Page 16 – Pheek's Mixdown and Mastering

Bouncing stems and mix

May 13, 2017/in Blog, Blog slider, Mixing, Production/by pheek

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.

Classic way. Which involves taking one phase at a time but with the option to roll back to go fix something.
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.

Guide to shameless self-promotion

May 9, 2017/in Blog, Blog slider, Tips/by pheek

Let’s face it, self-promotion is certainly one of the most loved & hated topics musicians face on a daily basis. I mean, you make music, it’s hard to repress that inner compulsion of wanting to share your work to the world right? Finishing music and releasing your hard work to the world feels amazing. Receiving constructive feedback from people you respect will also help unlock obstacles that make us reach the level of production we aim for. But we have to get it out for others to hear right? This post will help you be being your guide to shameless self-promotion.

Many people see self-promotion as something they need to do, which can make it feel like a painful obligation.

Music is a very strong, and personal form of expression. As artists we want to know if our message is understood and appreciated by others. In a way it’s self validating. Proper self-promotion is always about how to do it in a way that is truly authentic, and not make us look like something we are not. Now that we understand this – there are a few facts we need to check in order to make our self promotion efforts work for us. I’m not talking about going viral on social media, but specifically your daily efforts on social media as a way to leverage our network, and create something useful.

The minute you understand that it’s not an obligation but more of a catalyst to get things done, the dynamic will automatically change. This is a process called reframing your train of thoughts.

If you share your music with the intent and idea that you’re trying to unite, bond and communicate something personal, a huge chunk of guilt be removed from the idea of self promotion. Giving up on hustling sales and popularity will create a positive pivot in your career. We need to stop seeing the act of sharing music as a way to be seen, heard, known.

I’ve been reading a really helpful book named “Designing your life” which approaches what you want out of life through the mind of a designer. The point of the book is – to become who you want, to have the life you want, you first need to self reflect, and ask yourself what is going on to pinpoint what issue you’d like to fix. In our case, our target here is to build a healthy and strong network.

Over the past weeks, I’ve come across a few articles that state the importance of your surroundings and contacts to achieve the level of success you want. One of the main reason I am where I am right now was that I’ve been lucky enough to have amazing people helping me along the way. Behind every success story, there’s often a dedicated team working in the shadows of that success. One of the ways to keep riding high is to constantly share your wins with your tribe, and go out of your way to make sure everyone in your tribe is appreciated and part of your success.

How to build and design your music life comes with at least 4 important teamsters:

The feedback. That guy has the culture of the music you’re making and loves the music you also love. Therefore, his input means something as long as he’s being honest, of course.
The knowledge. This member is someone who has technical knowledge you don’t have and can be answering critical questions in time you need it.
The creative. This person feels the trends, surfs the ideas better than no one. He can propose ideas that are unusual but that can be leading you to something. See this person as a muse.
The propaganda. If you are shaky with social medias, let this person rave about your music while you can post about other things. This person becomes the validator and that is useful for your success.

Finding your team takes years and can also be shifting over time. But you need to connect with others and build your network to find the gems.

Ok, so how can we apply that in practice? How do we get started from scratch?

Don’t ask without giving first. I’ve made this #1 because this is often misunderstood. For instance, I often get emails from people giving me lot’s of compliments about my music, and quickly send me a follow up email asking me to listen to their music and provide feedback. There’s nothing wrong with asking for feedback, but it doing so out of nowhere makes me question the integrity of their compliments in the first place. It takes a lot of time to gain someone’s attention and trust. Involving yourself with someone is an investment, and building a genuine relationship takes time and often cannot be made overnight.
1. For networking, try: approaching and following people at your skill or experience level. You can and will grow with them. Leave feedback and appreciation on their music whenever there’s something you enjoy. Do not ask for anything in return.
2. For social media, especially Twitter or Facebook – share the music you are really into right now, especially from artists that aren’t well known. People love discovering new artists, and if YOU are that artist and find someone spreading praise for you the feeling will be an amazing one.
Be a supporter. You probably saw that video of the guy dancing in a festival in a super weird way, someone with a huge crowd following him comes to join the dancer, and just like that the party goes off. The second guy joining is crucial, he is the social influencer, the supporter. In the same vein as the previous point, you can be that guy by being the first one who leaves comments on Soundcloud and proposes to play people’s music in a podcast (if you’re a DJ).
1. For networking, try: Going to shows to meet people. The in-person contact never fails. If your contacts are abroad, try engaging conversation through messaging.
2. For social medias, try: Offering your help to labels, in any way possible. This is an important way to be part of something. You have no idea how difficult it is to run a small label, so any help can be useful and appreciated. Look at what you are good at and see if you can help. Perhaps you can help with the blog, graphic design, website, PR, etc… If it’s a small organization at least one part of the label might need a hand. Then on your social medias, you can support and champion the label, which will bring many unsuspected contacts.
Curiosity pays off. People think that approaching and forging relationships with fellow music producers involves talking about music. I’ve known artists that refused to forge any kind of contacts with people who initially approached them for music related reasons. They wanted to spend time with the person first to see if there was true chemistry. I believe many artists (to some degree) are social weirdos who often lack a variety of social skills. Being patient and curious will be essential in the way you engage with him/her, to make sure that person feels comfortable talking with you.
1. For networking, try: reading articles, start conversations, think of how someone approached you in a way that made you feel great. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just music-related. Apply this to others.
2. For social medias, try: Share information about your own interests. People in general hate self-promotion if it’s constant but if it’s something that is either useful or occasional, it will be seen positively. So, if your feed is self-centred it’s going to be annoying for your contacts. I’ve seen some artists spend a lot of their time sharing their passion for traveling, food, clothing, cars or memes… We all know you like other things than music and if you can share what it is you’ll attract minds alike which can become supporters of your music, later on.
Consistency is crucial. Not only for yourself but in others. Successful people have no tolerance for others who are inconsistent, unreliable. If you’re going to connect with someone, be there and always come back. I’ve built some solid contacts with some people who have been always sending me messages and be there for me. They won me over and now I love working with them.

In closing – within the book I was relating to, there is talk about creating a prototype to know which method of promotion feels and works best for you. To get comfortable communicating, sharing, showing your personal side, you need a lot of practise to get into a groove. Building your network takes time. But once you found your way to work, you know you have a formula you can repeat and always feel good about.

How To Quickly Audition New Plugins

May 3, 2017/in Production, Tips/by pheek

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?

Through 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:

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.
The length of effect. Is it short or long?
Volume change. Is it altering the loudness of the sounds?
Movement. Is it producing movement somehow?
Dynamics. Do the sounds appear to be more flat or popping out? This means the dynamics might have been affected.
Record the experiment’s results.
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.

Play one of the loops to be tested.
Chose a knob to start with, dial this knob at its minimum. Make a mental sonic image of your sound.
Put the knob at it’s maxed level (the completely opposite of where it was). Did something happen? What was the noticeable change?
Gradually bring it to the middle, where it’s exactly sitting in the 50%
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.
Once you’ve found something interesting, change the loop to see how it behaves on something else.
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

Is My Song Good?

April 22, 2017/in Blog, Blog slider, Song Finalizing and Arrangements, Tips/by pheek

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that question, and asked myself the same thing – is my song good? With experience releasing my own records and working on amazing projects that inspire me nearly every day, I know what I like in a song to call it good or know it’s potential. But what defines that exactly?

I believe there are 3 ways to look at your track to determine if your song is good.

Your personal feeling about the track. Can you listen to your track from beginning to end with your eyes closed? This is usually what many people (myself included) do to test it, some people swear by a car ride listen. In the end no matter how cliché this sounds, what YOU think is really important.
Feedback from others. I’ve been talking about the importance of your network and how to connect with other producers you can trust. Share your track with 5 closely trusted people and take in their feedback.
Professionals’ (real world) views. If you can find one to two guys that can play your tracks in real events or in podcasts, this is will be precious feedback. Playing your music among others will make little difference truly know – perhaps one sound is too loud or the arrangements is too wonky to mix. Listen to what they have to say.

Sometimes a change in mindset is key to breaking through barriers. Starting today, let’s re-shape your way of making and sharing your music.

I’ve seen some interesting success behind the concept I’ve been sharing with those I coach and will share it with you in this post. Before I do that I want to say that if your intentions are to get signed to a label – posting a full song on Soundcloud is a bad idea.

Even if your song is really good most labels don’t like that a track has been available or overheard before they’ve released it. In an ideal world, labels want to be the first ones to hear you and discover you. But the truth is, we all know how frustrating it is to reach out to them and never hear back.
Posting a snippet of about 1 minute 30 (to 2 minutes, maximum) is a good and safe bet.

With this preview you’ll show what your track has going for it, and your skills as a producer will be front and center.

Why not focus on making and developing ideas of 1 minute 30 that you expose and share on Soundcloud?

If this idea sounds like a bad one to you, try this experiment for a few weeks. For sure you’ll soon see what tunes get people’s attention and make a buzz. For sure you’ll find out that your assumptions might very well be wrong. Then go revisit any of those projects that were appreciated by the most people.

What you are doing here is very similar to A/B testing, a commonly used process in marketing for testing out different products to see how people like one from another. In this case we’re posting music, watching what get’s more attention, focusing on what listeners seem to want more of, and then finishing those tracks.
It’s all about presentation. Dress for success right?
You can go so far as to create enigmatic, invested EP of your own with great artwork. People definitely love that kind of presentation and it WILL draw attention. In the best case scenario (that I’ve recently seen happen) a label may notice this full package, and sign the project as is. If a label comes calling be sure you make them wait too long 🙂

The thing that makes a success isn’t one specific thing, it’s the combination of various assets: doing the right thing, at the right time, presented to the right people.

If Micheal Jackson released Thriller today, the odds of that album having the success it had back then would likely never have the same impact.
Another thing that’s important to consider is the question of what are people usually looking for in a new song?

Quality samples, effects.
A good balance of new ideas with something they can relate to.
Overall, tight arrangements, mixdown, (this can make a difference but don’t bet on that alone to save a pale idea).

In the end, it’s most important to remember this –
Don’t let other’s decide if your music is good.
Don’t let commercial results determine the success of your track.

As always I want to hear your thoughts and comments about this post. Feel free to share with your friends, and leave me a comment below.

JP –

Two birds one stone. Separating ideas.

April 15, 2017/in Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements, Tips/by pheek

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.

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.
Session view in Ableton

Bring all your sounds to the session view. (This will make it easier to see what’s going on).
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.
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.
Activate the crossfader option so you can see/hear the A/B.
Make sure the “x” is in yellow to activate the crossfader
Assign your sounds to either A or B on the crossfader. Don’t assign any of the percussions on the crossfader.
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.

SEE ALSO : Pheek Talk 3: Productivity Tips

Bonsai Method

April 10, 2017/in Blog slider, Production/by pheek

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.

<a href=”http://pheek.bandcamp.com/album/intra”>Intra by Pheek</a>

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.
In 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 –

Mix & Mastering Preparation Tips

April 1, 2017/in Blog slider, Mastering, Mixing, Tips/by pheek

As a mastering engineer one question I get asked all the time is – “how can I get the best pre-master mix out of my tracks?”. It’s an important question for sure, and this post will outline some of the actions producers can make right now to make your tracks sound way better than before. I can promise by following the mix & mastering preparation tips in this article you’ll hear a huge difference towards the final version of your projects.

My clients want big and full sounding tracks, and I love when my customers flip out after hearing the project they’ve worked hard on come back to them sounding every bit as big as the productions they are inspired by. If you ask the best engineers around the world they’ll tell you that working on music with a great quality mix is the key to turning a solid tune into a monster sounding track. But how do we get there first?

My clients come to me to correct and fix the flaws of their mixes, which isn’t always simple and straightforward. Working on properly mixed tracks with plenty of headroom (at least -6db) will make my job much easier and allow me to bring out the very best in your track.

It’s common for producers not to have the right tools or experience when tackling many of the problems that take away from a good mix, and this is where I step in to help. Let’s make clear a few things you can do in prepping your tracks to sound their best from the get go.

Avoid extreme EQ’ing. The greater adjustments you apply to a sound, the higher the likelihood of inducing unwanted resonances, and phasing issues. While in sound design, heavy processing can sometimes bring interesting results, it is often much more productive to pair an EQ with a compressor to get the same result. First, use your EQ to cut shelves from your audio source, then use compression to make what you want to hear, louder. TIP: Try using a maximum of 4 points on your EQ.
Remove unwanted frequencies. This is mainly about removing unnecessary frequencies from your sound, rather than cranking up the parts you want louder. If your sound isn’t a kick drum or something else in the lower range, apply a high pass filter or EQ and cut everything below 100hz. If your sound is a kick or bass, try cutting everything under 20-30Hz. As for pads, melodies, vocals, I’d suggest doing cuts in the 100-250Hz region as there will always resonances there. If you use reverb, make sure to remove or cut anything under 300Hz as it can easily get congested there, which will take out some of the precision and power of your song.
In the end using your eq is a process of clearing away space to allow other sounds to be heard more clearly. Less is more.
Be careful with cheap plugins. While you can do a lot with free or cheap plugins, sometimes, this might compromise the quality of your work. Most DAW’s will have native plugins such as reverbs, compressors, eq’s etc.. however I recommend investing $30-$50 on a handful of plugins that more than often sound much better than the native plugins your DAW provides. This applies to compression, EQ, reverbs, chorus, delays, etc. I’ll often get effects on Plugin Boutique or Plugin Alliance.
Side chain your kick and bass channel. These frequencies will likely overlap to some degree, which will leave your track sounding muddy, and reduce the impact, clarity, and volume of both sounds. Use sidechain compression with your bass and kick to allow both sounds to breathe and peacefully cohabit in your mix.
Less is more. Busy mixes, once compressed can sound horribly busy if not EQed properly. Play safe, use less. You might be surprised that on huge sound system, simple elements can sound much more powerful than a giant wall of noise.

These next 3 important points will always make a tremendous difference in the quality of your mix.

• Do not apply compression or limiting on the master (bus). Please leave the compression to me. This might sound like a good idea but your track will likely suffer for it. Mastering is my job, and I need your track to come to me as transparent as possible. If you add compression on the master channel, you’ll likely create distortions and the end result won’t be nearly as tight.
• Give me -6dBfs of headroom. This is super important. Ideally, you should aim to have each channel at -6dB, not just turn the master channel down to -6. This reduction in volume per channel creates the right amount of space for me work with and is essential in getting your track to sound full, and deep.
• 24 or 32bits / 44khZ. This is the requirement for the best results.
• Careful with hiss. Hissing is a background noise that can happen with analog gear or some fun plugins. Once compressed, it might be loud and difficult to mix in, so be careful of the level you use.

In general, the best mixes I get are the once where everything is balanced in terms of frequencies. Here’s a easy way to get that happen:

Lower down the volume of your monitoring. You can’t achieve good mixing at high volume. You’ll see right away what’s too loud if you use it that way.
Lower the volume of each channels if they’re too close to 0dB. One bad habit I often see is people pushing all their channels to 0dB. Not only this take off the dynamic range, but it also gets hard to see what’s at the right level. The loudest channel in your mix should be at -6dB, the others below. Why? Because it gives you room (6dB exactly!) to push louder to what requires attention.
Find the busiest moment in your track and listen to it looping. Now, use one channel at a time to lower your channels completely and mix each sound up until you hear it properly. The mix out/mix in technique is a good way to pinpoint if something was too loud in the mix. Sometimes, a sound doesn’t need to be that loud and because we overheard the track, we feel everything should be loud.
Group channels or use busses. Group your four main frequencies: low, mids, hi-mids, highs. You can then play with volumes of each zones and adjust them so they’re balanced. You may use again the mix in/mix out technique and EQ for subtle details.

I want to hear your feedback on anything talked about in this post. As always let me know if you have any suggestions or tips you’ve come across in prepping your tracks for great mixes. Share this post or leave a comment below and tell me what projects you’re working on right now.

SEE ALSO : Dynamic Sound Layering and Design

Finishing Your Projects

March 25, 2017/in Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements/by pheek

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.”

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.

SEE ALSO : Pointers To Define Your Sound

Making and breaking genres in your music

March 16, 2017/in Blog slider, Production/by pheek

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.

Lego Blocks as Song Structures

March 7, 2017/in Blog slider, Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements/by pheek

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.

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.
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.

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.

3. Work from bottom to top

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.

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.

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

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

February 27, 2017/in Production, Sound Design, Tips/by pheek

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.

Make a folder with today’s date.
You’ll be saving your project in there as well as anything related.
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.Step sequencing: Change the grid going from 1/4 for the main beats to fiddle to details with a 1/32. Tip:
Lenght: 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.

The Art of Keeping People on Their Toes

February 20, 2017/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

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

Using and Choosing an Alias

February 12, 2017/in Blog/by pheek

Artist aliases have a colourful history that goes back centuries. Long before techno, stage names and pen names were common in music and literature especially, with artists often wanting to separate their public personas from their private identities. Voltaire (aka François-Marie Arouet) and Bob Dylan (born Zimmerman) both wanted to break away from their pasts. David Bowie (born David Robert Jones) wanted to avoid confusion with Davy Jones, later the lead singer of The Monkees. And many of history’s biggest musicians and authors have wanted to disguise their genders (if women) or ethnic origins. There are as many motivations as there are people and contexts.

At the beginning of techno music, virtually everyone had an alias. It was part of the culture of techno for producers to want to remain faceless, with the idea that techno was supposed to be all about the music, instead of the egos. At the risk of getting too nostalgic, it was one of the things that made techno different.

One of the beautiful things with aliases is that they allow artists to channel one musical direction into a distinct brand, which frees them to explore many different projects or genres without fear of confusing or alienating their followers.

Two of the biggest examples in electronic music are Richie Hawtin’s Plastikman moniker and Aphex Twin, each with their own identifiable sound and even logo. Some artists, like Daft Punk, will take the concept even further, donning elaborate costumes during live performances to avoid ever showing their faces.

For artists like these — or like Bowie, who probably opened the door for these kinds of stage personas — using an alias can be a way to get around personal fears or insecurities and achieve complete creative freedom. In the 1990s, against the backdrop of Detroit’s urban decay, the city’s underground techno scene went all in on aliases, with many artists channelling superhero personas or other fictional characters to envision the future of music in a dystopic world.

So let’s say you’ve decided to use an alias. That’s likely the easy part. But how do you find the right one for you?

When it comes to techno music, there are often trends with aliases. One recent one was to remove the vowels and place all letters in caps. Another was to swap the first letters of the first and last names. But if you’re like for something more original, here are some tips for finding your own alias:

If you already have a nickname, use it. The whole idea behind an alias is that it’s something that is unique to you, and that people will quickly associate with your music. If your friends (especially those in your music circles) have given you a nickname because they think it expresses something interesting or special about you, they might just be onto something.

Use a vocal imitation of a sound (an onomatopoeia). Not many people know this, but I got my own alias by using an onomatopoeia (like swish, hiss, buzz, etc.) for a sound that I felt captured the feel of my music. There are no official spellings for sounds because everyone will hear them differently, so you can get really creative with this.

Do a random article search on Wikipedia. This might sound a bit strange, considering that I just said how important it was for an alias to be something unique to you. As a springboard to further research or new ideas though, Wikipedia can be a great resource. Just enter the first keyword that comes to mind and go from there, jumping off from article to article whenever something piques your interest.

Have fun with languages. If you’re having difficulty finding the right alias in your language, why not explore a different one? This can be especially fitting if you have a multicultural background yourself or speak different languages, or even if you just have a special bond with another culture and feel that its language speaks to you in some way.

Whether you follow one of these approaches or find your own, the important part to remember is that your alias is your brand. It should translate something essential about your music, and be striking and original enough that people will hear it and immediately think of you.

Have fun with it! The process of choosing an alias can be extremely constructive, since it invites you to explore what your music is all about.

SEE ALSO : The next big thing?

How to Create a Deep Kick

January 29, 2017/in Blog, Production, Tips/by pheek

One of the most important parts of electronic music today is the quality of kicks. Back when I started making techno in the 90s, kicks had greater or lesser importance. You could use a drum machine like a 909, select a kick, and that was pretty much it.

Things have drastically changed.

The rise of the Funktion One and the emergence of better sound systems in clubs led producers to create kicks that were better defined. Club-goers began to show more interest in the well-crafted kicks, and producers have responded by putting a whole lot more work into the design of their low end.

Music fans know a great kick by the nice body sensation that gets you up and moving on the dance floor. But to better understand what goes into making a beautiful kick, you’ll need a bit of a sense of how sound is used in clubs.

Voices. By voices, we’re referring to how the sound is defined. The typical club will have a sub and a top. Since some tops have 2 voices, the average sound system would feature 3 voices at most. But while most of the kick is heard in the low end (ie, the sub), it actually comes through all voices. One thing new producers sometimes won’t realize is that hearing the kick is more about increasing the presence of the mids than about boosting the low ends.

Crossovers. This technical term refers to the frequency setting used to divide two voices. For example, the sub usually covers a frequency range going from 20hZ to roughly 80-100hZ. The mids will fall between that first crossover and the next one, which will define the frequency range covered by the highs.

Why it matters. Because knowing how sound is used in clubs will allow you to produce music that sounds the best it possibly can. And the more your music stands out for its technical quality, the closer you’ll be to standing alongside the top producers who have mastered their sound.

DJ mixers. If you look at DJ mixers like the Xone series by Allen & Heath, you’ll note they support 4 voices, with separate knobs for the lows, low-mids, high-mids, and highs. These mixers are a good way to get a better sense of how DJs will control your sound when playing it live.

What is a deep kick?

In more underground and non-commercial strains of techno music, deeper kicks are central to crafting that deeper, warm sound. Physically, you feel deep kicks heavier in the lower part of the body, hitting you below the hips for extra warmth.

There are different kinds of kicks:

The full kick: This one covers the frequencies ranging from super-low all the way up into the high-mids. It is very punchy, well-defined, and direct.

The mid-kick: Popular in lo-fi music, the mid-kick, as the name suggests, occupies more of the mids. The lower end of the song might be covered by a bass, or might not be as present in the genre. This one punches you right in the chest. It’s punchy, but lacks thump.

The low-kick: This one places the accent on the sub part of the kick. This means the bass won’t be struggling there, since it will move up to the lowest end of the mids. This one has less punch, and creates a warmer effect by landing below the hips.

One thing about kicks that often gets overlooked: you’ll benefit a lot by finalizing your kick as the last part of your mixdown. Why? Because until the track is completely finished, you can’t exactly know your track’s needs. This is a detail, but an important one. Try it, and you’ll see that adding the kick last can produce incredible results.

Once you determine your track’s needs, you can use these tricks to make your own kicks. I’ve also created a macro that should make things a lot easier, but first, here are some important tips:

Synthesize the sub. Use Operator or your favourite VST synth to create the low end. Using a sine wave can be a really effective way to create that warmth.

Layer another kick for the mids. Use a sample of a kick you like for the mids. This means you need to cut its lowest end to avoid conflict with the sub. The simpler the lows, the better the results.

Saturation. This is not really a trick, so much as something to use freely and without hesitation. Saturation will add warmth and oumph.

EQ. A good method here is to slightly cut down the 160-to-200hZ range. This little hole you’ll create will allow the crossovers to breathe, and will open more room for the lows. You can lightly boost it around 1khZ to help define the transient and attack.

Compression. Use at the end of your chain to glue everything together.

Here is the macro I created to help get you started. Having playing with it. Download it here: [download id=”30199″]

Let me know what you think of it!

Conversations with Clients: Kike Mayor

January 26, 2017/in Mixing/by pheek

In Conversations with Clients, we bring you an honest and unfiltered look at Pheek’s services, straight from the mouths of those who know — and want you to know too! For this third piece in our series, I spoke with Kike Mayor, a Peruvian techno producer based in New York.

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Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself and your experience as a producer?

Well I started DJing back in the year 2000. I started collecting my first records at the end of the 90s, it was during my last years in high school. And then right after, I started playing records, and playing local parties in my hometown in Peru. Shortly after that I found myself playing at these big parties, and I was the warm-up DJ for every single act that came out of the country. Then I started making music around the year 2005, and from then I just kept doing it and made a lifestyle out of it.

You’ve been producing for a long time now then, just over 10 years.

Yes, 10 to 12 years. My first record came out in 2007, so 10 years in the market anyway.

And throughout this time, have you mostly mixed your own music? What’s your experience with sound engineering in particular?

It’s not much. I’ve pretty much been doing my own mixdowns based on my ear training, and it took me a while to realize how important [the mixdown] is. Last year I found Pheek, and he explained to me how a mixdown can really make a difference on the final product. It’s just amazing. And it’s not that he… like, he does nothing to a track that is already produced, he just, how to say it… he puts every single part of a track in its own space. Do you know what I mean? And from that, the tracks sound clean. And like, I never had any complaints about it [before], but I just feel that he improves the final product. Pheek is an amazing sound engineer. He’s my sound engineer!

Until now then, you’ve basically just been doing your best on your own?

Yeah, I was trying to do my best, but I think that having sound engineer knowledge is very important, you know? And I don’t have that. I was always making music and loving my tracks. I don’t think there was ever a problem. But I also think it’s a matter of my own practice as an artist, as a producer, that I always want my stuff to sound better and better and better.

So what inspired you to seek his help, did you just discover his services through his Facebook page?

So I got signed to a vinyl release with a label from Detroit.

Detroit Vinyl Room?

Yes, Detroit Vinyl Room. The owner got in touch with me and said that Pheek was going to take care of the mastering and mixdown.

Isaac Prieto you mean [another client of Pheek’s]?

Yeah, Isaac, yeah [haha]. And so it was really good for me, because – I’m going to be honest – I was trying to get in touch with Pheek before that. I started seeing him offering all these services, but I was always wondering, I mean, would that be alright, would that be good? I didn’t know. Because there’s also the fact that then you have to spend money, you know what I mean? When it comes to spending money on your music, it always has to be a really well thought-out decision. And then Isaac offered to do this for me, and I was like okay, I want to try it for free for the first time, it doesn’t hurt.

Then he introduced us and I sent the project to Pheek, and I loved the final result. I have the test pressing of the record here. It sounds amazing. So from then on, we started talking and talking and talking, and I’m really happy that we started working together, and now we’re friends.

You sound very satisfied with having spent the money! So what was the difference exactly?

The difference was that everything sounded in its place. Like when I see the spectrum of the track, I feel that the spectrum has layers, you know? There are some sounds that go in the back, and some sounds that come in the front, and in the middle. So the tracks stop sounding flat. I don’t know if that’s something for advanced ears, but I got to a point in my life when I realized that that’s what I want. I really found that with Pheek, and I’m very very happy about it. I love making music so much, and I love my music so much, and I want to spend the money to do that. It’s a great service.

Just to hear how my track sounds after Pheek does the mixdown is inspiration for me. I love how every time I send him projects now, he takes less time every time. And that means to me that the previous mixdown I made is improving. It’s just some specific things that maybe a regular ear wouldn’t feel, but I feel it, and sometimes it bothers me.

Would you say then that having Pheek do your mixdowns is helping you develop your own ear and skills at mixing too?

Exactly. 100 percent. I think that as an artist you have to have the inspiration of working with somebody that is a big name – and as I told Pheek, I’ve been following his music way, way before I knew him. Something that I was always highlighting was that thing I told you about with the layers in the music — I was like, how does this guy make his music sound like this?

So when you get the mixdown back, is the track finished, or do you work on it more?

I listen to it, and I pretty much just copy/paste the link and send it to the label. I trust it 100 percent. It sounds awesome. There’s no difference when I mix my tracks with tracks from other artists, with the volume or anything – and I definitely mix my music with music that is awesome, amaaazing – and when I’m playing live, I feel no difference, which is great. That makes me really happy.

How beneficial was it to have a second set of ears on your music? Because usually, when you mix your own music, you’re listening to your own track a million times, right?

Oh, well, I would say there’s a difference with having someone else, and then having Pheek, you know? Just the fact that I respected him so much from before. I mean him being the one now that listens to my music… It’s great, man.

Have you taken anything from the experience that has impacted your production in a more lasting way?

Umm… well basically, the music that I’m making now… I mean I just listen to it and I really love it. I find myself very, very focused right now on producing music that will be, like, timeless.

So it’s really inspired more confidence in your own abilities.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, 100 percent. Because, I mean, it’s been 10 years that I’ve been producing. I started producing progressive house, and then I produced tribal house, and then I produced tech house, and then I produced deep house. And now it’s all about the evolution. I feel like it’s different for every artist, but for me it really took me a while to get to the point where I am now.

Do you know why it took you so long to find someone to do your mixdowns?

Well, I think it depended on my environment, you know? When I was in South America, everything was different. Music was different, the crowds were different, my needs as an artist were way different. Since I moved to New York everything changed, and I started trying to develop a new sound like 3 years ago, in 2013. I’ve been constantly trying to improve and improve since then, and I have changed too. I’m producing music now that is way different from the music I was producing back in 2013, like quality-wise. And now with Pheek, everything is going great.

I’m assuming you have a lot of other friends who produce music too?

Yeah, yeah.

And do they usually do their own mixing too?

Yeah, I guess it’s normal for people that… maybe they don’t want to, maybe they don’t trust. They might think that a sound engineer that does a mixdown for them, if it’s not in person, in the studio, that maybe they would change the song, that they’d regret it. For me it was really easy to trust, because it’s Pheek. 100 percent. I’m planning a trip in February to Montreal, so I want to get down to the studio.

And before Isaac had spoken to you about Pheek’s services, did you have some of these same fears?

Yeah, with my own music, you know… like, I would never give my music or a project to anybody. But I knew Pheek, I’d heard all of his music, and I knew who I was dealing with.

I am very, very happy with his services man.

That shines through!

Awesome [haha]. And also I like the fact that Pheek is helping me. He is always pushing me, and giving me advice.

So you get more than just his mixdown services you mean.

Yeah, I would say that he’s my friend. He really supports me a lot. A lot. Like he always tells me that he loves to work on my projects because they’re fun, and he loves the music I make, which means a lot to me. I’m always like, “Aw, dude, stop!”

– Check out Kike Mayor on Soundcloud.

The Changing Dos and Don’ts of Contacting Record Labels

January 23, 2017/in Blog, Tips/by pheek

It’s understandable that producers can let their eagerness get the best of them when contacting record labels. They might make one or a few tracks, and then immediately start to hunt for a label to release them. This is not the most effective strategy though, for a few reasons.

Try to think of it from the labels’ point of view. You get a generic email where someone you know nothing about tells you they “love your label,” and straight away asks you to listen to their music. It kind of looks like a phishing scam…

How do they know you love their label? How do they know you’ve been following their recent releases and aren’t referencing something they put out 5 or 10 years ago?

It’s true that in an ideal world, the music would speak for itself. But in a world where label managers are stretched thin and flooded by email requests from hundreds or thousands of aspiring artists like you, they have to filter their messages. The few emails that catch their attention are the ones that look professional and make a real connection. Remember, they have their own roster of artists do keep up with as well.

It requires a lot of hard work, persistence, and patience. To give you an idea of how difficult it is: since I founded Archipel almost 12 years ago, only 4 (yes, 4!) of our releases began with email outreach. It took all of the producers multiple email attempts to reach me, and we had many conversations before they led to anything concrete.

The problem is that many producers have been formatted into an old approach that’s become obsolete. Gone are the days of label-hunting as a transaction — you send a demo, they like it, bam, you get signed. There are just too many producers and too few labels out there for it to work like that anymore.

Today it’s all about building up trust and establishing a relationship, to eventually get to the point where the label feels comfortable investing in your success.

In short, finding your label match is a process with many steps, and every step — especially that first contact — is equally important. You can’t just skip ahead to the finish line.

The good news is that the first step is the hardest part, which is just getting a reply. You should always do your homework to know who you’re dealing with and what the label’s been up to most recently. Then you can try to get your toe in the door by engaging a conversation, but keeping it brief.

A good strategy is to ask short questions that are quick and easy for them to answer, and that show you’re genuinely interested in their work.

For example, does the label have room in their calendar for new releases? What direction are they pursuing in the next few months?

These exploratory questions are useful for you too. They’ll save you time and help you decide if it could be a good match. Try to think of it as a job hunt. Be friendly and courteous, and most importantly, don’t make it all about you. What they really want to know is what you’ll bring to the label, and whether there’s the potential for a fruitful collaboration over time. It has to work for both of you.

Just as resumes are being increasingly overshadowed by LinkedIn in the job market, networking and relationship-building are changing the way artists and labels connect. The game has changed, and we need to change our approach to adapt.

At the end of the day, the winners will be the ones who are invested, persistent and consistent over time, so that they’re well-positioned when the right moment arrives.

How to Turn a Loop into a Full Song

January 20, 2017/in Production, Song Finalizing and Arrangements, Tips/by pheek

By far one of the biggest topics I’ve covered in my coaching in the last year has been how to turn loops into full songs. A lot of producers get a thrill out of making a loop. But they often get stuck there, as if a psychological block of some kind were stopping them from going further. That’s why I wanted to write about a method I’ve been using that can help you get past this hurdle and move from loop to finished track.

Let’s say you have a loop you really like. I believe a good loop alone, if well arranged, can be enough to carry you through a 5-6 minute track. In theory that loop will contain an idea, either in its sounds or in its melody. There are no rules about whether the idea should come before or after the loop, so you could want to make a loopy track just for the fun of it.

Once you have your loop, drag it into the arranger part.

Now there are 2 options. I always recommend that you first import a reference track into your session. This is not about copycatting, but about giving a direction to your track. It’s useful for both the mixing and the arrangements.

Now you need to develop a rough idea of how long your track will be.

You can use your reference track to decide the length of your track.
You can choose an end point but change it later.

Drop a marker at the end of your track. Zoom out, and you’ll see the whole project.

Now, let’s turn that loop into a block. It’s up to you whether you want the loop to start your track or not, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll say it comes in later. A block is a version of your loop, but on a 4 x 4 structure. If your loop were short, like a 1-bar loop mostly, then we’d make this 4 bars.

Note that melodies loop over longer periods due to their complexity. That is normal.

So, one block equals 4 bars.

If the block repeats 4 times, you have a section.

The most important thing to keep in mind is to be consistent in how you organize your sounds. For instance, if a clap happens at the same precise moment every 2 bars, then keep it that way throughout the entire track.

What makes a track hypnotic is the steady time reference in the listener’s mind, mixed in with fun and unexpected sounds.

When building your block, always start by what is constant, and then build around it. For example, the the lows (kick, bass, toms) are the foundation of your track. That is what remains the most constant the whole way through.

Use variations, and replicate that loop over four bars.

Bring that main idea into the middle of your track. This is the heart of your song, and you could duplicate it to double its length.

Now that you have the heart of your track, it’s time to deconstruct the song from the beginning to there.

You might get ideas from the reference track about where to put key elements. This also a nice way to know if your track is DJ-friendly.

I could delve into more detail about how to build your track, but this simple tutorial is all you need to unblock you and get you using all those loops sitting idle in your hard drive.

Just keep in mind that until you finish the structure of your track, you shouldn’t bother with the mixdown. That will come later once everything else is mostly settled.