predictable that faced with so many options you’ll struggle to pick one, and later worry that your choice may not have been the right one, you waste time endlessly worrying about other directions your song could have taken. Not productive right?
I once read an article that explained how negotiators work in difficult situations, where multiple options are available to them.

They will try to sum all all it up to 2 final choices.

That advice really stayed with me whenever I work on a project and will clear out my options until I can chose simply between A and B.

Throughout my posts I have been providing ideas and answering questions to help make your time more productive, and now I’d like to do propose an exercise I know has helped me greatly, I call it the Bonsai Method.

In a past post, I talked about the Rule of 10, where working on multiple projects at once might be one of the most productive way to approach creation. While feeling slow, it later fuels down to a huge batch finished almost all at once. The Bonsai Method was used for latest album where I ended up making 25 songs over 6 months, and in a matter of a few days, that all the tracks took their final form.

What is the Bonsai Method?

It’s inspired by how the Japanese make bonsais trees. Growing something with great attention under strict limitations. This evolves through 3 phases:

• Sprouting. Generating a new idea for a song is one of the most difficult parts of making music. Once you have your idea, you set off in one direction. Finding that idea can be the hardest part mostly because at the moment of making it, you may become so absorbed in it that you become biased if it’s cheezy or genius material. You’ll know with distance or you’ll grow the idea in something that would be more suitable.
• Taming/pruning. This part is when you have material on hand and that you want to give it a direction.
• Growth to final product. This would include the final arrangements before mixing. This method of creation is based on finding ideas uniquely.

In the past, I suggested ideas for new ways to create content. What makes a song memorable on my opinion is the power of one strong idea that is showcased and developed over time. Your song will suffer if you use a lot of individual sounds because nothing may stand out on it’s own, and your track will sound too busy, and lack a clear focus. The minimalist way of making music (or cooking) is to take one idea and really put it forward by using an effect with the mix down in mind, to make it shine.

Sprouting is about finding that gem. My biggest take on finding new ideas is complicated to explain, and there are so many ways to come up with ideas on your own. One quick way to sprout new ideas is quite simple.
1. Take a track you like.
2. Loop it’s last 1/3 (outro).
3. Throw ideas on top of what could be the best complementary track to mix over it. This could mean you can add a chord hit, some percussion, a simple bassline, etc.

Basically, you’re building the intro of your track that would be mixed by a DJ, over the track you selected. Once you listen to both of them and notice that have something there, mute the reference track and listen to what you have put together.
It’s possible that this process may seem underwhelmingly simple or plain weird, by itself. We’ll work on that on the second phase but remember that this is the beginning of something which will grow into a future track. Patience my friend.

Taming and pruning. This one, just like described in the post Rule of 10, is about coming back to what you have created over several days, and work on it little by little. You’ll need to focus on the content, the idea, not necessarily over the percussions, mixing, kick, etc. All those will come by themselves once you nail down what this track is about.

  • Don’t discard anything, keep everything.
  • Resample and record the little takes you do. Instead of putting blocks in the arranger, play a melody in a loop and record yourself tweaking it.
  • All these new takes are the pruning of the original idea.

Things you can do to alter and modify your sound:

  • Change the pitch.
  • Stretch it, warp it.
  • Change the groove. Change the sequence, rhythmic feel of it.
  • Add effects: compression, EQ, saturation, filter, are the main ones to look for.

Growth to the final arrangement.
Ableton, arrangements, live, techno, cleanIn a past article I’ve explained how to turn a loop into a song but for this method I’d like to take a special approach that might surprise you. It’s based on one simple rule – once your have your idea down: you may only make 1 correction per time you open the project.
This is important, you’ll come back on multiple occasions and adjust little details in your last touches. Just like the Bonsai Method, you have to come back, adjust one little detail, save, and close the project.
You’ll spend only a few minutes on your song at one time to keep your impression of the track as if you listened to it for the first time.
You’ll be more efficient if you come to your project with the idea that you can only make one single change and then save it until next time.
As you probably know, the main goal here is to make the first 1/3 of your track and then, the rest will be pretty much-duplicated ideas and add-ons.

As always I want to hear your feedback on anything mentioned in this post. Feel free to share this post or leave a comment below and tell me how the Bonsai Method is working for you. 

 

JP –

SEE ALSO : Two birds one stone. Separating ideas.

Finishing Your Projects

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I want to tackle a huge, big-time topic of much discussion and effort among many music producers – finishing your projects. Like many of my friends, readers of this blog, and clients of mine, finishing your music is really important to you. Yet, we all have loads and loads of music with real firepower that will never get past the finish line.

As someone who has finished dozens of records, remixes, and projects of my own, I’m going to get right down to business of showing you how to finish all the projects you want to. Let’s do this.

Firstly, I need to get a few things out of the way.
1. From my perspective, I believe a song might never be done. Even if you’ve finished it, mixed it, released it, (which you defiantly need to do) and heard it played in mixes all over the world, to you that track might never really be complete.

2. It’s (almost) never going to be perfect. Do not let perfection kill all your efforts. The more you hear it, the more you’ll pay attention to that part you could have tweaked better, or that part in the arrangement you could have brought to a totally new level. Let’s face it, you need to remember that a listener will likely never hear that song as much as you have and will never notice the few imperfections that are loud and clear to you. It’s okay, let’s get it done the very best we can in the time we have.

3. Taste is subjective. What you feel is perfect, likely won’t be in the eye’s of someone else, and vice versa. Yet at some point, you have to put your foot down to what the song’s theme and structure is and embrace it by telling yourself “ok, this is my song and there won’t be compromises, I’m moving forward.”

4. Use your reference tracks. I keep coming back to using musical references in many of my posts because it’s your personal target for what sounds good, and what you want your production to sound similar to. The more you work with one, (comparing your sounds and levels to the reference track) the more you’ll understand how your track is progressing, or not.

The next part is going to be exciting, and scary.
After writing and developing all the right parts of your track at some point you’ll come to feel your project is ready to be canned down into it’s finished form. “What are the signs that a track needs to enter it’s finished form”?
• Your track has a beginning, a middle, and end.
• The imported reference track in your arrangement has about the same length and number of sounds as your track.
• The sections of your track are very clear and your transitions from one part to the next flow well, and feel right.
• All channels have a rough mixdown and an overall healthy balance. Now, we’re really good to go.

“If you want to make music the #1 thing you have to do is finish your productions. Open a project that is ready and follow these steps – we’re going to finish one right now.”

finish your music productions

Getting to this point is the goal ~ crossing the finish line, exporting your finished music.

Since the main sections of your track are already there, we’re going to starting at the beginning and listen closely to each part of your arrangement.
1. Loop 4-8 bars at a time – mainly rely on your ears and listen. You’ll quickly hear if something stands out and needs to be adjusted, or removed. After running through each section, continue doing this every 8 bars or so.
2. Give your ears a break. After 5-10 minutes of active listening stop the music for at least 20 seconds. Our ears get tired easily and right now we need to stay sharp to make the right corrections to our track.

We’re in the last phase of finishing your project now. Here’s how to make sure your track has all the right elements to be interesting and keep the listener’s attention.

• Notice how sounds come in and out. Some sounds come in abruptly, to cause a surprise, while others will come in slowly (fade-in). Alternating how sounds come in is a great way to keep interest.
• Percussion sequence. Is the way sounds are programmed making any sense or can be improved? A good way is to put one or multiple channels in solo and listen carefully… Are you making a coherent phrase?
• Transitions. Are the transitions between each section supporting the evolution of the main idea? Some transitions will be used to announce incoming sounds or the exit of others. Some transition can also be used to build or release tension. Be aware of the effect of both.
• Don’t overdo it. The biggest issue when working in micro-mode is the danger to over listen to your idea and changing too many things, nearly starting all over.

One more important thing – once you have about the song completely revised, I would greatly encourage you to take a macro, global view of the project. These are the points you want to look for:
• Perspective 1/3. Zoom out of the window so you can see the song entirely in your arranger. You should be able to see clearly 3 distinct sections. If not, you might want to look into that. What defines each sections? They should have different intensities, and a number of sounds playing.
Why is this important? Your song is a story and it needs the right timing and elements our ears to come to expect. The most dramatic reason though is, each section should showcase a strong moment. Having 3 of them is a good formula to make a song interesting and memorable, but any more than that and you’ll likely take away the power the previous peaks.

• Sequence of how sounds come in, out. Keep a logical and fluid transition of how sounds come in and out. Your percussion parts can come in a certain way, then you can repeat it later. Don’t showcase all your sounds all at once, or you’ll burn your idea out pretty quickly.
• Repeating ideas. As seen in the lego post, if some sounds happen in a certain sequence, try to keep that until the end for coherence.

For any musician or producer, not finishing your projects can be really frustrating, but it happens to the best of us.

This post is all about sharing my own personal way of starting and completing projects so that you can confidently go into your next session with a game plan I know will keep you on track to get things done.

As always let me know if you have any suggestions or questions about this post and leave a comment below and tell me what projects you are excited to complete.

JP

SEE ALSO : Pointers To Define Your Sound

Making and breaking genres in your music

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Friends and clients of mine who listen to a wide variety of music (often very different genres) have mentioned feeling a real struggle to come up with ideas once starting a new project in their DAW. After putting together a decent beat and melody or two – many of my colleagues found no clear direction in their song, and struggled to make any progress with that project from there.

This reminded me of a something I saw online recently that very well summed this up.

If you don’t understand french, what the illustration is saying is, “this is what the music industry, as well as music genres are doing to music.”  I truly believe this statement, and I’ll explain why now.

Let’s rewind and look at jazz music. If you don’t listen to jazz you might simply think jazz is jazz, but actually there are many different forms of jazz- big band, ragtime, be-bop, free jazz, hard bop, fusion, etc.. Such labels were created by media to label and categorize music, making it easier for people to find and buy music within a certain genre. Think about the evolution of rock – hard rock, light rock, punk rock, alternative rock, the list goes on.

For electronic music, I guess we can say that some of the very first, most popular genres to emerge were originally Hip Hop (some of the early 80’s hip hop was very electronic focused), House and Techno. The reason why it keeps going under various umbrellas comes from the needs of the industry’s standards.

Our ears get excited when we hear something we know doesn’t fit the mould.

A musical term you’ve likely heard before is mashup, which refers to a song made up of other songs from completely different genres, (which is is a little like a remix). You may hear a melody being played by a distorted AC/DC guitar riff mixed with vocals from a country-western song, and a bumping disco drum beat keeping the groove. Great mashups are known to use music that would never otherwise work together, which is the reason why mashups often lead to really exciting and interesting music.

Take a minute and check out mashup artist Girl Talk creating a mashup in 2 minutes here ) and Girl Talk again, performing live mashups at Coachella here :

It’s common to think “if it worked well for x, who does x genre, I might as well do like him to imitate his/her success” syndrome has also been one of the main reasons why so much music is produced and formatted in a specific way.

This is how certain genres follow a very specific sound, using strict arrangements with very predictable techniques. There is good and bad to this, but if you listen to the top 10 of any genre, you’ll quickly understand what musical elements represent that genre.

• Genres help you reach a market, certain labels, clubs and be part of a community.
• If you are innovative, you can always input refreshing new ideas to a genre. Done right, you can get a lot of attention. People are always searching for new ideas, but you need to understand the rules of a genre, first.

So how does this apply to you, once in music mode and struggling with genres?

  • You can make multiple genres out of one melody. What is stopping you from making different versions? There’s no rules here. If you have a melody you love, you can make 10 different takes out of it and decide later which one you prefer. Slower, fast, trance version, dub version, beatless, really, there’s no reason for you not to explore.
    • You can define yourself challenges of embracing fully one genre on specific projects. A good way to approach the genre problem is to start by a genre you are 100% comfortable with and then keep your production in that genre fully. Then, as I suggested earlier why not take your melodies and write it for in a second genre? Personally, I have some ways I do it. For instance, I never make beats-oriented songs in the evening and rarely I do ambient in the morning. It’s sort of a personal rule and you can invent your own that work for you.
  • Incorporating hybrid styles can be the road to new growth. New genres are often born by someone coming from a specific scene and trying to apply ideas from another. I’ve heard really different variants for dubstep for instance or house (tech house, dub house, minimal house, break house, chill house). If you’re torn between genres, combine the elements from several genres and listen to what happens.
  • Use sample loops to get ideas. One major asset of using pre-made loops is to have a quick glance of the different directions your track could go and explore quickly from there. A tool like Splice lets you access royalty free loops from breaks to jungle, minimal, ambient, techno with a killer integration for Ableton. It’s then really easy to combine some minimal techno grooves with reggae sounds and get a feel for what’s working fast.
  • Focus on one artist or label. If you have a goal to be signed to a  specific label or get attention from an artist you like, it’s good to  have productions and reference tracks that will get his/her attention. Sometimes that means your music must follow a very specific sound, think pure techno – there isn’t much room for trombones there. That said, sometimes your roots will guide you to where you should be going. That’s wh y when I’m a bit lost, I go spend some time listening to influential music to bring me back to my flow.

You will create more original sounds by combining wider musical influences, and in doing so your music will not only sound unique within a specific genre, but it will also more closely represent your authentic voice as an artist. Win-win.

 

What sounds are you really excited about right now? Be sure to leave a comment below with your own ideas about mixing influences and styles, and as always I want to hear what you’ve been producing lately and music you’re sharing with the world.

JP.

SEE ALSO : Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks  

Lego Blocks as Song Structures

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Have your productions become a bit predictable lately? To stand out as an artist/producer you have to create music that is unique. So much of electronic is structured around a repeating 4/4 pattern, which means it’s really important to create surprising sounds and unique arrangements that keep your track interesting. How do we do that?

I’m going to share a simple way to create a real and true sense of spontaneity into your music making that you might not have considered before. *this is a pro-tip you can use right away to bring a little magic into your tunes.

Before I get into that I want to share the backstory. Recently my son and I were building structures with legos and I noticed the colours and patterns we made together looked exactly like a track in Ableton’s arranger view. When I worked on my album Intra, I had created a few rules and challenges during the recording process and one of them was to work visually with the blocks (or clips). Initially each song would be recorded live but afterwards I would chop the blocks into smaller blocks and start sculpting the others around each one depending on the rule I had set out for that song.

The result of this meant that my Ableton arrangement soon needed to also be visually appealing and organized. This brought some results:

  • Unexpected results. If you work with a visual based reference for assembling your blocks, you might discover new ways of making your sounds evolve in a visual chaos that is also a form of organization.
  • Cleaner transition. Putting your blocks together can help making your transitions smoother as you can really put attention to a sequence of sounds, and the grid. I know you’re probably already using the grid, but perhaps you have never paid attention to how your transitions happen. If you pay more attention to your block order, you might observe patterns that are more efficient.
  • Logical progression. Using coloured blocks is really helpful to organzine big projects. People use it to identify where the verse, chorus, buildups are, and you can use that same approach.

At this point, you may be wondering if this technique will really make a big difference in your productions. I can say with confidence that creating rules to apply to your arrangements can have huge benefits. Try it on your next production.

Song structures like Lego blocks. A simple technique like this can open the door to something great and surprising when you’re tired of the mechanical feeling in your tracks.

Here’s a few tips on how you can approach your arrangements with this new perspective.

  1. Define yourself some rules. This is really for inducing fun and making your own music interesting. Think about using rules such as, “every 4 blocks, make a change” or “never leave a hole with a smaller block in the upper channel.” There’s no good or wrong way to do this but the more you give yourself a solid set of rules, the better and faster the workflow.
  2. Avoid clean blocks organization. When I work with students, I often see their final arrangements to be looking very simple, very clean and to me, this automatically make their music highly predictable, mechanical, soul-less and out-of-the-box feeling.

Ableton, arrangements, live, techno, clean

I find that electronic music is already heavily subject to a machine feel and I value doing anything that can go against that. I find breaking your blocks and messing up the arrangements is an absolute must.

TIP: Try to chop off your blocks where all the others start or end, create little offsets, and create holes in the blocks from time to time. This mutes and removes sounds so that when they are back the sound will feel welcomed and unexpected. Sometimes to appreciate a sound better you need to remove it for a while.

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

3. Work from bottom to top

ableton arrangements, organization

Arrange your lower sounds from the bottom up and higher one’s up in the order.  Visually it will often create a pyramid-like structure that is interesting to move around and modify.

4. Use patterns as a mosaic.

One thing I like a lot is to create a sequence of blocks and then repeat it. I will revise variations later on based on mathematical formula or ratio aspect. I try to see where this block will fall if I repeat it 4 times, in parallel to this sequence repeated 5 times. Sometimes this helps create a moment I would have never thought of, at around 2/3 of the track.

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

5. Give your clips room to breathe. When consolidating your clips (Use cmd+j) leave empty space before or after in the clip. The lack of sound in your clips allow space for other sounds to be heard, which you likely already do, however launching clips with silence built in will help make your arrangement more unpredictable and interesting.

lego blocks as song structures

Use cmd+j to consolidate them and make sure to leave space too as this can be useful.

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

The takeaway – Once you begin to apply structural shifts and apply rules to your productions your music will definitely begin to sound more interesting. Arranging your tracks by rules will force you to make adjustments you likely wouldn’t have made yourself. Another huge benefit you’ll find in working this way is speed – using pre-defined rules will take away much of the time consuming guess work in creating key differences in your productions, which makes it faster to finish your tracks, and have more people hear your music. Win-win.

As always feel free to leave a comment with me below if you like the ideas in this post. I want to hear what music you’ve been working on using any of the techniques I’ve shared with you here, and look forward to hearing those soon!

JP.

SEE ALSO :  Finishing Your Projects 

Beats and Melodies

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One aspect of using the Non-Linear Music Production technique that I want to share with you involves two simple, and easy to follow tips with big benefits – we’re going to focus on just beats or melodies – this going to upgrade your productivity in the studio and it’s extremely effective in reducing writer’s block.  

Statistics show that in February the number of people known to be stuck facing writer’s block is often on the rise. We can blame long cold winters for being partly to blame, yet there’s also a few things that can lead to this, such as:

  • Fatigue. A lack of warm sunlight and an increase of time spent indoors.
  • Overworking. If you’ve fallen into a routine of day job, followed by study, then music production at the end of a long day, or as the last part of a long day, you might fall in the trap of overdoing it, and becoming unproductive.
  • Lack of distance. Writer’s block is often a sign of creative burn out and is a clear sign you need distance from what you’re working on. If you’ve over exposed yourself to the same kind of creative work, you might need to dip into something new to get refreshed, which is what this blog post is all about.

To make your best beats and melodies, give yourself the freedom to produce in a deconstructed way. Break the mould.

Part of the problem of falling into a slump comes in believing that to make music, you need to begin writing your song in a linear way, which is starting from the very beginning, working up to the middle, and following through until the end of the track. Perhaps, before approaching your next track with that mindset, consider embracing a different way to think about your time in the studio.

Setting yourself little goals are simple and bring back the fun in making music.

One of the ways to get your track really grooving early is to work on one element of your track only. Get started making just the beat, or melody. The task of concentrating on just one element of your production will take off a big part of the pressure in trying to finish something bigger. Another benefit to working and focusing on one element at a time is that doing so lends itself to experimentation, play, and an appreciation to those sounds on their own. You can even roll back one step before  approaching this and practice on sound design alone if you feel like making beats or melodies isn’t working for you right now.

Do you often sit in front of your computer and imagine yourself putting that loop into it’s final song-form, and think abo ut everything you need to do to get there? This can often be discouraging, and prevent you from making great music.There’s some debate on what should be done first when starting a production. Some artists admit they can’t do a beat if they don’t have a melody or vice versa. My personal view on that is quite simple, if you can only make music in a certain method, it’s time for you to break that to avoid falling into dependencies, which can hurt your music making progress.

To make your next session super productive let’s do a bit of preparation – there’s so much you can outsource from these next few steps. 

  1. Make a folder with today’s date.
  2. You’ll be saving your project in there as well as anything related.
  3. Get yourself a timer. I highly suggest that you limit your time on only ONE task. Focusing on only ONE element of your track will speed up your productivity, and make sure your aren’t spending time on less important details.

Making beats. With the premise that we’re using Ableton here, there’s no good or bad way to make beats. But I invite you to explore a mixture of midi use vs simple audio assembling in the arranger.

Let’s see a few important points you can apply to make these beats:

  • Sample selection. At this moment having the perfect sample is not important. I’ve seen students of mine loosing tremendous time looking for a kick while it’s actually the last thing you should be deciding. Tip: Use a simple 808 kick to start with, and swap it later.ableton live, step sequencing, patterns, beatsStep sequencing: Change the grid going from 1/4 for the main beats to fiddle to details with a 1/32. Tip:
  • Ableton Live, duplicate loopLenght: Duplicate and double up your 1 bar loop to 4, then start removing, adding so that each bar is unique. This takes away the boredom of repetition.
  • Groove: Explore grooves as you go. Try something new as importing the groove from a track you like and apply it to one sample of your beat.

 

Making melodies. This one might be tricky especially if, like me, you have no musical background whatsoever. It could help that you read the basics about music and know at least what are chords, harmonies and scales for instance. This is useful because Ableton will give you tools that can take away your lack of knowledge to turn it into something that makes, avoiding possible awkwardness. My take on melodies is, there’s no rules here and if you can get a midi keyboard, just start tapping randomly to hear notes of the synth you picked, then see if there’s a possible, semi-logical order you can organize that randomness into.

  • Synth selection: This exercise will make sense the more you do it. If you’ve never done this before, I strongly encourage you to try every single synth presets you can have on the ones you have. A preset is a starting point, it’s not the end result so play a few notes that start noodling around the knobs to shape whatever bothers you into something else. Don’t aim at something, improvise with what you have.
  • Melody: One simple tip that has been proven extremely useful is to record every single moment of my session. So, in one channel, make sure to have a resampling to record all the madness, ugliness, mistakes and glory but also, try to record your moves with midi recording. The recording of the sounds is more important than trying to make a solid hook out of a few notes.
  • Ableton’s melody extraction: Very useful on beatless music. Try it with some ambient and see what you get. From classical music as well, it can be surprisingly inspiring.
  • Pitch down a melody to make a bass. Always surprisingly full of new sounds.

 

How to use all your new sounds?

Later on, after a few weeks, you’ll end up with folders, filled with ideas. Some will be beats, some melodies. Make sure that whenever you finish a session, you export what you had in one or multiple files. You can bounce an idea you love or you can export the entire session.

Where it gets really fun is to open a blank Ableton project and import all the renders, making a channel for beats, the other for melodies. Then you can find unusual match between one and another. Make sure everything is rightfully labeled so you can reopen certain projects to go tweak a sound if needed.

How to write melodies and beats in Ableton Live tutorial.

Creating beats and melodies tutorial with Ableton Live.

Next time you turn on your DAW try working on only a beat or a melody, experiment with your patterns and notes, and take the time to closely listen to the sounds you’re creating. Save. Render. Import. Jam.

If you’re looking for ways to produce a ton of fresh sounds and grooves in a way that is fun and efficient, try working on just one element of your track (beats or melodies). And, if you find starting your tracks from writing in the same formula, try using a non-linear technique to get your tracks moving along faster.

The takeaway is this – these two techniques will upgrade your productivity in the studio, help you make more music, and are really effective in reducing writer’s block. 

I want to hear what exciting sounds you’ve come up with focusing on just beats or melodies. Keep up to date and share your progress with me online.

JP.

SEE ALSO :  Making and breaking genres in your music 

The Art of Keeping People on Their Toes

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You know when you discover music that breaks the mould, and you can’t stop listening to it? When there’s just something special about it that keeps you playing it on repeat? There are actually certain recipes for giving music its power, and a lot of it has to do with keeping people on their toes. Here are some techniques for keeping your music fresh and innovative.

Known and new anchors

Genres are largely distinguished by a specific set of sounds, rhythms, or structural arrangements. For instance, deep dub techno has its signature rich pad sounds that you won’t really hear in, say, trance music, which is more known for the heavy use of arpeggiated synths. Some deep house uses the same pads as techno, but you can still differentiate the two because of its structure and percussion samples.

When producers want to create in a specific genre, they’ll sometimes repeat what has worked before by getting all the sounds right. If you stick to the tried and true though, you’ll need to really up your game to get noticed because you’ll be repeating the same old formula.

Introducing sounds that are less common to the genre can be a great way to shake things up. You could bring in foreign percussions that aren’t usually associated with the style, or samples that might throw people off. New anchors, or a sense of novelty, always create interest for listeners.

Technological novelty

I follow a few sites religiously to keep up with the latest news about new effects, DAWs, and the like. Keeping current lets you get ahead of the curve and stay fresh and innovative. This might sound like a silly example, but people like Cher in her hit “Believe”, or Daft Punk with “Around the World”, showed how using forward-thinking technology at the right time can help you make it huge. You might go “meh” at those songs today, but when they came out, it was a big deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yca6UsllwYs

 

Balancing surprises

If you browse the web for information on what makes music addictive, you’ll read that the brain seeks out elements that balance predictability with a sense of surprise. If you’re kept just slightly off balance, but still feel you’re on stable ground, you can get the dramatic sense of venturing on some sort of journey while facing obstacles you can overcome. Many people experience a sense of travelling when listening to music, and it’s even been shown that music can produce some of the same hormones as ingesting drugs.

If you’re creative with them, these common production-related tips will help you generate tons of new ideas:

The 1-2 punch technique. I’ve been doing theater for years, and this popular trick is used to surprise people or make them laugh. I’ve noticed how it’s used in movies, advertisements and of course, music. The idea is simple: you produce a cool idea, trick or sound that pleases or surprises the audience. This sound or idea should be one of the main elements of your song. After a certain while, you’ll repeat it a second time, which generates a sense of satisfaction in the listener. Wait a little while longer, and on the third time, when the listener is expecting it to repeat again, you deliver either a different sound or a new variation to throw them off. This usually never fails.

Repetition and counter-rep. In the same vein, when you build the  structure of your song, you’ll need to order the sounds in a specific way to give your audio vocabulary some logic, which brings you into a conversation with the listener. Repetition lulls the listener into a comfort zone. It’s where things are smooth, predictable, even hypnotic. Now, in your repetition, it’s fun to play with timing and counter-balance. One sound will appear, then another will reply or echo the first sound, but as an offset element. Usually, the echo can be off and playful, which gives you a lot of room to build layers that add colour and intrigue to your song.

Be wild. This is a favourite of mine. To get the most out of it requires that you get inspiration from other genres that you might not listen to. In my case, I’ve sometimes listened to contemporary classical, weird jazz, or bluegrass to see what and how things are made. Then I try to apply an element or principle into my own music, either pertaining to the structure, percussions, breakdown, or intro. There’s a lot to be learned from other genres.

SEE ALSO :  Creating Timeless Music