After the first two parts on this series of posts about playing electronic music live, we arrive at our final topic: clip arrangements, song organization and sound preparation.
Clip Preparation
I hope you did your homework from part two where I asked you to take your arrangements and turn them into an Ableton Live session. If you’ve done this, you’ll see that this task is pretty demanding and can be confusing, because you might feel your song(s) aren’t the same anymore, or perhaps they don’t make any sense. But trust me, even if you feel like you have failed in arranging your sessions, it will start to make more sense as we continue. What really matters is that you now have material loaded into the session view.
“What if my track is so simple that I have only a few clips in the session view?“
That’s not a problem, the idea is to have something. Part of the beauty of a live set is that once you have all your tracks in the session, you’ll shape them into a longer set. A live set isn’t like a DJ set, where you focus on transitions and track selections; it’s way more flexible and involves constant shaping to create a bigger picture.
1st To Do: Import all Your tracks into one big project
For the sake of this exercise, please start by creating a blank new live set that you’ll name “My Live Set” where you’ll have 12 channels to start with.
Next we will import all songs into that project. There are two ways to do this and it’s up to you to decide what is the best for you. I personally like to open a track, grab all clips in the session, copy (cmd+c), then open your “My Live Set” project and paste. You can also copy through the browser and should you be more comfortable using that method, do it that way.
One of the great new features of Ableton 10 is that groups now appear in the browser; which could be a good way to organize your work to re-import later on.
You should also consider copying audio leftovers over from each track. These unused pieces are more precious than you think, in a live context. A leftover is anything in your track that was created but didn’t make the final cut. It could be a variation, some weird FX, vocals, whatever – basically, anything will do. The idea behind leftovers is to create material for your live version to make it differ from the original song; it will add an edge.
Once you have all your tracks imported, you have a better idea of your whole session.
“How many tracks do I need for a 1h set?”
The answer here is hard to figure out until you’ve rehearse and determine your natural flow. After years of playing and recording my sets, I’ve figure that each of my tracks average a rough 6 to 8 minutes in a live context. This also includes the transitions (i.e two songs overlapping for 1-2 minutes, to make things smooth enough like a DJ would).
The total time of the tracks is not necessarily important to figure out. If you’re creative, you might even play the tracks in a random order.
2nd To Do: Name and color all clips appropriately
People often overlook this part but trust me, the better the organization, the less stress you’ll have in a live context. Never believe yourself when your mind says “oh I’ll remember what this clip is.” This is why names are important, but also, the clip color. All kicks should be the same color, basses and so on. My personal coding colors have been:
Kicks: red (grabs my attention)
Low end, bass: brown
Percussions: yellow
Claps/snare: Orange
Hihats: grey
Melodic elements: Blue, in various tons as some are different.
One thing about colors that helps is if you’re playing a track while in transition to another one, you can see the color of the other clip that you can’t see on screen.
Please note that I don’t necessarily recommend putting all of the same sounds in the same channels. You might want to mix, for instance, hihats of track A with the ones of track B. If both track’s hihats are in the same channel, you won’t be able to mix them and one will play after the other (only one clip can be played in a channel at a time).
Scene organization
Organizing your scenes is time-consuming, and it will also be what you’ll be reworking the most. It will also get your songs to have more of a live feel. For this section, I’ll use an example of one of my latest live sets to explain what I did, and why.
This song starts at the second row (scene).
Channel headers: As you can see, header colors aren’t important to me so much but there is a section all in white. This is because I use two MIDI controllers for controlling the volumes and the second section is for the second controller. This is also why they’re numbered so I know which slider they refer to on the actual controller.
3rd To Do: Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers
Think of how you want to control your set on a base level, which is the channels in most cases. This is the most important part to pin down, because as you prepare your set, you’ll need to control volume sliders. Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers. If your controller has buttons, I’d also map them to the mute buttons. Mutes are very important.
Buffer rows: As you can see, alternating rows before and after each busy row have scene of empty clips. You can also see that they have the “stop” square in them. I create “buffer rows” for two reasons: the buffers help know where the song starts and begins, but they also serve as a quick way to toggle a clip to stop playing if necessary.
4th To Do: Add 1-3 buffer rows between each song
The first scene/row of each track: The first row, to me, is the most important one. Over years of playing, I’ve settled on a super minimalist version of my live set where I play mostly loopy music with variations which really enforced the importance of the first row of the set.
The first row has various various roles:
- It is the introduction of your song: It will be used in the transition from the previous track.
- It is the core idea of your song: All sounds that are playing from beginning to end of your song should be placed here and remove everything below. In my case, the kick will be the same from beginning to end. The length of the kick will be 4 bars long and include variations. Some people like to add multiple clips underneath as variations to trigger, so that is always another option, but think that whatever remains the same throughout should be there.
- Tension relief: If you noodle around, create an improvised breakdown or start removing sounds. You can use the right side play to then trigger all sounds at once to come back to the song’s full intensity and main idea. This point is very important if you think you’ll be exploring and improvising as you’ll need an anchor.
5th To Do: Make a solid core
Supplementary/following scenes: There are multiple ways to use the scenes that follow your initial introduction. To “play it safe” you could simply have each scene play as the track evolves. The good thing about this approach is that by having all scenes on hand, you can deconstruct the timeline of your song by playing them in different orders. My favourite way of doing this is to have variations of a scene, such as one line with hihats, one with none, one with two playing and a clap, etc, same for melodies. This way I can play variations but I can also trigger one entire line and have a “ready-to-go” new take. If you look at my live set screenshot above, you’ll also see that under one sample “Tommydrum”, I have the same clip three times using variations in timing or tweaks in the versions. I can toggle between them as I need them.
Last To Do: Plan your follow-up lines/scenes and decide what you use.
In the next post, we’ll discuss rehearsing, sound calibration and advanced clip settings!
Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 4)
/in Performance, Tips/by pheekFollowing up on the previous post in this series, I’ll outline some final tweaks and advanced clip settings for your live set. There’s a lot to cover here but I’ll try to condense it down to the essentials.
Final Tweaks
As your set is likely now taking form, you should have different songs organized into scenes. You can think of this as the minimum you will need to play live but if you want the best result, there are still things to tweak. Personally, when I listen to a live set, I really want it to feel live; the artist can interact with the energy of the room and build around it. You should avoid playing each scene one after the other, without surprises. Again, this is my opinion and you might think otherwise, but what I’d like to explain is how to add a bit of “live” life in the last tweaks to your set.
1st – Rehearse and record.
This is pretty much the ultimate test to see if your live-lab is working properly. You’ll need to rehearse, play with your session, move things around, and test, again and again.
Don’t ever fall back on the idea that what you have is ready for the big show without rehearsing, because trust me, you’ll learn the hard way that if wait until being in club to test your set, it will hurt. That said, hit the record button and then start playing the clips, try to take you time as well to create a proper intro, then see how it goes when you launch scenes, fade-in some sounds, and add effects. The most important part of rehearsing your set is recording what you do.
You can then listen to see what you recorded and if you like a part of a moment, you can then drag it back into your set.
Since you only have two hands but you want each of your clips to have a feeling of “live”, you can pre-record certain subtle details you want to be played while you tweak other knobs. You’re not totally playback everything as-is, you’re interacting with other played elements you recorded. This can be particularly useful for creating unique and complex moment or breathtaking breakdowns.
You can also use
⌘+J (ctrl+J on Windows) to consolidate moments you like.2nd – Add variations.
In my sets, I rarely have one scene repeating without having variations of it. The variations can be used for many things, such as having a more energetic variation of the same scene, one that has a little pause, or space for inserting a fill. Here are a few quick tips you can use to make creating variations easier:
Follow Action: Once played, what do you want the clip to do? You could just play that clip but it could go back to the first clip or even randomly play something else. I suggest you experiment with this and find ways to surprise yourself. Don’t forget to record yourself playing them as you can go back to the arrangement section to seize the best part and create new ideas you didn’t even know of.
Reverse: this one can be fun but in a live context, if you do it at the wrong time it’s awfully awkward; perhaps introducing it in a variation instead would be a safer idea.
Transpose: This can be nice for melodies and basses. You can have them move in pitch in a variation.
Try: Using this with a filter to create fun swooshes.
Also try: Use this technique to create melodies and textures out of a stall pad.
3rd – Transitions.
This part is the final preparation needed to play live but is also the trickiest one. Mainly because this task will imply some practice. My approach and advice here might not totally work for you because your music is different than mine. In other words, doing transitions is something personal and each musician tends to develop his or her own way to do it based on what feels like the best flow possible.
How do transitions work?
In theory, a transition from one song to another is exactly like a DJ mixing one track into another. The puzzle with live transitions is – whereas the DJ only has one fader and EQ to do the trick – you have multiple channels to blend one into the another.
Whenever I teach people how to play live (yes, I do Ableton Live training), a first exercise I give them is to create a playlist with a few DJ sets they like and tell them to study the track transitions. Some people like very fast and abrupt mixing (i.e Jeff Mills-like), while others prefer something more subtle and blurring the lines one where a song starts and the other stops.
The other thing to know beforehand is if you want your live set timeline to be fixed and fluid, or if you will chunk which tracks to play as you go. This can also be a huge factor in how you prepare your transitions. Personally, I want to have the entire flexibility to be able to play track X as an intro then switch to track Z. No order will be established until the last minute when I hit the play button to start my live set.
Once this is clear, you’ll be able to decide how to bridge songs. The first row of each song is your intro bridge and the last one most probably your outro, but you could also start mixing the next track at any moment if you want. Here a few rules of my own for transitions:
Because of the number of channels you have in Ableton, you might be stuck with the fact that only one instrument at a time can play. This problem led me to organize bridges differently on occasion. For example, if I want 2 layers of hi-hats, I would have to “cheat” and have a layer of hats in the clap channel. Quite often I found myself organizing this while playing, and it’s not the best because you can get lost easily in the arranging. I prefer having a few options in the intro with extra layers of claps, hats, percussion. Sometimes even some duplicates in different channels.
In the next post, we will talk about sound checking and performing, which will also conclude the series!
8 common mixing mistakes and audio production errors
/in Blog, Production/by pheekSince starting my label, and after years of dealing with large numbers of demo submissions and artists, I’ve noticed that most of the time new producers and musicians make the same kinds of errors when they are early in their audio producing years. When I started my studio full-time I also noticed that I have – for the most part – been dealing with the same questions and frustrations about producing audio on a regular basis. This post outlines a list of some of the most common mixing mistakes and general mistakes musicians make when they are starting out.
the most common mistakes I see from Musicians with regards to audio mixing and producing:
Not investing in good monitoring (speakers, headphones).
This one is a huge deal. You’re dependent on what you hear to get quality results. This is always a bit puzzling to me, that some people hope to compete with artists who have invested so much into a professional studio with poor monitoring. If you can’t hear what you do, it’s pretty much like working blindly and the results on good sound systems will be catastrophic. So many people go test music in their car to see if it’s done properly which is sort of ok, but not productive.
What I’d suggest is to try to spend an afternoon listening to music you know on different speakers. Do not invest in cheap monitors because it’s all you can afford. It will fill your music with many problems down the road. Trust your ears.
A Lack of references
You can’t produce quality music if you haven’t been exposed to quality music. This means you need to have in your possession a large library of music for listening, but also to spend just as much time listening to music as producing it. The more you immerse yourself in music that sounds great, the more familiar your ears become with regards to how things should sound. This can mean listening to good quality vinyl or wav files.
What I’d suggest is to have regular sessions of listening music you like attentively and also in the background. Both are important. Make a playlist on Spotify or on your computer of music you know sounds right and train your ears to know that music inside out.
Making Comparisons to Professional musicians too often
This is the downside of referencing as it can play tricks on you. I know some people who have amazingly good tastes in music and want to start producing but when they start and see the work that is ahead, they become frustrated quickly. If you compare yourself to a guy who has been around for 20 years, chances are, you’re setting yourself for defeat.
What I suggest is to focus more on the experience of making music than the result, at first.
Thinking making music is easy
Can’t blame anyone besides the general culture that has been saying for years that “making electronic music” is all about “pushing a few buttons”. People see a DJ with fists in the air and they think “I could do that…”.This mindset will give you a rude awakening when you start working in a DAW and dive into sound design. Electronic music doesn’t require the same skills as playing piano, but will be demanding in terms of technical details. There are so many possibilities that you can go crazy trying to know where to start. Sadly, many people realize that and become depressed.
What I’d suggest before diving in music production is to try to befriend a producer and spend time in studio to see if you really enjoy it. Watch videos on music making to see if you can pick it up quickly too.
I’m thinking of the guy who decides one day to make music and then comes back home with 5000$ of equipment without knowing if he likes it or knowing what he needs. See what you like doing first, then invest around that. Music production has so many different dimensions that it’s important to know your cup of tea. Is it DJing? Playing synths? Sound design? Making loops? There are pieces of gear you need first as I explained in a previous post but you surely don’t need everything your friends will tell you to buy.
What I suggest was written in a past blog post about what you really need to get started. I often get asked what you need to start making music: a laptop and headphones is all you need at first. Build around that.
CHASING “success” before Building up skills
This is a classic. Knowing what you like is one thing, knowing what you do best is another. We all have certain skills that feel natural and sometimes you need to explore to discover all of them. Planning your DJ career without having done a few gigs and releases is getting a bit ahead of yourself. Take your time; enjoy the fun of making music and success might come down the road. Chasing success can be like pursuing a mirage.
What I suggest would be to really focus on loving making music before anything else. I often encourage people to start with things little such as making music for friends or to share with local DJs. If you build a network of 5-10 people, that’s enough to slowly build your self-trust and eventually emerge at the right time.
A Lack of patience
Making quality sounds and music is like brewing wine/beer: it demands time, patience and some sort of personal isolation for a while. It’s important to stop yourself from sharing your work to the whole world before it is really done. The name of the game in music production is patience and it is the same for anyone who want to go to another level.
Misguided Audio Production Techniques
If we’re talking tech, this list of issues are some things I always find in the work of new producers. Perhaps you can start changing your techniques if you recognize yourself in this list.
You can also ask for help and I will update this list with pleasure!
SEE ALSO : Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head
The 2-minute Soundcloud preview method
/in Blog, Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements, Tips/by pheekThe 2-minute Soundcloud preview method, as I call it, is about creating tracks previews that are 2 minutes long. Why that length?
If you look at most track previews labels and artists are sharing online, they’re about 2 minutes in length. This unofficial standard got popular during the early days of Soundcloud when a little problem was discovered involving people being able to download full tracks from the website; not the full resolution file, but the streaming version, which is very low quality. Many tracks leaked this way and it’s crazy to think some people used those versions to play in podcasts or even in clubs!
So then, why post 2-minute tracks?
Many labels look for artists by browsing their Soundcloud page and it doesn’t look good if the page is empty. As a result, some artists started creating “fake” songs, as 2-minute tracks, often with artwork created by an online app. The crazy outcome of this behaviour was that some people/labels started asking artists to release some of those two-minute tracks, which forced the artists to finish them.
The pros of uploading 2-minute mini-tracks is that if someone connects with you about one, you’ll know what’s working best from all the tracks you have online. This particularly useful if you have a large number of sketches and wonder which ones have the most potential. The cons of this approach, if done poorly, is that it can really backfire at you, and make you look (very) unprofessional.
That said, if your goal is to get some traction online, this method can really be effective. Some people also need motivation and direction to get things done so this approach might be good for you if you’re one of those artists. Here are some tips on how to approach this effectively, to get most out of it:
Use tracks that are in progress to avoid getting caught with unexpected requests. The more advanced you are in the arrangements, the better. You can actually use a complex 2-minute base as a way to find the final ideas of your track. Uploading a very simple loop is not a good idea as it might sound completely empty.
Make sure it is mixed properly. This might be the most difficult part of it, but make sure the mixdown is solid. Use some compression and have a limiter on the master to glue it together.
Make sure the main idea of the track is exposed in the preview. What I mean here is, be sure that if someone listens to your preview, they will have an idea of what the song is about. If you need a better idea, go to decks.de and listen to previews of records to see what I mean.
Have something strong to say. Make sure your loop is exciting, has something special in it and has a memorable element that might make people want to hear more. This is the most critical aspect of your 2-minute track.
Try to have very different song ideas from one to another. If you have too many previews that all sound exactly the same, it’s sort of like having a colour palette with a multitude of beige variations; have different colors but keep an aesthetic that is in tune with your style.
Make sure the mixdown is solid, then normalize. If you don’t use a limiter, export it normalized, this will create a louder version.
Limit the total number of tracks on your Soundcloud page. Try to pick a number between 10 and 15 then never have more. Why? Because you don’t want to be that artist that has zillions of unsigned tracks either. Remove older ones and remove ones that have no comments or likes. This is not good for momentum (see my previous post).
Indicate if the track is unsigned. Let people know the track isn’t signed or mastered; this helps clarify to people who listen to it.
So then, when do you finally finish one of these 2-minute tracks? You should decide to finish it when it generates some sort of buzz. If you get a DJ asking for a copy of a track for a podcast, this can be as important as if a label would like to sign it. If someone interested in your track, don’t sleep on it; let me know of your results!
SEE ALSO : Intuition for decisions in music production
Not getting booked for shows? Try this.
/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheekIf there’s one thing that haunts all artists, it’s entering a phase where you’re not getting booked for shows, or not getting any attention in general. Perhaps you were enjoying a phase of being booked frequently that’s now coming to an end, or perhaps the music ecosystem is changing and you might be out of tune with what’s currently demand.
When I come into a period where bookings start slowing down (or requests to work with me), I think of this new phase as a sort of “hibernation”; it’s a time to focus on other things that are important for the next time I start getting booked again to re-create upward momentum. Getting booked regularly is sort of like a wave you can surf for a while, but it can end, and you should take a moment to question why the ecosystem isn’t supporting you anymore. Perhaps it needs to be re-energized, or perhaps it’s time to change waves.
Even if your wave fades out, you can still rebuild your momentum.
For instance, you might publish a song on Soundcloud and have a certain number of people who comment, like, repost but you didn’t ask for it. You can view this as the beginning of a wave. The number one mistake people make that hurts their momentum is release a track out of the blue and expect people to listen to and engage with it without any additional preparation or planning; doing this will make you bitter and frustrated.
To remain humble and grounded, let me offer you a few rules I’ve applied throughout my musical life:
Through the experience of running my label Archipel for years, as well as other projects, I noticed that what created momentum was the usually initiated through a few diverse actions. The more imaginative you are, the better the results will be. Some of these actions include:
Some basic marketing rules also apply here. Apparently, if people see three things you’ve done, it will imprint an impression on their memory. Sharing something positive will leave a better impression. Another general rule is that people enjoy useful information. Helping others or being part of something always strikes a chord in people. Being selfless in most of your online posts vs self-promotion is a critical tone you want to hit on. If you’re constantly posting things that are egotistically and promoting “your brand”, no one will pay attention.
Let’s create a plan that uses all these points in a hypothetical scenario to promote a song you’re releasing. In this hypothetical situation, we will try to create momentum online to have people come and listen to the track. Our goal for this is to get more online followers, widen up your network, and hopefully get a bit of attention from labels and some DJs who might play it out.
Scenario: Release a track on Soundcloud; we’ll take two weeks to build up momentum but the more time you take, the better.
First, try to visualize a number of plays you’d like based on a model track you like. Find a producer you like who produces music similar to you and have roughly equal or a bit more followers than you do. The main mistake people make is to try to replicate plays of far more popular musicians. Let’s say your track has 140 plays, 3 reposts and 14 likes.
A relatively successful track is identified by the number of likes vs the number of plays. I would say that 10% ratio is very good already, but if you make it up to 15 pr 20%, then I’d say the track was a success. The trick to get your ratio in the right zone is to have interested people to listen. If you’re marketing to too many random people that aren’t your target listeners, you’ll end up with many plays, but few likes; this is why reposts are important.
Now that you know all these details, let’s try to create momentum for the self-release:
As the release date approaches, have some online presence about 3-4 times a day on different channels. You can post in groups (but not shamelessly about yourself!), share things, comment. Be active. When you want to release the track, you need to get it out in a huge blast.
It’s your time to shine, make it right! Cover all your channels and talk about your release, but stay as humble as possible. When you post it, don’t have a tone that gives the impression that you expect something from someone, but instead that you’re simply happy you finished the track and want to share it.
Releasing music during the beginning of the week at a moment when people can actually listen is a good strategy.
Post-mortem comes usually a week after. Look at your stats and see what worked and didn’t work.
I hope this helps!
SEE ALSO : Make Your Music Bucket List Happen
The creative burnout no one is talking about
/in Blog/by pheekAround 2008, as I was coming back from the doctor’s office, I felt completely lost. He told me that I had to change what I was doing because I was heading straight for creative burnout. At that time, in my career, I felt like it was in its peak: I was touring, releasing music, making remixes, was invited to great festivals, and had an occasional part time job as a teacher. I had nothing to complain about; I felt I was pretty much living my dream.
So what was going on exactly?
Before I explain, I want say that this post is about sharing what I’ve learned the hard way. I’m talking about an important thing no one will tell you:
When you do what you love, you feel invincible. This might be related to the feeling of flow, explained by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, which is a state you get into when you create or become really focused. The thing about music is, it’s about inspiration, and inspiration doesn’t come about “when you need it”, it just happens.
How do you recognize the signs that could announce you’re on the verge of crashing?
Keep track if any of these are persistent.
These obstacles may lead to burnout:
Overworking
Going from a “normal” full time job to transforming a hobby you love into a job involves a pretty steep learning curve. There are multiple things to take in consideration . Money in the artist’s life is the source of a huge amount of stress. Not only can you not predict when things will work, but when they do, you don’t know how long the ride will last Since there’s no obvious relationship between the creative work you do and what you harvest, it becomes very easy to overwork. Pair that with the pleasure of making music, and at first you’ll feel you have too much time on your hands to know what to do with. As I described in a previous post about how spending a long time in the studio is counter-productive; you can easily ruin a lot of your own music. During the early years when I was making music full time, I felt I didn’t create music that was as meaningful as when I was working and doing music on the side; this realization has changed my way of making music for the better.
In my case, with my label (Archipel), mastering, touring, and everything else, I really was working up to 60 hours per week. I forgot to take care of my health. No wonder I couldn’t keep up the pace after a few years went by. When you do what you love, it never feels like work, but it is.
Expectations
Managing your expectations is extremely tricky in the arts domain. The ultimate goal is to get recognition, because many things unfold after that. Or do do they?
It’s very difficult to tell, and it messes up your zen. For instance, if you believe that this release on a specific label will give you certain opportunities, or you think that playing in a gig will lead you to get better gigs, or working with an agent will give you more visibility, etc, all these things – in theory – could be true. You admire specific role models who’ve made it to a level you want to reach, but you might never seem to get there even by doing the same things.
Why isn’t there a recipe that you can follow that will guarantee results?
The arts are a big gamble; a lottery where the turn out is not determined by anything rational other than – most probably – timing and networking. And even if you have those right, it might not lead to anything at all.
Some people will tell you that hustling hard might make a difference, but you might get to the opposite of what you want; people don’t like artist who are constantly “pushing their brand”. Knowing when and when not to have expectations is certainly incredibly healthy, especially if you can reduce them to be realistic.
In conclusion, what I’d recommend based on my experiences with creative burnout:
SEE ALSO : Mindfulness for Creatives
Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 3)
/in Performance, Tips/by pheekAfter the first two parts on this series of posts about playing electronic music live, we arrive at our final topic: clip arrangements, song organization and sound preparation.
Clip Preparation
I hope you did your homework from part two where I asked you to take your arrangements and turn them into an Ableton Live session. If you’ve done this, you’ll see that this task is pretty demanding and can be confusing, because you might feel your song(s) aren’t the same anymore, or perhaps they don’t make any sense. But trust me, even if you feel like you have failed in arranging your sessions, it will start to make more sense as we continue. What really matters is that you now have material loaded into the session view.
That’s not a problem, the idea is to have something. Part of the beauty of a live set is that once you have all your tracks in the session, you’ll shape them into a longer set. A live set isn’t like a DJ set, where you focus on transitions and track selections; it’s way more flexible and involves constant shaping to create a bigger picture.
1st To Do: Import all Your tracks into one big project
For the sake of this exercise, please start by creating a blank new live set that you’ll name “My Live Set” where you’ll have 12 channels to start with.
One of the great new features of Ableton 10 is that groups now appear in the browser; which could be a good way to organize your work to re-import later on.
You should also consider copying audio leftovers over from each track. These unused pieces are more precious than you think, in a live context. A leftover is anything in your track that was created but didn’t make the final cut. It could be a variation, some weird FX, vocals, whatever – basically, anything will do. The idea behind leftovers is to create material for your live version to make it differ from the original song; it will add an edge.
Once you have all your tracks imported, you have a better idea of your whole session.
The answer here is hard to figure out until you’ve rehearse and determine your natural flow. After years of playing and recording my sets, I’ve figure that each of my tracks average a rough 6 to 8 minutes in a live context. This also includes the transitions (i.e two songs overlapping for 1-2 minutes, to make things smooth enough like a DJ would).
The total time of the tracks is not necessarily important to figure out. If you’re creative, you might even play the tracks in a random order.
2nd To Do: Name and color all clips appropriately
People often overlook this part but trust me, the better the organization, the less stress you’ll have in a live context. Never believe yourself when your mind says “oh I’ll remember what this clip is.” This is why names are important, but also, the clip color. All kicks should be the same color, basses and so on. My personal coding colors have been:
Kicks: red (grabs my attention)
Low end, bass: brown
Percussions: yellow
Claps/snare: Orange
Hihats: grey
Melodic elements: Blue, in various tons as some are different.
One thing about colors that helps is if you’re playing a track while in transition to another one, you can see the color of the other clip that you can’t see on screen.
Please note that I don’t necessarily recommend putting all of the same sounds in the same channels. You might want to mix, for instance, hihats of track A with the ones of track B. If both track’s hihats are in the same channel, you won’t be able to mix them and one will play after the other (only one clip can be played in a channel at a time).
Scene organization
Organizing your scenes is time-consuming, and it will also be what you’ll be reworking the most. It will also get your songs to have more of a live feel. For this section, I’ll use an example of one of my latest live sets to explain what I did, and why.
This song starts at the second row (scene).
Channel headers: As you can see, header colors aren’t important to me so much but there is a section all in white. This is because I use two MIDI controllers for controlling the volumes and the second section is for the second controller. This is also why they’re numbered so I know which slider they refer to on the actual controller.
3rd To Do: Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers
Think of how you want to control your set on a base level, which is the channels in most cases. This is the most important part to pin down, because as you prepare your set, you’ll need to control volume sliders. Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers. If your controller has buttons, I’d also map them to the mute buttons. Mutes are very important.
Buffer rows: As you can see, alternating rows before and after each busy row have scene of empty clips. You can also see that they have the “stop” square in them. I create “buffer rows” for two reasons: the buffers help know where the song starts and begins, but they also serve as a quick way to toggle a clip to stop playing if necessary.
4th To Do: Add 1-3 buffer rows between each song
The first scene/row of each track: The first row, to me, is the most important one. Over years of playing, I’ve settled on a super minimalist version of my live set where I play mostly loopy music with variations which really enforced the importance of the first row of the set.
The first row has various various roles:
5th To Do: Make a solid core
Supplementary/following scenes: There are multiple ways to use the scenes that follow your initial introduction. To “play it safe” you could simply have each scene play as the track evolves. The good thing about this approach is that by having all scenes on hand, you can deconstruct the timeline of your song by playing them in different orders. My favourite way of doing this is to have variations of a scene, such as one line with hihats, one with none, one with two playing and a clap, etc, same for melodies. This way I can play variations but I can also trigger one entire line and have a “ready-to-go” new take. If you look at my live set screenshot above, you’ll also see that under one sample “Tommydrum”, I have the same clip three times using variations in timing or tweaks in the versions. I can toggle between them as I need them.
Last To Do: Plan your follow-up lines/scenes and decide what you use.
In the next post, we’ll discuss rehearsing, sound calibration and advanced clip settings!
Checklist to see if my song is finished
/in Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements, Sound Design, Tips/by pheekLately I’ve been working on a live set, and I realized that I have a personal checklist I use to see if I covered everything to help me decide if a particular song is finished; from little details to bigger things, sometimes it’s easy to overlook important factors. Just like with traveling, you want to make sure everything is ready before stepping out of your project.
This checklist outlined in this article is what I personally use before shifting to the mixing phase. In a past article, I explained the importance of exporting the stems out of your project once the production is done. This frees up CPU usage, lightens up your projct, gives you the option to backup or collaborate, or possibly to do some mixing into another DAW to get different textures. But mostly it’s a way to tell yourself “Ok, time to move on.”
Do you need to cross-check everything in this list to declare your song finished? No, not at all. Below is just a cheat sheet to help you have a better idea of everything that could potentially be covered (and I’m sure I’m missing one or two things here).
Below are what I believe to be the major categories of the “song is finished” checklist in terms of production (mixing is another phase altogether that comes afterwards):
The hook is where everything begins and ends, so ask yourself these simple questions to get started:
Sound design is actually the most important section to me and this is usually where I spend the most time. I have sub-categories here that I will cover.
3. Groove
My “groove” section is a bit less detailed, but is very important, especially if the song is more percussive and dancefloor-oriented.
4. FX/Sends
Using sends is crucial for giving the track a unified feel. One of the most common mistake I see from new producers is to use multiple reverb effects everywhere in the project instead of mainly using one as a send. I usually use multiple sends to create elaborated and sophisticated 3D effects for percussion and melodies. One of the most important point I always remind myself is to use them with care, towards the end of the production phase.
I previously referred to song structure as Lego building blocks in a previous post. Blocks are often constructed in the same way; this is why using a reference track can help break out storytelling ideas. I always recommend dropping Markers in the arrangements this way: One at the beginning, one at the end, and one in the middle. Markers will give you perspective, help you see if your general storytelling is balanced, and help you determine if things are properly organized.
From the middle marker, I would drop one additional marker between the very beginning and the middle markers, and then do the same thing in the second half. Your song should have four distinct sections. Sections one and four are intro and outro; the middle part is where your song develops and mostly exists.
These sections cover the main points that I usually think about when determining if a song is finished or not. If I don’t like the answers I come up with to some of these questions, I usually go back and work on the track even more!
SEE ALSO : Is My Song Good?
Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 2)
/in Performance/by pheekAfter deciding the direction your live set will take, we will now discuss how to prepare a live electronic set in terms of how we approach each individual song, or moments as I call them. This article is the follow up to Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 1)
Before continuing, make sure you have read the article linked above; after which you should have a better idea the style you’d like to play live. Since most electronic musicians are software users, we’ll start with that approach which is easier and allows for playing both at home for fun or in a club. A common mistake I often see from new artists who want to perform live is to make things too ambitious and overly complicated; the preparations become too demanding and actually playing the set loses its fun.
First idea in preparing your set: turn your tracks, finished or not, into moments to be played live.
In a previous post, I said that making many loops is something that eventually pays off. When you want to play live, it’s always best to have a lot of options on hand that you can trim, to see what works together and then turn these perhaps unfinished loops into new songs.
For years, I always had a main project file for playing live in which I would test drive any new ideas I would worked on done over a given period of time. This live set was like a laboratory for experimentation; it was where new ideas would sprout, where loops became completed tracks, and where some sounds were replaced or remixed into another track. In other words, I recommend turning your unused arrangement loops into a scene in Live, play them, and record the output. Rinse, repeat.
But where and how do I start?
For example, let’s take this simple arrangement and see what we can make out of it. Let’s say you have a track in the works or done, partially set up in an arrangement view (Note: Any DAW, in arrangement, not just Ableton); firstly, you’ll need to know how the track is structured.
Figure 1 – Arrangement view with markers
Do you want to play the track like your arranged it or do you want to have the parts so you can improvised with the different section?
As you can see in the above screenshot, I have inserted markers in my arrangement which represent the main changes between sections; everything is mostly organized in blocks. You’ll need to slice out these blocks to trigger them, and also what will become important is how you decide to play them. If some parts are heavily chopped, I would recommend that you either turn that section into an entire block, or if you want to jam those sounds you could add them to a Drum Rack. It depends if you want to do some jamming in your set or not. The point here is to have a better view of how your blocks exist so that when you are in the session view, the parts are easy to see.
1st TO DO:
Figure 2 – Consolidated vs. Unconsolidated blocks
In Figure 2, the left section has been consolidated, and the right side hasn’t. You can the Duplicate left section to the right after consolidating this way.
This may appear time consuming, but it’s not that much extra work and it will pay off once you move everything to session view.
When you’re finished here, you need to bring the new blocks into the session view.
If you have groups, I’d suggest to ungroup them. The reason is that it is not only inconvenient to use groups in session view, but there are chances that your groups differ from one song to another, and in the end it might be more confusing than helpful. If you have grouped FX, I’d suggest you export the entire channel as a stem and decide later how to use it in a live context. You could perhaps decide to use FX during the live and so, not to bounce the channel. It’s hard for me to tell you what to do here.
2nd TO DO:
cmd+a, click to grab, press Tab and then drop them in the session view
Regarding the number of channels to use, you’ll need to do tests on your own set up before deciding how to do this. In the previous post on this topic, I was advised to be careful with the number of channels/tracks you use. Ideally you want to deal with a max of 12. To trim down the number of channels you are using in the event that you are already using more, you’ll need to mix down a few that are similar or combine channels that don’t have much going on. For example, I’d have a channel that would be a longer loop that would combine all FX and random hits. Playing it as a longer loop as opposed to a shorter one creates more of a live feel that isn’t as “loopy”.
Rehearse your session by hitting certain clips or triggering a scene to see what happens. Once you have removed the redundant scenes and trimmed down the number of channels, you’ll start having a first real glance of what your song looks like in terms of playing it live.
Personally, I think it’s a bit boring to not offer something different in a live set, Two ways you can change things up are through pacing and jamming. jamming will be touched on more in part 3 as it is a very important part of preparation and can also be something that can also forever change your approach regarding how you make music.
Pacing will be the last part of the preparation of your live set. I will cover most of the preparation phase of pacing below, and the following blog post will be more concerned with how to play your live set.
A well prepared set has moments for building tension, others to release, variations, and material to raise the intensity if needed, without it being a fixed bunch of parts that aren’t easily movable. Each songs need an intro and outro so that you can move from one song to another in a very flowing way, just like a DJ would do.
Last TO DO (3):
In the next post, we’ll go into more detail about the actual clips and how to create the perfect little “laboratory” for you to jam with. I’ll propose some ways to jam that will open doors to finally playing live and having all the fun that comes with it.
SEE ALSO : Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 3)
Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 1)
/in Performance/by pheekPlaying electronic music live is a huge topic and I could dedicate an entire blog to it; this is the first in a series of posts outlining some advice to help electronic and computer-based musicians perform a live set. My goal here is to cover everything you need to know to perform live.
Prior to writing this post, I talked with MUTEK Festival’s director Alain Mongeau about how the festival has been sticking to prioritize live acts. I asked him if live acts were still popular compared to when the festival’s debut in 2000. He said that while it is an important thing for them to promote live expression of music, there’s still confusion on what it really implies.
Firstly, we need to answer the essential question which has been debated for years:
What is a “live set” and why would you do it?
I’m not going to explain this in a ton of detail, but let’s clarify one thing, no one person has the right to say what a “correct” live set is. You should have your personal opinion about what a “live set” means in electronic music, which will then in turn be the foundation of your own approach to creating a live set.
Before I offer any answers to this question, let me share my personal interpretation of the phrase “live set” which has defined my own sets since the very first one I performed in 1999.
To me, a live set of electronic or computer-based music:
While I’ve always felt that these should be the basic “rules” of live sets, I’ve come across so many well-established artists who don’t follow any of these points and would argue that “live sets” are something different. Like I said previously, it’s not up to me to decide how “live sets” should be. Picture your own interpretation of a good “live set” so you can build your session accordingly.
Why do you want to play live? This is an equally important factor to consider. I feel that live sets in electronic music are very important and meaningful to both the artist and the audience. It’s a rare moment for an artist to share, connect, explore and be creative with a lot of other people. I don’t believe it approaching live sets lightly unless, well, you’re music is light-hearted perhaps! But even then, I still think devoting time and love to your set can do great things.
Live set preparations
I’d like to cover three main types of live sets to start to help you decide on a direction you want to take for your own sets.
Live Set Type #1 – Playing close reproductions of your own tracks
This type of set is what I’ve been doing most when I play live, but I really make sure that no matter how I’ve prepared my set, it has room for improvisation. I remember a tour where I had one person see/hear my set three nights in a row and told me years later that each night was pretty different, and each felt like a different trip – that really made me happy!
Live Set Type #2 – Playing mainly improvisations with little-to-no preparation
In the early years of my live sets, this was how I approached live sets, but I came back to the first method as I find that for me type #1 is the most fulfilling. This method however, will definitely result in completely new versions of your music each time you play.
Live Set Type #3 – Playing with analog gear or hybrid with A laptop
This type of live set is fun and looks good on stage but is also very tricky, mostly because of the sync problems you might have between gear and the laptop. But if you make it work, it can be pretty damn epic.
Other Live Set questions you might want to address
These two questions can also influence what type of live set you decide to build and play.
Concluding thoughts on live set types
Think ahead; think about which direction your live set might go. For instance, if you want to play your own tracks, think of which ones you’d want to use, and try to have them all in a folder (use the “collect all and save” from Ableton to make sure you have everything on hand ready to go). As for the improvisation and hybrid sets, think about what kind of setup you might want and feel comfortable with. And lastly, the audience you are performing in front of is important. You should never play the same set in a club as you would at an outdoor festival.
Stay tuned for part two of this series of posts on playing electronic music live.
SEE ALSO : Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 2)
Managing relationships, parenting, and music
/in Blog/by pheekI’m a father and have a family of my own. I’m often asked how I can still manage to find the time to make music amidst the chaos of all of the moving parts of my life. There’s no perfect way to balance everything life throws at you–balancing music and parenting is a challenge–but I manage to run a record label, play live sets, and release recorded music, all while being a parent. The life of someone who has the responsibilities of making music and parenting is very different than the life of a person whom only needs to focus on themselves and music alone. Knowing this fact and accepting it was, for me, the first step in taking ownership of my own time-constraint frustrations.
Your free time will become sacred
As a parent, you have to eliminate any possible distractions to when you’re ready to make music, because your time is limited. “That’s obvious” you might say, but when it comes down to it, as a musician and parent, this is the most important point I find one must follow to make the most of his or her time.
The number one enemy to creativity is to focus on too many things at once. Try to steal some time away from less productive things like playing video games or watching movies, to instead do things like learn how to use certain plugins that will be beneficial to your craft.
Echo Beach and Dahlia (Photo by Katherine Hoos)
Work faster, fix later
One thing I’ve noticed since becoming father, is how I’ve had to optimize my use of the little free time I have to maximize my productivity. For example, I’ll squeeze programming a percussion loop into a 5 minutes window of spare time. I’ve also developed tricks for myself to turn a loop into a full song in the fastest possible time. I tackle certain things in the creative process that don’t needed much critical thinking as fast as possible. Here are a few advisory points you can use to do the same:
Not making music isn’t a waste of time
One of the things I’ve had to deal with is daydreaming. When not making music, sometimes I feel anxious that I might be behind or that I’m going to miss an opportunity. However, some of the best music ideas have come to me while I haven’t been making music at all. Sharing this with others has made me realize that I’m not alone in this phenomenon. It seems as though the brain can hatch great ideas when doing other things; everything comes in due time. In a past post I explained how to spot your creative triggers; this can be a game changer in this context if you are aware of them.
Echo Beach and Dahlia (Photo by Katherine Hoos)
Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to start making music. Just get used working sometimes with headphones, at a very weird moments of the day. Get things done.
Make room for healthy habits
For some reason, I see a lot of people resisting the idea of forming habits. They associate music making with debauchery, partying and going a bit off the hook. Yes, it can definitely be that way, and if that’s how you see it, why not? But at the same time, if you aspire to be a bit more professional, organized and to actually get things done, you’ll need to focus on priorities. One of the most useful things to do is to make your art healthier.
Last but not least, try to involve your child or loved ones in your music. It’s not something that has to work but it can help them understand what you do, how you do it and what it implies in terms of focus.
I hope some of these points help you maximize your time as a parent or partner! Remember that you can always ask for help, too.
SEE ALSO : Make Your Music Bucket List Happen
Equipment Needed to Make Music – Gear vs. Experience vs. Monitoring
/in Production, Tips/by pheekThis post follows a previous one I made regarding the minimum equipment needed to make music; due to the popularity of that post and the number of questions I had afterwards, I wanted to dive deeper into my thoughts on this.
I’m often asked what matters the most between equipment, experience, and monitoring, and I give someone the following advice on those three topics:
The Role of Experience
There is absolutely no doubt at all that someone’s experience, more importantly than anything, will have the biggest impact on the quality of the music he or she makes. A producer with years of experience knows what works and what doesn’t. Even without the proper equipment, he or she will find ways to maximize the tools they are limited to in order to get the make the most of their gear, and sometimes can even turn something very insignificant into a piece of art. What’s also something to understand is that experience can also guide you to make strategic decisions based on past experiences. For example, someone who has made high quality products knows that reaching out to others who can help is a valuable, essential part of the process. Also, if you’re faced with limitations, the internet is filled with information about how to make the best of your situation. Lacking sounds you love? Find a sample pack and buy it. Lacking ideas or technique? Look stuff up on YouTube. There’s an abundance of information that is either free or cheap. Investing in little things like personal connections is not only a great way to build support among people who can help you later, but it’s also a way to stay on top of new and better tools that come out from people who and work with develop them.
Studio Monitors Matter
The biggest mistake I see in people who are just starting out, is to invest in cheap studio monitors because of their budget limitations. I know this one is tricky because many people have small budgets. Monitors are something you want to have for the next 10 years minimum, and you want them to be the best pair you can afford. Though experience is the most important thing to consider, but you can’t start with it if you have none, monitoring is to me, what’s you need to focus on as a close second. Studio monitors are your “eyes” in music making: if you can’t “see” what you do, your music will not be precise and the end result might be difficult to appreciate after it leaves your studio. Having proper speakers is like having access to glasses when you can’t see: all of a sudden, everything is clear and you’ll know exactly what’s not working.
The Role of Additional Gear
So, where should you start if you want to explore the tactile dimension of producing? If you still feel the need to buy equipment beyond a good pair of monitors, I would recommend the following:
Truthfully, there is no such thing as minimum equipment needed to make music, but the things I’ve outline here are things that will help you get started. I hope this helps!
SEE ALSO : What is the Electronic Music Equipment Needed to Start Producing?
The feeling of being behind: competition in music
/in Blog/by pheekIt’s interesting that somehow, music making has become a competition. If you think about competition in music and take the time to really examine this viewpoint objectively, this trend seems quite ironic. Before I debunk this common musical syndrome I often see in people I work with, I’d like to explain where I think it comes from.
One of the most common pitfalls of music making is comparing yourself to others. This is one of the most self-destructive things that can happen to a musician, but it’s so common that I sometimes feel like I need to de-brainwash people when they sit down with me to work on music.
Why comparing yourself is pointless.
Artists you’re comparing yourself with aren’t in the same category as you are. I’m not even talking about talent here, or gear; I’m talking about goals and needs. Similarly, the people who are usually using as your references for comparison were once in your shoes, but have evolved from there and are probably now making a living from music. Turning your hobby to a job requires huge changes to your music making process because you’re then dipping your toes in the business side of music, where your decisions are now in part based upon how it can generate some sort of “gain” for your career; financial or otherwise. In other words, if you were in a car race, it would be like comparing your Jetta to a Ferrari driven by a pro driver.
I often hear this:
The truth is, it doesn’t work that way. You’re not less good or less qualified than him – you just don’t have the network he/she has.
You are comparing yourself to others because you have specific goals and needs you want to achieve. This is what you need to know.
Your goals.
Are you aware of what your goals are? Knowing what you’re chasing will be a very helpful in terms of what exactly you need to do to achieve them. Some examples of goals in music might be:
Your needs can be satisfied in many others ways and falling victim to musical competition by believing you’re behind might actually be the wrong way to think about it. Are you really behind others? or are you just in a different position?
Since I’m not alien to that feeling myself, I’ve often battled my inner dialogue about the competitive aspects of being a musician. I came up with a very solid way to calm myself down by reminding myself of the following points:
The ego that loves to let itself drift into competition, once pushed aside, has a lot of room for creativity. But you must learn to understand when the ego takes over.
SEE ALSO : Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks
Free Ableton Live Mixing Template
/in Blog, Mixing, Production/by pheek(Update May 2023: When we moved to the new site, the template was lost. It was obsolete anyway as I’ve learned so much since that I can do better. I did a new one, but it’s more basic. In my opinion, it also does a better job. You can still gather ideas from this post and I will make another one but the basic is at the end of this post. The information below is for the old template, but the one to download is the new version. Sorry for the confusion. I will fix this soon.)
I’ve put together a free Ableton template after receiving feedback that it was very helpful for many people I’ve worked with. The template available on this page is aimed specifically at mixing. I’ve noticed that many aspects of mixing are often misunderstood; I’ve assembled a starting template that has bundled together many useful tools to deal with basic things – this free Ableton template will be useful for those involved in music making!
This template includes:
This template looks very close to what pro engineers use like the one Andrew Scheps did for Puremix, but I found Andrew’s template wasn’t really as suitable for electronic music. I’m sure he would disagree but underground music isn’t really handled like commercial music is.
Is this template for producing or just mixing?
You could use this template to start producing with if you feel comfortable with it, but I’d encourage you to export stems from a project and then use this template to mix. Yes, it’s a bit more work, but it will also make free up your CPU and make your project ready for a new phase of production. It’s fun also to put an end to tweaking details and then focus on the mix alone.
How do I use this template?
There are many ways you could potentially use a template like this but I’d like to explain a few things to get you started quickly. First off, grouping your sounds is always a good start. I like to to think of it this way:
Please note – I’m applying high pass on these groups and feel free to change the steep which can influence the sound in some good ways, sometimes.
The three busses are quite interesting to work with once you get the levels of your groups finished. For instance, you want to find the best relationship between bass and kick that are routed together. Once they are balanced, the bus allows you to control both the bass and kick at once; this can help you more easily decide on the tone of your track by moving the bus up and down.
I’ve also included a reference channel to remind you to use a track that can be used as a mood and reference board. Reference tracks are great to help you to take inspiration from parts of other tracks you like and would potentially like to use in your mix.
The various sends are simple tools to just beef up or open up your sound. Sends are really for finishing touches to your mix and they’re meant to be used as gently as they can be; subtlety can also make things intense.
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback for the development of this free Ableton template; I am glad I can continue to help everyone enjoy making music!
Click to download this free Ableton template: (New version 2023)
Pheek’s template 2.0 for Ableton Live 11.3+
My tracks always have the same song structure
/in Blog, Production/by pheek(Cover Photo by Luca Bravo)
One of the common things I often see and also struggle with myself is that sometimes I feel like my songs are always arranged in the same way; my song structure is often the same. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with following a regular song structure, often I feel like I need to have more arrangement variations in my work and new ways to present my music.
So, what’s wrong with repeating song structures you already know work?
There are secret ways to consistently get great results with certain arrangements that, for the most part, will always “work”. When I used to DJ hard techno or drum and bass in the late 90s, eventually I became really bored of all the tracks had the exact same structure. Yes, it was extremely easy to mix the tracks together once you understood the “tricks” but at the same time, it was also underwhelming for listeners and DJs with a creative minds who preferred more challenging music and mixing.
Before jumping into slice mode to get your arrangements upgraded, let’s outline a few rules that will be very useful to consider before we actually begin editing:
Slice your song structure
With your new habits in place, now go into slicing mode and get things started. As I’ve discussed before in a previous article, How to Turn a Loop Into a Song, you’ll need to decide the bpm and length of your track as starting point and build from there. I invite you to refer to the post if you need the full tutorial on that topic.
So let’s say you finally have a structure made up that you’re happy with. Here are the main key points I often use to avoid redundancy:
Try messing with your song structure; let me know how it goes!
SEE ALSO : Lego Blocks as Song Structures
Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head
/in Production, Sound Design, Tips/by pheekYou might never really be able to make the sounds that you envision in your mind 100% accurately using sound design, but I can offer you some advice to build on a good starting point to make something close to it. Just like in painting and cinema, often our imagination will play tricks on us; you might imagine what you think could be “the best idea ever” but once you actually get down to working on it, you quickly realize that there’s a world of difference between your imagination and the final output.
So, is there a way to use sound design to transpose those ideas into something practical?
Yes, absolutely.
Sounds have a structure, shape, and form, and when you “hear” something in your mind, you have to translate this idea into a precise description which will enable you to get you started on actually creating it.
To get a good start in the sound design process, ask yourself the following question:
The first step is to analyze the physical characteristics of the sound. Keep in mind that sound has multiple axes and characteristics:
Secondly, you need to identify a source material for your sound and decide how it will be shaped:
Native Instruments’ Vari Comp
And lastly, once you’ve established your source material, you can then dive into carving your sound:
Time: there are a few things you can do to manipulate the time and duration of your sounds. Pitch-shifting something to slow it down or speed it up is fun. Granular synthesis is always an option as well; one of many options being the Mangle VST. I also enjoy having a dark reverb with a tail to stretch the length of a sound. Any reverb can do a good job here but you can easily experiment with free options found on KVR.
The Mangle granular synthesizer
Envelope: If you have a big chunk of sound that you want to shape, there are again multiple options to shape it. If you’re using Ableton, the easiest way would be to use Ableton’s envelope inside the clip, and draw out the envelope of the volume or gain. There are also a few volume envelope tools out there; one you can look into that I like is Volume Shaper by Cable Guys; really powerful and fun.
Frequency Spectrum: As I mentioned, personally I like to experiment with a pitch shifter, but I also experiment with a 3-band EQ and a compressor; mostly a FET one which is a bit more aggressive (I recommend to learn more about different compressor types if you’re unfamiliar with them all). This way you can control specific parts of your sound and manipulate which parts you want to have more emphasis. This is definitely not the only way you can do this; there are so many other creative ways to use an EQ alone (such as the UAD Cambridge), but I like to combine multiple effects and then play with them as I am searching for the right sound.
Harmonics: Harmonics can often be manipulated with saturation and/or distortion. If you’re looking for a good distortion tool, you can check out the Scream VST by Citonic which offers tons of options. Otherwise, the Saturation Knob by Softubes is a great tool for a range of subtle to drastic changes. I suggest playing with filters as well; they can enhance some part of your sounds, especially if you use them in parallel (through a send/bus track).
Position: Try out any panner. There are multiple panning plugins on the market, but I’d be careful to make sure you aren’t making your sound spin too much in the design phase; you don’t know what the position of your other sounds will be yet and you might end up undoing everything later anyways. Beef up the sound with a chorus or a doubler to manipulate the sound’s position even more, but as I mentioned, try not to go too crazy with the panning when creating just a single sound.
These are just a few sound design techniques and ideas to get you started in creating and designing the sound you imagine inside your head. Have fun!
Bonus: A good way to come up with unexpected design ideas is to use randomization. Here’s an amazing tutorial by my buddy offthesky.
SEE ALSO : Creating Beauty Out of Ugly Sounds
Dynamic Sound Layering and Design
/in Production, Sound Design, Tips/by pheekSound layering can be a very complex or very simple technique in music creation and production depending on your goals. In a past post, I gave some really basic sound design tips; I have a lot of readers who are just starting out with mixing and producing, so it made sense to start with something less intense. This second post about sound design, however, will focus on something a little bit more advanced but still very simple: sound layering. It’s actually surprising to me to see so many people who ignore techniques that allow them to get the most out of layering, so I thought I’d write about it.
First off, I would like to discuss Ableton’s groups. Many people use them as the equivalent of busses, where all the grouped sounds will all be treated in a specific ways and yes, that approach works really well indeed. However, I prefer using a solo channel as a bus instead and use groups for sound design or classification. A good example is for kicks or claps, which are usually a combination of up to 3 different samples or sound sources (ex. 2 samples, 1 synth, etc.). Basically, since each sound is a collection of multiple samples, then I could say that they will work best as a group.
A second point to keep in mind, is that there’s always multiple ways to do sound design. Keep in mind that what I show you here is simply how I do it but there are other people who use different techniques; I try to keep it simple. Two methods Ableton will describe here that I like are the arranger and the drum rack.
You can do the same with the attack and release; there are so many options. I really recommend using the faders too for more control. So basically, volume, EQ are your best friends here. Brainworx has an amazing filter I recommend, it’s super solid for sound design.
If you prefer, you could also mainly use the Drum Rack to do the same thing. Load up the same samples in the pads of the tool and then sequence them by MIDI instead of putting them in the arranger. Some people dislike working this way because they can’t easily see the frequency shape of the audio file. But the advantage of this approach is that you get to have access to more options to manipulate your sounds, like the extra controls in Ableton’s Sampler window.
What I think is best in the end is to combine both the sound arrangement layering, with the an extra channel of Sampler use so you can work on constant movements. The main thing you want from your sound design, is a feeling of liveliness and emotion. The sampler has LFOs you can assign to filters, panning, or volume, which is a subtle touch that creates a nice layer of movement and liveliness. In the same way, I’d even add a synth of your choice to give richness to the sound with oscillators working to reinforce the fundamentals with a discrete tone; more complex sound layering.
Finally, on the group of the sound itself, I would add nothing but an EQ and compressor to “glue” everything together, but you could also use reverb to broaden your stereo image. These techniques should help you improve your sound design skills!
SEE ALSO : Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head
Are online communities replacing labels?
/in Blog, Blog slider, Production/by pheekIn mid 2016, I offered free coaching to everyone who joined my mailing list, and while this turned out to be a success which I didn’t expect, I had to put it on hold until I could find someone who could help manage the work involved. In the meantime, I created a Facebook group for people I’d worked with to join so I could provide them with feedback and support. There are many Facebook and social media groups for producers out there and many have themes and rules. I’m part of a few that I enjoy; I’ve used them to learn tricks and something get informed of certain music related news. So, for me creating a group was an opportunity to give people a place to feel open to share what they’re working on, to get feedback, and provide words of encouragement to anyone else.
Somehow, when I was running my label, I was hoping to create that same sort of synergy, but for some reason it never came. My label manager and I posted regularly through Archipel, trying to come up with ideas, proposals, concepts…but it was pretty much always the same guys that were interested. That was cool, but it was also puzzling me to have such a huge line up of artists (Archipel has almost 200 people who collaborated through years!) but that only 5-6 people were really into it.
Of course, the exposure and networking from a label also play an important role in an artist’s motivation to get signed, but the community is another major part of this motivation.
As it stands, I think these types of online groups like the one I’ve described could be as beneficial as a label because:
Your music has an impact. A major issue with the current music business is that there’s a huge feeling of hopelessness in the air, which can drain out all the juice we have as artists and creators. Most artists have the energy to build projects or beautiful products, but will their work be something that will remain hidden away on the “bookshelves” of the internet because it doesn’t sell? Are all songs worth being turned into records? Is there that much of a demand to keep working so hard creating?
The ego plays tricks on us. One of the biggest is to believe that our music is worth more attention than it is, in reality. Many artists feel anxious and depressed because of this reality check. We want to share the music but the low hits are depressing us. That said, this major issue can be addressed by being in a community: one of any types of communities that are seemingly replacing labels.
Personally, after years of releasing countless albums and EPs, I’m now more excited to know if my five closest and most trusted friends like my newest song. I know for sure they will listen to it and provide feedback. I’ve decided to share my work with a selective number of people who can echo back the energy I put in it. I’m fed up of running after people and saying, in essence, “listen to my song bro! you’ll like it! leave me feedback!”
This spammy approach does nothing at all for all parties involved. But sharing your music with five people who care is worth 1,500 who were more or less not into it. I really believe that approach as stopped me from crashing into obscure thoughts.
SEE ALSO : The Changing Dos and Don’ts of Contacting Record Labels