Tag Archive for: Ableton Live

Getting Started in VCV

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Modular synthesis has been around for decades, but with the rise of digital technology, it’s become more accessible than ever. Then came VCV, Cardinal, Mirack to name a few. VCV Rack is a free and open-source software that allows you to explore the world of modular synthesis in a virtual environment. In this post, we’ll discuss the three types of modules in modular synthesis, the differences between VCV Rack and VCV Rack Pro, how to use VCV Rack in Ableton Live, essential free modules, and the benefits of using master sequences and modulations.

 

Creating sounds, then modulate them

 

Modular synthesis involves building a sound-generating system out of individual modules. 

 

There are three types of modules: sound generators, sound modifiers, and signal movers. 

Sound generators create the initial sound, sound modifiers shape the sound, and signal movers control the flow of the sound through the system. By combining these modules in different ways, you can create complex and unique sounds that would be difficult to achieve with traditional synthesizers.

 

VCV Rack is a popular modular synthesizer software that emulates a modular synthesizer system. It offers a vast library of modules, including sound generators, sound modifiers, and signal movers. While VCV Rack is a free and open-source software, VCV Rack Pro offers additional modules and features for a fee. These additional modules and features can enhance your sound design capabilities and workflow, but the free version of VCV Rack is still a powerful tool that can be used to create amazing sounds.

 

If you’re an Ableton Live user, you can use VCV Rack as a plugin in Ableton Live. This allows you to control and record VCV Rack within the Ableton Live environment. You can use Ableton Live’s MIDI clips to trigger VCV Rack modules and automate parameters in real-time. This integration makes it easy to incorporate VCV Rack into your production workflow.

 

Essential modules

 

When it comes to essential free modules, there are a few that every modular synthesizer enthusiast should have. For sequencers, the SEQ-3 module is a great starting point. It offers three independent sequencers with up to 16 steps each. The reason why you want to have a sequencer with 3 built in sequences is because you can use them for not only melody making but also for other types of modulations like velocity.

The VCO-1 (VCV) module is a simple yet powerful oscillator that can produce a wide range of 4 different wave shapes: sine, triangular, saw and square.The idea is usually to pair this with the 4 input mixer from VCV where you can decide how much of each sources you want to use to create your own signal. I would encourage you to add a noise source (VCV again) and have a bigger mixer such as the 8 inputs by Bog Audio and then add some noise to it. Noise seems to gel all of it together and also add harmonic content.

 

 

 

For filters, the VCF-1 (VCV) module is a great choice. It offers low-pass, high-pass, and band-pass filter modes, as well as a resonance control for shaping the filter’s frequency response. But I would also high recommend the simple VCF from Bog audio because it has more options (filter curve slope and v/oct) which is super useful for shaping your sound.

 

The heart and the brain

 

One of the biggest benefits of using VCV Rack is the ability to use master sequences and modulations. Master sequences are sequences that control multiple modules at once. This allows you to create complex patterns that evolve over time. Modulations are similar to master sequences, but they can be used to control any parameter in any module. This allows you to create dynamic and evolving compositions that change over time.

 

I put them into 2 categories:

 

The heart: Anything related to the tempo of the song. Is it constant or broken? Everything will be in sync or not, some might be following the tempo but perhaps double speed or half.

 

The Brain: This is for modulations that will be affecting multiple parameters across the patch such as scaling, transition, melodies/hooks, velocity, accent and even mixing.

 

Starting kit for a patch:

 

I’d recommend building a template patch to start with that has the essentials to get started. Then you can start adding to it. I think it’s important to start fairly simple too because it can easily get complicated.

 

Main tempo (Brain): 

  • Simply use a LFO. I love the 4FO from Bog Audio because it features 4 of them at different phases. 
  • Then I’d add a divider to have a different multiple and speed from the heart. You could use Clocked by Impromptu both for tempo and divider but I prefer an LFO for tempo because the modulation is easier.
  • I love to have multiple dividers so my full sequence is offering 1/4th, 1/8th, 1/16th steps covered so I can decide what to populate and where.

 

Hook (heart): 

  • This is where you could SEQ-3. It has 3 lanes so you could also have 3 variations.
  • Quantizer for global scale: use the VCV one.
  • I’d use a sequential switch to go through the lanes. Count Modula has a few but I also like the switch by ML Module because of the various options it has.

 

Voices:

  • Use samples or oscillators of your choice but you’ll need an ADSR, a VCA and 2 filters so you can properly control the signal. I’d add an octave shifter so you can have one voice per octave.
  • I find Bog audio has everything you need here or you can use the default modules by VCV.
  • You’ll need a mixer for all those voices. I’d recommend the one by MindMeld. It is perfect.

 

Percussions:

  • Using the SEQ 3’s sequencing, you can use that as triggers for your percussion.
  • I’d use a Bernoulli Gate to add probabilities to your percussion or switch between sounds. The one by Audible Instruments will do the trick.

 

Modulation: 

  • One master LFO. Again, a 4FO would do.
  • One master random. Use the random module from VCV.

 

Conclusion and Using VCV Rack In Ableton

 

In conclusion, VCV Rack is a powerful tool for exploring the world of modular synthesis. It offers a vast library of modules, including sound generators, sound modifiers, and signal movers. The free version of VCV Rack is a great starting point, but the pro version offers additional modules and features that can enhance your sound design capabilities and workflow. If you’re an Ableton Live user, you can easily integrate VCV Rack into your production workflow. Essential free modules like the SEQ-3, VCO-1, and VCF-1 can help you get started with creating complex and unique sounds. Master sequences and modulations allow you to create dynamic and evolving compositions that change over time. With VCV Rack, the possibilities are endless, and the only limit is your imagination.

 

How I Classify My Projects and Files

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I’m not sure if you’re like me, but it’s possible that your hard drive, after a while, becomes a total mess. There will be a few folders with some projects in them, and other folders with random samples. Not to mention all those projects named New project…

 

There are ways to organize folders and all your work that allows you to easily navigate it. The way I classify projects is also aimed at having a quick scope of which one I will work with next, which songs should go in an album, and those that need specific actions.

 

Before I explain myself, let’s talk about the different stages a project will go through and also, the different tasks related to that.

Note: If you’re new to this blog and aren’t familiar with my production technique, I would encourage you to read a few articles about this, which will give more sense to what I’m about to describe.

 

The different stages of music production (and labeling your projects so)

 

The way I work to maximize the results is to take each step in making music and call it a phase, or a stage. 

 

The different stages I label with are these:

 

1- Ideas digging, concept, testing techniques, hook finding, etc. 

2- Preliminary loop made from stage 1 that could be the heart of the song. Basic structure of the song.

3- Arrangements.

4- Mixing.

5- Song at 90% done and needs last minor tweaks.

 

The main reason why I give high priority to the state of the song is based on the idea that when I want to work on music, I might be in a specific mindset. Perhaps one day I’ll want to just have fun doing some sound design or another time, I need to work on an EP and will be checking for the few songs incubating. As you might know my approach for when I do music, when I reopen projects, I want to quickly know where that one is at. In an hour of work that I do on music, I hop from one song to another, while I also like to revisit projects that have been sleeping for weeks because what I want is to always have the freshest perspective on my work. If you work on something for hours, trust me, by the end of it, you might have lost all perspective and the work will suffer for it. 

 

Stages 1 and 2 can overlap

 

I’ll give you a study case of mine so we can have a clear understanding of how I can use a project and its evolution toward a finished song. But we’ll start with the 2 first stages. 

 

Projects that are in stage 1 are your pool for fishing ideas. 

So the idea of a project in stage 1 is really about ideas, not much more than that. It could be more if you want, it’s up to you.

 

Stage 2 is where we’re working on a precise hook or main idea. There are multiple ways to work and find hooks, we have talked about that in previous articles. I usually drop a very simple percussive loop to define what will be the rhythm of the song, its groove, and its accents, and then place what would be the hook on top. We often overthink the hook. It’s often very simple. 

 

Usually, in stage 2, I find that I should have:

 

  • A root key 
  • A scale
  • A hook, not longer than 1 bar
  • Rhythmic groove, time signature

 

If I have all of that, then I know the project has passed to that new stage and will rename it. Usually, when I rename a project, I make sure to save it, and do a “collect all and save” to make sure I copy all the needed files from its previous form. When you rename a project, it’s better you do “Save project as…” in the File Menu of Ableton and its original stage 1 will still exist. You can later decide if you archive the original project or keep it as an incubator. Usually, when I’m finding an idea from an incubator, I will make sure I save the different effect chains as macros so that they can be reused. I also will color code my channels, and name them as well so I can harvest them later from the right side browser of Ableton.

 

However, you might have an incubator at stage 1 that will never grow because you could mutate the original incubator to stage 2 but it’s completely different, but still came from a father project. For instance, I have projects that are sorely made for making sounds, where they never have evolved from there and tons of songs or even live sets have come from them.

 

Arrangements, the full story of Stage 3

 

I find that arrangements should start by working on the middle part of the song and then deconstruct that idea to the start of the song. So the early part of Stage 3 would consist of working in the middle part, roughly 1 minute long.

 

As you can see, you basically shift your initial Stage 2 loop and drag it to arrangements, then stretch it. Some people build their initial loop in arrangement mode so you can just move it from the start to the middle. When I work on arrangements, I usually love to make a quick draft of the song, where I’ll split it in 3 sections: intro, heart, outro. That draft is made quickly, sometimes in a surprising time of 20 minutes alone. I will come back later with a fresh look and listen from the beginning and will readjust the arrangements so it makes more sense. 

 

In stage 3, the mixing isn’t important. You can level it for pleasant listening but I wouldn’t worry much about it. 

 

Mixing as 4th stage

 

This doesn’t need much explanation here but one thing to clarify is that it’s not something rigid either. You might notice some arrangement problems in mixing that will make you redo them. As I always say to clients, if your sound design and arrangements are solid, there will be basically almost no mixing, or just touch-up.

 

Stage 5 is when your song is 90% done

 

To me, 90% done is my definition of done. I know it sounds weird but it is like that. First off, when you first accept that a song is never done, it’s easier to accept its imperfections and to move on. Second, you want to bring as many songs as possible to 90% because the day you want to do a release, you’ll take those and then wrap them all at once to 100%. This might sound confusing but letting your songs sleep at 90% and then wrap multiple songs at once means that the last stretch for all of them is your chance to unify them to make them coherent as a release. 

 

So what’s the difference between Stage 4 and 5?

 

Well, it’s kinda when you’re done arranging, you shift it to stage 5. It’s sort of like, I’m done with this one. Once in a while, I might reopen 5 to maybe do a little tweak but to me, when it gets to 5, it’s sort of saying that it’s ready.

 

In conclusion

 

When I open my folder with all my projects, I will see from 1 to 5, all songs being in order. With the file browser, I can also classify them from 5 to 1 as well. I like in mac OS to be able to put some tags as well. That can be for genre, if it’s signed or whatever is useful.

Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash

Generating Ideas and the Listener’s Attention Span

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(photo credit Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash)

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

Attention Is Competitive

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Don’t Fall Into Extremes

 

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

 

You Have No Control Over The Listener

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

How To Keep People Interested In Your Song

 

Here are ways to keep someone interested in your song:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Music techniques to find new ideas

 

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

 

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

 

Randomize effects, modules, and macros. 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you can link parameters to macros.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

Randomize Melodies

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

I hope this helps.

 

How To Use Hooks To Finish Songs

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I understand that many artists build a loop and then they expand outwards from there in order to build a track. However, quite often, this results in them getting lost, because they have no vision of where it is going. They hear their loop and think, “Wow this is really cool; I could listen to this for hours.” Then after listening to it for hours they realize they have no direction in where to go with it. 

Sure, there are plenty of people who can create a loop and then build outwards from it, but one thing I notice in coaching is that this is often not the case. Some people can’t finish songs because they have no vision for the finished product. Contrasting, some people can’t finish songs because they have too much of a vision and want to throw it into a template of theirs. Problem is, fresh songs don’t fit a defined template.

Therefore, there has to be a delicate line between planning and instinct. That’s when songs come together with ease.

The Hook Is Your Song

Someone who is excellent at this is production mogul Timbaland. If you’re not familiar he’s done tracks with Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, J Cole, Missy Elliot, and dozens more pop stars. 

Yeah, yeah, a pop artist, but if you have an open mind about music, you’ll realize that writing pop music is difficult. What’s especially difficult is to continuously write pop songs that top the charts, like Timbaland. There are only a few people on the entire planet who have this skill, so that’s to be respected. 

I was recently watching production tutorials of Timbaland’s and one thing that he harps on is that all great songs start with the hook. Sure, it might take a while to get that hook, but he recognizes that it’s the hook that people remember from music. Not the percussio, not even the verses, but the hook. If you don’t know what a hook is, think “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. What’s the only part of that song that you remember? Yeah, that part. That’s the hook. 

Other good examples include Niel Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, or Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”

Making Non-Pop Hooks

But you may be asking me, “but Pheek, you make avant-garde dance music, and most of your students are avant-garde dance music artists. How on Earth do I take influence from pop hooks?” Well, a hook can be loosely defined. Let’s take Aphex Twin’s “Alberto Balsam.” In a lot of ways, that song kind of follows the “only-hooks” format that producers like Max Martin evangelize, where every phrase is a hook, in a way. Almost every phrase has some sort of memorable element, but in that way, it makes the hook less defined. If there was a hook, it would probably be when the synth first comes in and continues throughout the song in one way.

The key to that “Alberto Balsam” hook is that it readily defines the rest of the song. The moment that comes in, whether it’s a rock band covering it, or it coming on your playlist (because God forbid you’ll probably never see RDJ play it live), you know that it’s “Alberto Balsam.”

This example is easy because it’s prevalent over the entire thing and everything else is essentially a jam over top of it. And that’s all you have to do, in a lot of cases, is just jam over the hook, and you will come out with something memorable.

Hook Modifiers

But before you write your hook, it’s good to think about what sort of emotional direction you want to go in, because ultimately, the hook will define this direction. For instance, do you want your song to be uplifting? Then you have to build tension and release. Perhaps even a triumphant key, like D Major. 

If you want it to be emotionally releasing, then you need to change keys, perhaps from major to minor. It’s often these “hook modifiers” that make a song special.

If you want to raise the intensity of the song, then you can increase the density in the song – with delay, reverb, another layer of percussion. It can be done with velocity or volume.

However, in club music, at some point, someone invented “the breakdown” to raise the intensity of the song, and now we’re doomed because 95 percent of electronic songs have them. There doesn’t have to be breakdowns. Instead, we can have events, which can be to confuse people, change their emotions, or whatever, really. 

In a song, I heard Timbaland ask Siri a question. Yes, corny, but it interrupted the song and took people off guard enough for when the hook came back in, it was fresh again. In dance music, it could be a weird sample or field recording; it could be an awkward silence.

Build Everything Around The Hook

Going back to “Alberto Balsam” you will notice that the hook is prevalent over the entire thing. From there on out, the rest of the song materialized around it. If this was your song, all you have to do is add percussion, take away percussion, add verses. There aren’t a ton of timbres in this song but each one works because it sits overtop the hook. See what I mean that all great songs start with the hook, now?

Make Something New

Perhaps, one day, you will create a transition that becomes the new breakdown, where people start copying your hook modifier. Because ultimately, that’s what it is nowadays: follow the leader. One only has to look at the Beatport Charts to see how all the waveforms look the same: but at some point, there was a waveform that looked different and topped the charts.

However, if you think about songs as just memorable elements and hook modifiers that jar the listener out of their trance, then you may be able to create something that is lasting and memorable. So next time you decide “this part needs a breakdown” think, “can I do something different instead?” Because the goal is to give people something different so that the familiar becomes fresh again – and there are more ways to do this than taking the drums away and reintroducing them. 

 

How To Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Your Tools Aren’t That Important

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

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

 

Come Up With Your Own System When Preparing To Make Music

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

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

 

Actively Listen To Music To Prepare To Make Music

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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


DJing To Help Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Build Categorized Playlists To Help Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Take Inspiration From Your Inspiration’s Inspirations

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

 

There Are Many Ways To Prepare Your Brain

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

 

Ableton-Hardware Hybrid Setup

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Myths About Hardware

It automatically Sounds Better

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

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

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

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

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

It’s More Intuitive

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

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

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

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

It’s DAWless

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

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

 

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Hardware

Learn One Piece At A Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Record Everything

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

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

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

Make Sure Your Recording Is Clean

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

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

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

Realize You Will Be A Noob, Again

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

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

another photo of an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup

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

 

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

Play To Each Other’s Strengths

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

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

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

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

Use Ableton As A Band Member

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

Use Ableton To Preserve Sounds

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

Split Your Time Into Technical And Creative Sessions

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

This will consume a good amount of brainpower. 

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

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

MIDI Controllers Are Your Friend

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

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

Some suggestions: AKAI midimix, Novation Launch Control

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

 

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

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Improving Your Workflow to Prevent Decision Fatigue

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What makes on 30-minute block of music making painful versus some other 30-minute block where everything flows organically? The choices you make can make a huge difference in how you use energy. If you use all your energy in the first 30 minutes of a session, you likely faced too many decisions and ran out of gas.

This overwhelming feeling often comes about when you’ve worked on a loop and mess around with arrangements for a moment before getting discouraged. You’re pretty much burning your brain out and then expect a second wind, but that doesn’t happen right away so easily.

What I’ll advocate throughout this post is a reminder of multiple things explained on my blog that push people to dive into music production and thrive in how they make music instead of being stuck. Strategies to facilitate an easier flow of your music-making are fairly easy, too.

Let’s dive right into the 5 different prerequisites to reach a state of flow.

  1. Risk
  2. Novelty
  3. Complexity
  4. Unpredictability
  5. Pattern recognition

One of the things that I didn’t list here which is important to focus on is the intention to spend a moment making something you know well. By venturing too deeply into something that is difficult (something that is, however, sometimes necessary for self-education), you’re acquiring some new information and achieving a good state of flow is not possible. Once you’ve learned a new concept/theory by practicing it multiple times, you’ll get good at it.

Hence the importance of making yourself:

  • Start a lot of new projects.
  • See most of your songs as lessons where you practice. Forget the aim to create masterpieces or to release all of your songs.
  • Spike time where you actively rehearse something you love doing.

When I teach music production, I explain to people that I can teach them everything their DAW can do, but then they’d sit in front of their computer with the idea of making a song and they’d be lost. The approach I encourage is to start by creating a strong base and then modulating each new skill into lessons. The idea is to focus on what’s useful to get from A to B in order to go to C and not try to go from A to Z in one shot.

A strong base means that you know some essentials, but beyond that, you know what you enjoy doing and what you seem to do naturally.

Once this is set and clear, we can approach the first take in my list above—taking risks. To know what taking a risk means, you need to be at ease with something. By risk-taking, I mean to try something in a different way. This can’t be really done if you can’t do the thing first. For example, you can’t take beat programming risks if you don’t know the basics of how your sequencer works (well, you can actually, but just diving in, chances are, your beat may come out with too much risk).

What’s a Risk in Music-Making?

Is it trying a new technique? Is it finishing a song? Is it learning a new software?

Let’s classify it as a single question: “What if?” This can and often imply a notion of risk. So let’s say you’re making loops, perhaps you can ask “what if I extend it to a whole minute instead of 2-bar loops?”

If you observe how we live, we often will do something we love doing and that usually is because we’re flowing in it; we don’t think—things just roll. You don’t have to make a lot of choices because you already know what you have to do. Taking a risk is a way of elevating what you’re doing a notch.

It’s a personal affair, and it’s something to be asked once in a while. But this gives rise to a second point which is novelty.

Self-Learning, Novelty & Complexity

Another thing I’ve been advocating for in past articles is the importance to see the majority of your music projects as lessons. A cycle I often notice is:

  1. Getting interested in a specific sound, aesthetic, idea, genre direction.
  2. Research and exploration on how to reproduce or imitate it.
  3. Struggle.
  4. Acknowledging a new concept.
  5. Practice and expression.
  6. Perfect it.

Each time I’m interested in something specific for music, I spend a lot of time trying to acquire the knowledge and techniques behind it. I spend a lot of time on YouTube on several How-tos, read some blogs and forums, and then test what I have. For instance, when I was obsessed with Dub Techno, I was searching a lot about it, which led me to acquire a lot of information about filters, reverb, chorus and delay, but also something I didn’t expect—noise. When you dig for information, you’ll find one thing you didn’t know or may not have been searching for, which is the novelty that is precious. In the state of flow, the exploration, in a context where you already feel comfortable but are on a quest of expanding, feeds you with a lot of creative energy that makes you get lost in what you do. But usually just before this happens, you’ll have a moment of struggle and it’s important to go over it to really get to the plateau of full creative force.

Once you practice and work on really handling a new skill, you’ll perfect what you do more and more. You’ll be more able to express yourself properly and eventually, you’ll want to perfect things. To get back to my example of Dub, I started to learn about delay techniques, tried many delay plugins and started understanding their personality and types. Same for reverbs, where I really got into plates and how they sound. The new trick I learned was about noise and started to get very much into the different types of noise: pink, white, blue, brown and red. Which then led me to get really interested in random generators, LFOs and modulation. Always adding a layer of information, precision and personality was a way to feed myself with novelty and complexity hand in hand. They’d play ping pong together.

Imperfection and Unpredictability

Choice fatigue roots in the quest of perfection. When you have more than two choices, you have a moment of not knowing. This clicked one day as I was reading a silly article that a lot of CEO in Silicon Valley will start the day with simplifying how they’d dress to make the least number of decisions possible. They’d have a work wardrobe of only a few things and they’d pick one without thinking. I find that flow starts with the yes-man attitude, as well as the why not. So it’s enemy would be a no, without trying.

Being in the flow, in a certain way, is almost the straight opposite of searching perfection. That is, you’re in the moment and you’re grasping something real and spontaneous. In a way, that is a form of perfection. When you begin searching for problems and feel doubtful about your work, I usually suspect you’re not in the flow, at all. You’re trapped in your analytical mind, the ones that questions and doubts. That part is really important much later, but I don’t give it too much importance in how to improve your flow.

A good routine for improving flow includes the following music-making tasks:

  • Explore, play, improvise.
  • Record everything.
  • Tweak to improve, not to perfect.
  • Consider the future of what was done. Release or not?

I find that I prefer to record 2 or 3 new songs instead of trying to give one a new life by working on it for 10 hours. I could even recycle the best part of a song that’s not working. Making more tracks makes you practice being more spontaneous but also more accurate in what you do, just like a DJ would get better at mixing, transitioning or doing tricks. As you go, your results need less polishing. For years, I left some imperfections in my work as I felt it was part of what made my music unique and human. It received a lot of positive comments and with time, if I listen to my older tracks, there will be things I don’t like, but I don’t know what was left there purposely or should be considered as a problem. That issue is itself, is part of the soul of the song.

As a mixing engineer, I do get in the zone as well. This is why my first mix of the day is crucial for the rest of the day. I usually start with all corrections, and try to do them in one shot, otherwise I start fixing stuff that clients like. I noticed that with time that if it works, don’t change it.

Now, unpredictability is something that feeds all the other ideas I’ve listed above that help to improve flow:

  • Taking risks by not knowing what will happen.
  • Discover new ideas you maybe have filtered out.
  • Making your routine more complex by including new items.

To me, adding a dose of unpredictability starts by making all your elements dynamic with your sounds and effects used. For EQs, I would make sure they’re dynamic (like the Pro-Q3). Compression is dynamic, but I’d link an LFO on the threshold. Adding LFOs, randomizers, and reacting envelopes to the incoming signal would make everything reactive, yet you never are really sure of where it’s going. This is partly explaining how people get addictive to modular synths because it’s all about modulation and unpredictability. A good way to check that is by trying VCV (free) or Softubes’ Modular that is a lot of fun. Reaktor is also an excellent platform to experiment.

Having separate sessions where you prepare an environment for making music is quite encouraged. By opening Ableton Live and launch a starting template that doesn’t take an hour to setup, you’re allowing yourself to be in the zone. Types of “setup” sessions include:

  • Sessions for setting up your future sessions. I’d encourage you to make themes instead of having templates that have all the bells and whistles.
  • Record sessions and sound design moments. These will be precious if you want to make music later.
  • Tweak, arranging and polishing sessions are helpful, but do them later.

The last aspect of improved workflow I’d like to discuss in more detail is pattern recognition—the moment where you realize that you’ve had a good or bad session, and are able to reconcile what happened in order to prepare the next session.

I like to tell my students that if you struggle in a session, it’s mostly because your preparation wasn’t adequate. If you struggle to arrange your session, start small…like, really small. Start from bottom to top: low end, percussion, mids, highs.

If you also fail to finish a jam, maybe you get distracted—a crucial thing to fix. Try to mute all notifications on your phone. Close social media, have snacks and water nearby. Avoid anything that can make your body and mind leave the moment to be elsewhere. If your session lasted at least 20 minutes, you’ve succeeded. Sometimes people feel sessions have to be long, but 20 minutes is sort of the key to get in the zone (unrelated, but this is also why I believe 1 hour DJ sets aren’t fair for the artist).

Personal Rules and Studio Attitude

  1. Be a yes-man to any idea that comes up until tried in context.
  2. Avoid maybes. It’s either a hell yes, or no. A maybe is a no, by default.
  3. Save all rejected ideas for future use.
  4. If it doesn’t feel good, stop everything. After a pause resume, or change tasks.
  5. If something feels like a lot of effort, take a pause and come back later.
  6. If you only have negative points of view, do something else.
  7. If an inner voice insists that you can’t do this or that (music-wise), I suggest you do it anyway to see what happens. Sometimes we stop ourselves from doing things that are creative.
  8. Collaborate as much as possible.
  9. Each session should have a session of listening before or after.
  10. Stay curious and open!

Let me know your experiences with decision fatigue and improving your own workflow!

My Electronic Music Production Methodology: The Mothership (Part II)

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I don’t know if you’re a fan of sci-fi movies, but I am. One thing I really like from those types of movies are alien invasions, where the aliens are dropping from the sky after jumping from a huge space ship; where all the bad guys are assembled and then dispatched. In music making, I apply a similar concept to my own music production methods and overall methodology.  Ever since I’ve passed this idea down to people I coach, I see them do really cool things using the concept of the “mothership“. They adapt this method to their own way of making music, and when they show it to me, I learn a thing or two on how to upgrade my music production methods.

This post about the mothership concepts, and I will share an empty Ableton LIve set you can reuse for your own work. I’ll also cover a few features in Ableton that can help fasten up your idea making.

The Mothership: Where Do I start?

First, know your music. Whatever genres you listen to, get to know what it has and needs. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I always insist on knowing and using references. Well, the mothership method also starts with using references. There are a few essential questions you need to ask yourself when you listen to your references:

  • What are the predominant sounds? For instance, in techno, the kick, hats, and snare are pretty much always there and for most of the song’s duration. There are percussion and effects often but they’re not the main players.
  • What is the melody composed of? Is the melody only one sound (ex. synth) or 2-3 different sounds talking to each other?
  • Is there more to it? Sometimes we can get a bit lost in a reference track as there seem to have a lot going on, perhaps little sounds in the background or swirling swooshes. Those are what I call distractions. If you want to truly analyze a song, make a 2 bar loop right in the middle part or when the song is at it’s busiest, then start counting each sounds and make sense of what you hear.

Once your song has been analyzed, you’re ready to build a template.

Building an empty mothership

If you feel like seeing what an “empty mothership” Ableton Live template could look like, you can download one here:

[download id=”34555″]

It might not meet your needs out-of-the-box, but it’s a great starter nonetheless.

This empty template was created by ROOM323 who I’ve been coaching for almost 2 years. His starting template is really great – perhaps even better than mine – so I’ll explain why I think it can be really useful.

  • Each sound has its own channel.
  • There are just enough channels to cover everything and limiting yourself to them makes you stay focused.
  • The background and effects channels are a good reminder. Sometimes we forget that one aspect of the song has been overused, especially for details like a background. It’s also a reminder not to overdo it.
  • Storing your loops gives you an outside view of all the potential you have.
  • There’s nothing better to help make decisions with regards to your different songs.
  • It can be turned into a live performance set!

How to use THE TEMPLATE

The very first part of using this template is to start by collecting “main ingredients” (see part one of this series). This can be done by scavenging Youtube, jamming a new demo VST synth or hanging out with friends while recording them play randomly with instruments. Anything can be potentially good, it’s how you use it that will make the difference.

“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong” – Miles Davis

  1. Put each different idea in the appropriate channel of the Mothership.
  2. You’ll have perhaps 5 strong ideas. Now you can fill the channels that are missing content. If you have a nice guitar melody, then you need percussion, kick, etc.
  3. For each idea, try to have different variations. Perhaps your first loop was good but if you rework some elements, maybe you’ll find another option that is pretty cool too. Those variations can also be different scenes of the first loop.
  4. Jam away!

That’s about it!

When I work with ROOM323, I will have 20 different ideas from him, then I can select the best 5. From there, I’ll pick a row and drop it in the arrangement section to start building a song. In terms of productivity, this method is way more effective than canning one idea in a project that is then turned into a song. One important thing to have in the back of your mind is, if during your song, you run out of ideas, then you can just jump back into your original 20 loops to pick something complementary.

One amazing thing about Ableton 10 is that you can drop a song/sample from it’s browser and drop it in your song. It will import your idea as you left it. This means that you can build your Mothership today by dropping in all your unfinished loops!

 

SEE ALSO :

My Music Production Methodology Pt. III: Depth and spatial shaping tips

My Electronic Music Production Methodology (Pt. I)

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I’ had been thinking about recently how I should consolidate the many values, observations and principles I share regularly on this blog into a summary of music production methods and methodology. I regularly give feedback in our Facebook group and I find that I’m often repeating myself with regards to certain details and points that seem like basics. Not long ago, I wrote a post with a checklist to see if everything had been covered in order to know if your song is done, but what about a todo list to start? And what are the big points you should consider beforehand in order to avoid getting lost?

Let me describe my own mindset before I get to work on music in the early stages; it helps me greatly and I think I could also give you a boost in productivity.

The intention

Have you ever had sessions that were magical or others where you felt you did the same things, went horrible where you started to doubting what you’re doing? Making music seems like it should be as straight forward as playing a sport but it can’t be predicted or controlled, which can be frustrating. I’ve started noting down a common denominator in all my good sessions: they all had been started with a precise intention. What I mean by an intention is that beforehand – even before opening the session to work with – I’d spend some time developing a precise idea of what I wanted to do in that session. It could be simple sound design, mixing, arranging, or working on a client’s session.

I’d sum it by saying to myself “today, by the end of the day, I should have done X.” The X is a sort of a goal I can quantify easily, such as finishing the polishing of a track.

I also start sessions with something I do well and love doing; this important habit puts me in a good mood, helps my brain focus, and preparesme for bigger challenges.

The mood board

The term “mood board” is often used in visual design. It’s basically a pin board with all kind of images: the mood, aesthetics, concepts. Sometimes it can be a texture or drawing, but it can be also a few pictures; it becomes a reference for all the members of the team.

A example of a graphic mood board (image courtesy of https://www.sophierobinson.co.uk)

It’s basically the same in audio. I have a huge folder with music I like for use as references. I have also playlists on Youtube of each reference per client. I have yet another one on Soundcloud for ideas, inspiration, and arrangements. The audio quality of Soundcloud being not so great makes me use it more for ideas than anything mix/mastering related. Sometimes it’s songs, sometimes it’s just simple atmospheres or a weird tune just for its reverb (which I can use for convolution). There are new, amazing songs I see in my feed everyday and I really want to tag the ones I see. I honestly even have a mood board on Instagram/Pinterest. Some images help me generate sound ideas too. Yeah, I’m weird like that.

The main ingredient

In risotto for example, rice is the main ingredient but this dish can be altered in many different ways; audio works in the same way.

This main ingredient is the core of your next project. I often compare making music to making food; I find that relying on a first important ingredient helps to develop a theme for a song. The more you work on something, the more you’ll want to add. Remember that songs are split in sections and my rule is to have either one major change or one sound added per section. Songs have, in general, 3-4 sections. Some only have 2!

So, this means that your main ingredient could – in theory – have major changes 2-3 times maximum in a song  to remain understandable. Of course, this is my personal rule. You might have totally other views and that’s alright. The main ingredient will also have brothers and sisters. I usually form a family of 3 sounds per song. The main ingredients will have 1 brother and 1 sister. The brother will be a similar to the main ingredient as a way to complete it. For example, a higher pitched note. The sister sound will be in opposition to the main ingredient. For example, if the main ingredient has a fast attack, the sister would have a slow attack.

Setting up these ideas really helps me see what I need quickly. But knowing this method doesn’t help find the actual sounds though. Sounds come to me in many ways: sampling something you love, using jams you did on some machine that you recorded, recycling older ideas, browsing Youtube’s infinite possibilities, going to a local store and buy the weirdest record you can find, learning a new way to design sound from a tutorial you watched, etc. The idea is to make material to manipulate.

FACT: When I hit a wall, I usually do a remix for someone I know, for fun. Remixing is easy and fun. You try to juggle the elements and keep some of them true to the original to make the remix recognizable in a way. In remixes, you’re given the main ingredient already, and then it’s up to creativity to do the rest.

The foundation of the house

I invite you to view your song as a dish, but now let’s also picture it as a house. To build one, you need a solid foundation. Solid is not about making it loud or big. It’s about being clear. In musical terms, we refer to the foundation as its fundamental note, it’s lowest part. Therefore, I find that setting a few notes in the bass/sub will give ideas, support for the melody to come in the mids. But if it’s muddy in the lows, the whole song will suffer.

TIP: Try to keep it to only 1-2 elements under 80hz.

A hook

Your song will be memorable for others if they can actually sing it back to someone who has never heard it. Ask a friend to see if that’s possible. If not, your song would be categorized as “intentional music” (in the same vein as percussive African music) where you can’t sing it. In techno, the whole movement of Romanian music is partly built around a combination of hook-songs vs no-hook-song. What makes it addictive is that you feel you can sing it back but not, and then when mixed, the interaction of 2 songs makes it reveal something you didn’t expect.

Do you need a hook? No. But if you never use hooks in your music, try to make one. Or if you only do music with hooks, try to make one that feels… empty. it’s a pretty difficult challenge to go out of your comfort zone but it can also make you discover things you didn’t know you could do.

David Lynch said:”Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.”

That’s all it for the first part on music production methods and methodology – I will provide more insights next week.

 

SEE ALSO :

My Electronic Music Production Methodology: The Mothership (Part II)
Basic tips for writing melodies
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In our Facebook group, I was asked to share some tips about writing melodies and how to approach this process while arranging. In electronic music, many artists are self-taught and the concept of music from a melodic and harmonic perspective is often built over intuitive understandings and reading online tutorials, which is helpful, but perhaps lacking guidance for making techno or ambient music. Here are a some simple but useful tips for writing melodies that you can do using Ableton:

Find the root key

Each song has a root key. If you look on Beatport for instance, it will indicate the root key so DJs who mix in key will be able to know what they’re dealing with.

A track in G minor on Beatport.

DJ’ing in key is something I love to do once I have a bunch of really interesting sounds I want to bring into a song. Basically, if you follow my non-linear production technique, you’ll work on sound design for a while and when things get shaped into a pattern, you might want to introduce some melodic elements which will help everything come together. This is often where self-taught producers start to experience problems because their song feels like it’s all over the place and lacks an overall direction.

With writing melodies, where should you start?

First, you should decide on the root key. For instance, let’s say you choose C on your keyboard; I would leave that note playing through the entire song at first and then work around it. This means that the fundamental note of your song will be in C, as well as your bass and the other elements you’ll develop around it.

Tip: Use the Fixed grid of 8 bars to make it easier to make longer notes.

Scales, chords

I’m not going to dive into music theory so perhaps you want to do a bit of reading on the subject of scales if you’re not familiar with them, but after picking up your root key, I strongly suggest you use scales and/or chords to decide on how to develop your melodies. Using scales in Ableton will limit the notes you play to the ones that are included in the scaling – this really helps to make sure your melodies don’t sound “off” while building the overall emotion of your song.

Once you get comfortable with scales, you can have them change throughout the song to change emotion and give modal color to the melodies.

As for chords, it’s the same sort of thing. Fore example, if you pick a minor chord (three notes played simultaneously) with a root of C, you’ll immediately have a choice of a three notes to include in your melody. If you keep the song in that key/chord, you don’t have to play all three notes at once to have the chord itself.

How can I determine the notes of a chord or scale?

Insert the scale tool to Ableton or any equivalent plugin (note: there are many alternatives online if you google it). Then you can reference the notes that are from the chord by inserting phantom notes from your sequence, then you can play hit play. The beauty of using Ableton Scales is that if you place a note that is outside of the chord triad, the plugin will re-align it to where it should be, keeping you from sounding off.

The 1 octave, 1 bar motif technique

This method no secret to anyone, but still a truly personal way to write a melody. I usually create a three-note motif to start with, make sure it’s only using one octave, and not longer than one bar. Honestly, I can listen to this motif for a long time and – for myself – just while listening to it new ideas will emerge, pretty much automatically.

What I like about Ableton’s MIDI tools is how easy it makes it to build evolving ideas. The “Duplicate loop” tool makes it easy to create evolving patterns.

My initial loop will be duplicated and in the second bar, I’ll add new notes that came into my mind.

…and so on until your motif evolves to have your chorus, verse, etc. Basic melody writing isn’t really much more than that.

I usually like to copy the motif to a lower octave later on to generate a bass line.

TIP: Try flipping or reversing a pattern for fun results.

ADSR, Velocity and groove

Now that your melodic sequence is built, it will be important to give it life by adding a groove template on it. This will be valuable to make the melody less mechanical and more human-like. I usually like to add other plugins:

  • Note length: play with the lengths from shorter to longer; sometimes having variations like this is also a great way to do transitions from section-to-section.
  • Velocity: complementary to the groove template, this really allows for random velocity to kick in which can create elements of surprise. Make sure to freeze/flatten your sequence so you don’t have different versions every time!
  • ADSR: Don’t forget to modulate your melody using variation in the envelop such as the attack through the release. This is a nice variation to the note length and can give a feeling the melody plays backwards.
  • Arpeggiators: useful to generate some extra ideas to the existing motif. Try it with the diverse random options.
  • Melodic Steps: quite a power horse tool to generate ideas. Try it and see how it evolves.

Let me know of your own techniques for writing melodies and perhaps I can add more ideas here!

Alternative music arranging techniques

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Music arranging techniques are a topic I’ve been asked about most in the last few weeks. For many people, this is the part of music-making that causes issues. And rightfully so; arranging is all about storytelling. In past posts, I’ve said that even though your sound and production might be awesome, if you have nothing to say or if you can’t express your ideas properly, the song will feel shallow and will be quickly forgotten.

In this post, I will explain a few things you can do to create exciting, original arrangements – mainly tips on how to work on transitions, which is one of the most important parts of electronic music.

The “perspective” method

One of the most important aspects of arranging are something I’ve explained in past posts, which I call “perspectives”. A quick summary of what I mean by perspectives: split your song in sections using the Markers in Ableton (or your DAW). I usually put a marker at the end of the song, then one in the middle, then others so the song has four similar sections of the same length. Basically, you need an intro, an outro, and the middle part of your song, which is now split in two.

These marker points are critical moments where you could lose the listener’s attention. They are critical pivots for where you want something to happen to keep the flow going and to roll into the next section of the song. Each section should have a surprise and some development or an element to relieve the tension. These points are also moments where the tension can rise or be released; with a proper transitional approach, this can be done easily.

TIP: Find your main idea and try to see if you can create two different developments of it as well as add supporting sounds/melodies. Try to distribute your melodic content across all the sections so the song feels like it evolves.

The jamming method

Recently, I was trying to explain to my son movies are made. He thought a movie was shot as-is, continuously, and didn’t understand the editing aspect of the process. A lot of people think the same way about songs; they’ll grab material and spread it across the song linearly.

I like the idea that making a song is like a movie, or a bit like how songs were recorded in the 70s/80s. You need many, many, takes and jams to find all the possible ideas for your motif. Here are some methods to jam withing your project to help it evolve further:

Jam the clips of your project in the session view of Ableton Live and record the results after the original song structure so you have alternative ideas on how your song could evolve next to your original idea. Many artists jam the clips, then add effects and such while recording for a good 30 minutes to see what comes out. You might be heading down a totally new arrangement path after this way jamming once or twice.

Stop making the song in a linear fashion from start-to-finish and try to chop up your sections and move them around within the timeline. Writing a song is not like writing a story; in the era of DAWs you always have the option to chop out a section and move it to other points in your arrangement. Personally, I like to jam for about an hour so I can really capture the best moments, but this also means I have to chop out a lot of crap out afterwards.

Use re-sampling on a loop. This is my favorite technique in sound design and arranging which is about taking every single loop I have in my project and passing it through a lot of effects, while recording in a channel that re-samples the master. You’ll end up with long files filled with many alterations of your sounds.

  • Add 100% wet reverb to create intense, transitional, swoosh moments.
  • Use LFOs from Max for live to add movement and life to certain parameters.
  • Map your effects to a controller and record yourself physically turning knobs – you can fine tune the automation later.

Use new material in the transitional, focal points of the song. This is a powerful way of re-inserting your recordings into your arrangements and will ignite creativity; your song will get a huge dose of vitality and movement from doing this. This technique can provide you with a lot of ideas for making original transitions, but also spice up your arrangements in sections that fall flat.

Other types of transitions you can try which rely on this technique include:

  • Programing alternative patterns using a controller like PUSH.
  • Slicing certain MIDI sequences and then rearranging them.
  • Punching in and out of certain channels in real time and recording yourself. All your gestures, and work can be recorded by engaging the recording button in the upper part of the window.

Most importantly though, use references! Try to analyze your favorite songs and see how they are arranged in terms of transitions, and then try to replicate them. Music arranging is not rocket science; you’ll learn by copying and eventually by practicing, you will develop your own tricks.

Basic Song Arrangements Tips

/in /by

Given the quantity of hours of mixing I do regularly, I work on lot of projects from a wide variety of clients. I also have to do a lot of “cleaning up” before I get to work on the actual mixing of a song. I wanted to share with you basic song arrangement tips that you can do which will speed up song construction and help make it sound better in the end.

Cleaning a project for clarity

“Cleaning” is something many people overlook, but it will help you better understand what’s happening in a song. I strongly encourage people to work on multiple projects at once with my non-linear production technique; a clean project will help you understand where you left off on your last session.

Here are some tips for a cleaner, clearer project:

  • Name your channels/samples something simple. For example, rename that loop “rolling_AD252” to “percussion”. Keep things simple and clear as well as have your own vocabulary.
  • Color each channel based on content. For instance, red for kick, brown for bass, blue for melody, etc. On Live v10, you can then apply that color to the clips.
  • Create a comprehensive timeline in your arrangement. This is where 90% fail! The first sounds in your song should be moved way up to the front and top, and as sounds come in, they should be dropped in below. Since the arranger moves from left to right, you will sounds appear in order of appearance, just like how they make it for movies.
  • Drop markers to see the key points. Markers on the timeline help you see how things are repeating in a logical matter as well as for you to see where to drop in your transitions.
  • Consolidate blocks of sounds, change color if there are changes. Consolidate all the little blocks so you can duplicate them easily and see your arrangements more clearly.
  • Arrangements aren’t mixing. Don’t add all your effects and compression yet, focus on the timeline of things, then you can easily group and do your mixing if everything has been labeled and colored properly.

Before consolidation

Clips consolidated

And duplicated

Think Balance

When you make a song, you have to think of a few key points to keep people interested:

  • Keep things moving to avoid redundancy.
  • Have logical development.
  • Bring in some surprises.
  • Have solid transitions.

All this can be seen visually if your project is clean and clear. Here’s how:

The image above is a good clean start. You can see these blocks are pretty straight-forward and repetitive. Usually when I hear a song like that, I will automatically visualize the blocks coming in and out; I call that type of arrangement “blocky.” There’s not much happening, nothing is too exciting, and the balancing of “blocky” songs is extremely rigid, dull.

However, having a “blocky” song can easily be fixed.

  • A sound can be appreciated agan if you “reset” it. You can “reset” a sound by turning it off, removing it, then bringing it back at a key point. This is a good way for the listener to appreciate different combinations of sounds all together. If you leave all your clips playing all the time, you can’t appreciate if X plays with Y alone. This is why I find that a song with 3 hats and or 3 percussion tracks gives you a really broad range of combinations, but you’ll need to be creative to have them all explored in a song. That can be done by occasionally muting certain sounds.
  • Transitions, transitions, transitions. Did I say this enough? You can make nice transitions with en effect, a silence, a flam (rolling, repeating sounds), a swap of sound(s), a volume automation, etc. Explore!
  • Automation, fade-ins. If your sounds all come in at once, try having some fade-ins from time to time.
  • Create variations. If the sounds were programmed in a specific way in a section, have them varied in the following section.
  • Varied patterns length. If you have multiple patterns that are one bar long, try having some that are 2 bars long, others 4, some half a bar. The richness of the combinations where sounds shuffle over time will be exciting to listen to.
  • Don’t drop all of your musical assets right at the start. Try to keep new sounds appearing per sections.

This last image shows what a project like with some holes added, which will add a lot more dynamism and surprise to your song. Take your time! You can trust the listener by letting things go and let things evolve. If you’re not into ever-evolving songs and more into stripped-down, tracky arrangements, its pretty much the same thing: take your time to get things come in and use automation.

I hope this helps!

Playing Electronic Music Live (Part 6, final)

/in /by

I recently played a live set at StereoBar in Montreal for the launch of my album Returning Home and it was very interesting to create a live set from scratch, following the advice of this series I’ve written over the past few months about playing electronic music live. I’d like to share with you a bit about how it went, as well as some personal notes I took for future performances.

Notes about preparation of my set

Returning Home has many tracks; I wasn’t sure how I’d approach them in a live context considering they are all pretty intricate, full of details, and pretty much impossible to execute as the recorded version(s). I decided to go through all the songs and export the stems for each group of sounds – plus making sure the kick and bass would be isolated – so I could control how they would come and go in the set.

Exporting stems took me a while. I had also exported stems from certain songs that weren’t included in the album but that I wanted to play. I had a good 17 tracks ready, with about 8 channels exported per track. I imported everything into my new live set, and added everything in the right columns and with the colors I needed. I also started chopping the stems into sections so I could trigger some parts spontaneously.

After a few days of geeking out, I started playing the tracks to see how the flow felt and to see if the transitions were going well. I played with effects; trying to spice up the main ideas to surprise people. As I kept rehearsing and trying to see how to play the songs, I found myself becoming very bored out of what I was hearing. The thing is, when you spent months making an album, you get to a point where you can’t listen to your own music anymore – and playing it as is felt too safe, too simple.

Live at MUTEK Chile 2006

Live in Zurich 2005

I scrapped everything. I remember thinking that this whole series advising people on how to play live was crap but I realized that after going through it myself again, it still had a lot of value, but even I had done the preparations wrong. I remembered then how I used to LOVE playing live, 15 years ago and had a flashback excited me: pure improvisation. I realized that using stems wasn’t improvising enough and that my music is in itself, pure chaos.

I went back to my pool of sounds which didn’t make the cut originally and started chopping sounds, deconstructing stems, and re-exporting new parts. Then I started creating a space where I could remix the whole album on the spot, plus adding unexpected, unused sounds. Basically, it was combining the bass of track 2 with the melody of track 7, then percussion of track 4…pure remixing. I found a core idea for each moment of my set, and left a lot of space for reinterpretation. It worked and I was having a lot of fun.

My setup for this Set

I was using Ableton Push and 2 Novation Launch XLs, as mixers for all the channels (I ended up using 10). For some reason, each time I’ve tried using PUSH live, it has never really helped, but I felt this time I wanted to use it. I love the Novations so using 2 felt really amazing.

Limitations: My Macbook pro only has 2 USB ports so I needed a port to accommodate multiple items.

Soundcheck at Stereo

Soundcheck

Arriving at the venue, I felt really confident; perhaps too confident. The soundcheck went so smoothly that – in my experience – when that happens it gives you the feeling that something will go wrong later.

I had spent time in the studio carefully tweaking each channel with EQs to make sure the sound wasn’t to harsh or piercing. I also decided to use a Manley compression from UAD on the master which made everything really smooth. It was important to use a reference track as an EQ curve. It really paid off in Soundcheck so I didn’t have to do much; everything went so smooth.

TIP: Listen to your reference track before soundchecking, then play it to adjust an EQ on the master.

The show/performance

After a great start, shit started to hit the fan. As a track was playing, I noticed my mixer wasn’t responding and realized it had rebooted. By rebooting, it made the second mixer crash and the PUSH too. I wasn’t even 5 minutes in and the wheel of death was spinning on my Mac. I waited patiently and luckily it went back to normal. But after this glitch, I disconnected one of the Novations to plug it directly in my computer instead of the USB-Hub I had bought the same day (cheap connectors are always a big mistake!). PUSH was frozen and not doing anything, I had to activate clips with my mouse. Luckily from my experience playing live for so many years, I was able to do this in a way so that people didn’t notice. The Novations kept crashing one after the other. Each time I had to unplug them patiently to restart them, and then the wheel would go off on my computer; for some reason they would work for a good 20 minutes but then crash again.

Luckily, no one noticed anything! I could have really played a great show that night if everything had worked properly because Stereobar has the perfect setup for me…it was a bit disappointing, but I still received a lot of good feedback.

MUTEK Montreal 2006

Live in London 2005

After the show

Despite the technical issues, it was great show and fun nonetheless.

To summarize, a few tips here based on this live experience:

  • Don’t buy gear the same day without testing. Soundcheck are never 100% of what a show will be and can never be a real test.
  • Deactivate Ableton Live’s auto-update feature. It actually upgraded to a version the day before with a bug in it – a pretty big one. I had to reinstall the software and that was stressful. Thanks for the swift reply from Ableton tech support on that one.
  • Never panic when problems arise. Most of the time, people don’t notice.
  • Try to avoid shitty USB hubs! I’m still trying to find a better alternative.

I hope this series was helpful!

Storytelling through arrangements and song arrangement techniques

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When it comes to mixing and mastering, my work involves to listening to many, many songs. Some are great, while others need more love, but from the numerous songs I hear daily I can pinpoint one important thing that makes a song stand out the most: arrangements. I believe your arrangements and your song arrangement techniques are what really show your maturity as an artist.

Your track can have amazing sounds, a crazy good kick, and a really lovely mix, but if you have nothing to say, your song will not be memorable. Although, paradoxically, some songs are also memorable because they have no arrangements at all; no arrangements can also be a form of storytelling.

In this post, I’ll approach arrangements in two ways: the “technical” and “total”; a philosophical point of view. While so many people have different opinions about arrangements, there’s one thing that I feel is important to highlight: to invite you to step outside of the box of anything “commercial” sounding; so many articles at the moment are pointing out how every song sounds the same. I’ll also explain why.

Keep in mind: there is no magic wand recipe or solution for arrangements.

So fundamentally, how can we explain storytelling in electronic music? There are two critical points to keep in mind:

  1. Arrangements start with a simple idea that evolves. The clearer the idea, the more it becomes understandable from the listener. The catchier it is, the most memorable it is. Catchiness comes from being able to make something that people can have an emotional connection with. It is also known that, if we examine at the last 50 years of pop music, there are always songs trends through time. What makes a song “a hit” is usually when someone understand the current trend (which is “in demand”) and adds their own, personal twist to give it a “same old but different” feeling.
  2. Technical arrangements aim at creating music for DJs. One of the most exciting thing about making music for DJs is about being able to architect music that creates a structure that will find a logical place to move into another song, or to create a new song (as in 1+1=3, track 1, track 2 and the mix of both).

These two types of arrangements are different but can also be combined. They have different goals. The reason I find it important to relate this is, as a listener, you don’t listen to them in the same way. The first type, is what makes a track be a song. In terms of vocabulary, a track is music more oriented for DJs, that you can layer while a song is more about music that can be listened on its own and have its own story. Too often, I find that people who listen to tracks will go “something’s missing” but in theory, if that music is made to be layered, it’s because it has space for another song to be layered over it. I like to say that the track is part of a story that will be created by others and it’s important to let go of adding more and more layers. If you leave no space, how can another DJ use it?

So let’s talk about arrangements for tracks and what is useful to do/use.

  • Use a motif: For anything, always use a motif which can be a few notes or a loop. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. If for instance, your motif is a simple two note melody repeating (note: Batman’s powerful motif was just two simple notes too!), then keep in mind that those two notes are simply the core, then add variants or supporting notes; ideas.
  • Define your logic and stick to it: Usually the first 1/3 of your song will define the logic of the rest of your song. For instance, if you mute the kick after 4 bars, keep that logic for the entire song. So, whatever you define in terms of muting,  or adding, stick to it until the end of the song.
  • Divide your song in thirds (1st third is the intro, 2nd is core, 3rd is the outro): Keep in mind that each section has a purpose and demands balance. It should have a surprise, some coherence, a punch and a transition.
  • Leave space: Miles Davis loved the silence between notes and often said they were what would give the true meaning of any phrase. If you find your entire hook for the middle part of your song, make sure you have variants of that idea, with holes/silence.

The importance of defining your own language in your music is important to create your own persona. We all know music is a form of communication and therefore, certain codes can be used in order to create phrases in your music. Everyone has a different view, but I’d like to share my personal lexicon. But let’s consider this: techno is 4/4 music which means a “round” is basically 4 bars long; this is also where DJs try to mix in/out. Each of your songs based on this premise will have better coherence if you keep to a similar logic, and the music will be understood faster by DJs.

  • A phrase is basically a bar long (4 beats). A paragraph is 4 or 8 bars long.
  • Making sounds repeat, is a period (“.”). You usually want to do it at the end of a bar if you are doing a long phrase, but you can also have a period to underline a sound that needs to express something. Rolling sounds help move on to the other bar as it creates energy.
  • Muting the kick or multiple sounds at once is a comma (“,”), it can also mark the end of portion and prepare for another. Muting creates a mini tension and creates anticipation.

Now, these are the basics we can play with.

  • You can slice your entire song structure to clearly see all of your 4 bars in distinctive blocks. This crucial action really helps see the outline of your song and see the organization.
  • I usually go sound by sound (channel by channel) and decide that some sounds will have a change at some point, let’s say X number of bars. For example: hi-hats have a tiny change (a period) every 4 bars, toms will have one every 2 and claps, every bars. Then you slice all the bars in shorter one to be able to edit in details.
  • Add decoration if needed in the same logic. If you started muting and creating space here and there, those areas can be good spaces to insert effects; little, subtle blurbs of sounds.
  • Be very aware of where your song has its main elements, and if it is respecting the logic you have set in the first third of your song.

A song that has balance and repeating events will never feel empty, boring, or pointless because people will consciously (or not) understand the language behind it.

Now look at how it repeats and also, I will try to keep sequences of blocks repeating. For instance, if I have 4 blocks repeating and then there’s a 2 bar silence, I will repeat that through the song.

This is a good example of what I call arrangement logic. You decide of how things happen then follow through.

TIP: Always vary how sound come in and out. You have 2 choices: the sound starts playing or fades-in. Try to have variation between the sounds and how to come in and out later on as well.

The most important part – and I’ll finish with this – is to keep in mind that you should always have a surprise for the listener, and if you surprise him/her, he/she will want to listen to your song again; so be audacious and sometimes, unpredictable. I love the 1-2 punch method: do something, repeat it so the listener goes “ah yes!” then when the listener expects it again, punch him/her with something he/she didn’t see coming.

I hope this helps!

Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 5)

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In the previous four posts about playing electronic music live, I’ve basically covered everything you need to do before playing live. Now comes the moment of truth, where you’re basically ready and booked to play. This post will be covering the last mile of preparations including how to do a proper sound check, which is critical to play a quality set, and some bonus tips on the last things to do before hitting the play button.

Sound adjustments

Here are some main pointers about making final preparations for your sounds:

  • Clips don’t need to be perfect or mastered.
  • Leave everything with lots of headroom. We’re talking about -12dB.
  • The gain mainly comes from what you have on the master (bus). Keep it simple too.
  • The first 5-minutes of your live will be about fine tuning your sound.
Why the clips don’t need to be perfect

This is a bit hard to explain, but I’ll keep it simple. Over processing your sound might turn out horribly wrong in a venue, and if that’s the case, there will be no way back. I’d rather have something imperfect and tweak it at the sound-check to what feels best. If you’re doing multiple gigs, this also allows you to have different options for different venues. Playing on a very little sound system versus a open air festival will have totally different feel and you might have to use your compression/EQ differently.

Clips with headroom will do the job

One of the things people don’t notice is that for some sounds, channels might not be sounding like they do in the studio and thus, in a live context, you’ll need to push up the gain on certain elements that you may not have expected. Honestly, it’s more important that you sound right versus loud, and this means you need to be precise in all your sounds adjustments and find a balance. This also means that if a sound still needs to be louder than others, by leaving headroom, you’ll have space to push your fader up. If everything is maxed, you’ll only have a little space to work with which is inconvenient. Don’t hesitate to look at the meters of each channels to make sure they’re leveled. While not the perfect way to tell, it’s still useful and if you’re stressed, you’ll appreciate this quick tip regarding the gain stage, there are also two things you can do:

  • A compressor in a Send bus for all channels needing a boost. Have the compressor be aggressive with a high ratio, but a slow attack. Send to that channel as needed.
  • Routing channels to a “family bus.” Instead of having the channel sent to the Master, have it go to another channel which will act as a bus. I like to have 3 of them: low, mid, highs. Each gathering channels, having extra compression and EQ. Plus you can quickly adjust the tone of your set with these faders. All those busses will go to the master.
The Master bus will do the job

On the last bus, I like to have a limiter that will boost the incoming signal enough to see it pump with a gain reduction of about -2dB. So you might have to add +6dB to the gain for instance. This way, your channel faders might, at first, only be at 3/4 or half way but you’ll also have enough room to boost all the way to zero. Do not use Ozone or other “quick fix” mastering helpers unless you really knowing what you’re doing. I would encourage you to use a shelving EQ just before the limiter. The 3-band EQ in Ableton will do but there are also other you can use too. The idea of a shelving EQ is to quickly adjust frequency zones.

TIP: How to know what to adjust? Let’s say you feel there’s not enough low end (Kick/bass), then reduce the mids, followed by boosting the Limiter’s gain. Don’t boost the bass!!

Adjusting your sound in the first 5 minutes

I find the best way to find my levels is to take my time in the intro of my set and fade-in elements such as the kick, melody, etc. You can bring them at a level that feels like what you are familiar with. It’s important to spend time in the booth/stage before playing to be aware of the levels of the different elements in the room. I also like to go in the crowd area for five minutes to be aware of how the sound is, then go in the booth to see how the levels translate. Sometimes on the dance floor you have the highs piercing while its not the case on the stage or vice versa. This is a super important lesson for how you mix at home too and how it translates in the world.

Sound-checking

Ok, so now you’re at the venue and you’ve been given the opportunity to do a sound-check. Sometimes, you won’t have that luxury, so be grateful if you can. To make the best of this experience, focus on plugging in your sound interface so it’s ready to go and don’t worry so much about having the entire set-up ready. It’s common that sometimes there will be need for space and you might have to unplug or move some stuff. I’ve learned that leaving gear laying around might also be a bad idea, as I’ve seen people spilling drinks or even, some stuff getting stolen. Anyhow, here are main points of phase one of your sound-check:

  1. Beforehand, have your set saved so that when you press play, the most “intense moment” or peak time of your set plays. Most likely, the sound technician will ask for that to start with and I like to have than ready to fire when I arrive and be plugged. His first interest will be to see how he needs to adjust the limiter of the PA for your sound and he might also do a quick EQ curve.
  2. If you’re plugged in a DJ mixer on the stage, your first thing will be to make sure your channel is set to “Line-in”, then boost the gain of the channel to reach zero and avoid seeing any red peak indication both on the channel and the master.
  3. Make sure you can control the sound in the booth/stage and put it to a comfortable level. During your set, it’s important to mute it a few times to see what’s happening in the crowd.

If your sound reaches the PA and all is OK, then the first phase of your sound-check is completed. The gain is usually handled by the tech and you can control extra gain if needed.

Now, phase two of your sound-check: tonal adjustments.

“How do I know if my sound is OK?“

When at home, try to find a song that you know sounds similar to what you do, and that has its levels balanced (eg. kick vs mids vs highs) and load it up in a net channel of your set. That channel’s output should be set to “External out” and not master.

  1. Play the reference song to the venue and see how it sounds both in the booth/stage and the dancefloor. Make mental notes.
  2. Compare your master output to that reference first in the booth, then on the dancefloor.
    1. Is the volume more or less the same? Adjust limiter, compression.
    2. Are some frequencies harmful? Adjust the EQ.
  3. Go one by one, to the core of each moment/song of your set to see if there’s anything that clashes. My quick way to do this is to always start with the kick to make sure all kicks are at the same level, then bass, melody, percussion. You want all the kicks to be very close so that you don’t have nasty surprises when you jump from one song to another. Same for other parts.

You’re now basically ready to play. So if time allows you, try to quickly play between songs. See if something needs to be adjusted.

TIP: You might for instance see that all your percussion need a correction by EQ. You can add an EQ on the channel to do it or you might freeze & flatten that channel with the EQ to make it simple.

What if there’s no soundcheck?

If this happens and that means that phase one is not available. The venue might ask you to do a “line-check”, which means you send your audio to the mixer and the tech will deal with it. You might have no tech and then you have to do it in the mixer yourself. Just make sure your signal is about the same as the person before you and… good luck!

Extra tips for the minutes before you play from an experienced performer…

These are the things I always do and that took me time to figure out, so consider using them for some extra comfort:

  • Be mentally ready to play an hour before you play. Be around the booth, make sure your equipment is installed and tested that it works properly. On many occasions I had to change the mapping of my controllers – god knows why – so it’s good to have some buffer time.
  • Spend a moment without talking to anyone at least 15 minutes before you play. Keep focus.
  • Avoid drinks nearby your equipment. You know why.
  • Have a friend to filter around and help. I like to have someone to push away unnecessary people who want to talk to you while you play.
  • Bring extra cables of everything: USB, Audio cables and even a cable to play from your internal sound card.
  • If Ableton crashes, have something ready to play in iTunes in case and while you restart the program.
  • Use hearing protection if you can.

Let me know if you have questions and perhaps I’ll do a part 6 to playing live!

Music production techniques: Non-Linear Production

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It’s been a while since I promised a post about one of a number of music production techniques I use: non linear music production. The very first album I did using this technique and really sticking to rules of it was Intra; and then I recently went deep in to produce multiple EPs in the same vein of non linear production, which were made between end of December 2017 until March 2018. While Intra was an album of 23 songs made over nine months, my last experiment produced 19 tracks over 3 months. I think I’m getting better at it, mostly because it’s becoming clearer in my mind.

Out of the 19 recent tracks, I kept 8 for this album – which you can hear above – I named Returning Home; a statement about home being a state of mind and not necessary a physical place. I’ve been making techno/dance music since 1998, and after diving into more electronic soundscapes, experiments, and ambient music, it just felt good to return to my roots. A funny thing also – I tried working with some other labels to find it a new spot as I wanted to keep my label Archipel for more down-tempo stuff, but I kept getting refusals or complicated compromises. I’m too stubborn to change things and since this album was made based on a very solid concept, I didn’t want to go back and change what felt good.

But back to the non linear production technique. I’ll cover how the process went, from the beginning of where I started from scratch until the end.

I know some people who are like, “but I don’t need a technique as I just do music.” Sure, that is not for you then. But this technique can bring benefit if you’re looking to expand your production. It surely contributed to make me more prolific through time.

Non-linear music production – A concept

This concept (which has been around for decades according to some research I did), encourages the producer to explore working on multiple songs at once, in a non-linear way.

This means that:

  1. You aren’t working on a song’s beginning first to bring it to its end, before starting a new one.
  2. Each track is approached individually for its needs but you also work globally. Keep in mind that what you did in the previous track should differ on the next.
  3. The technique is about repeating the same phases/rounds until you get a solid core. Then there’s the finalization to get ready for mixing.

It’s called “non-linear” because you constantly circle up in a series of rounds, on multiple tracks, all at once.

Note: A non-written rule also implies that working on a track should be done in short periods such as 20-30 min at a time on a song, then stop, save and move on. Why? Because it keeps you fresh.

For many people I explained this to at first, it felt unsettling and confusing. There’s some kind of embedded belief in people that when you go make music, you should find your idea, absolutely stick to it, and build it into a song; beginning at start and bringing it to an end. I usually see people’s projects having a few blocks right at the beginning of the track and then they get lost.

The number one thing I hear all the time: “I can make a great loop but don’t know what next.”

I’ve written a post in the past about this. However the non-linear technique is really aimed at making the loop issue something of the past, because it’s all about transforming small ideas into bigger concepts.

But where does it start? How do you begin?

Before diving into producing, let me explain the rounds of the non-linear music production technique, as this is what it’s all about:

  1. Content creation, generating ideas.
  2. Filtering ideas into a concept.
  3. Building a core loop.
  4. Template structure.
  5. Arrangements.

When you decide to create your project, the first thing you should do is decide on your project type. Is it an EP (3-4 songs) or LP (5-10 tracks)? Perhaps you just want to make a bunch of tracks; I personally believe that we should never make just one track at a time. If you have no precise project, invent one, such as “I’ll make 5 tracks for fun and want them to be mainly techno.” Once this has been decided, you’re ready for content creation. I usually spend a considerable amount of time in content creation and idea generation.

You can also start from unfinished tracks that you want to apply the idea to. The idea is to work on multiple projects in parallel. I usually it works best if you have at least five on the go, but there’s no limit of course. To newcomers, start small though to see if working this way works for you. The technique is about to bring your track from a simple idea to a finalized but unmixed, song. The mixing is not part of this. I find the mix down works better if you don’t do early, it but perhaps it can. Don’t hesitate to build a reference folder where you put songs that inspire you.

Content creation, generating ideas

From all the years of listening to music, running labels, doing mastering and DJing, I’ve come up with a theory: a solid song is – in general – a single, solid idea, supported with two others. The main idea can be a loop, a motif or even a sound. I remember Hans Zimmer describing a motif by saying it has to have an emotional impact on you, that it reappears in your mind later on. He was saying that the Batman motif he did was a simple two notes, but very powerful. You’ll play them and you’ll automatically think of Batman. The two other ideas are necessary because a song usually needs a development and a “surprise.” That said, in this production technique, you need to create fresh ideas. Lots of them.

I made a very long post about how to come up with new ideas but I’ll sum how I did mine:

  • Recycling older ideas: I have countless samples that I’ve used or never touched. I like to process them into new sounds.
  • Recording radio or other spaces with a microphone: When I’m in a creative mood, I’ll spend a lot of time recording sounds around me from that period of my life. I’ll leave the recorder somewhere for an hour to see what comes up.
  • Try demos: I love getting demos and try to see what I can come up with it by sampling them. Some have limited time or others are in days. It forces you to resample the hell out of the work and get something. Sometimes I end up buying it of course.
  • Pure sound design: Layering sounds from different takes is a great way to generate rich sounds. I do this a lot but its time consuming.
  • Jamming with the sounds: When I have plenty, I’ll generally put the sounds in a sampler and jam them with a midi controller or PUSH. I’ll record everything I do into a project.

A project that has many ideas will be recorded with the date of the day for the jam. It might turn out that I have a few hours of material which means there’s hypothetically 3-4 ideas in there.

The definition of done (DoD) of this phase is when you have a project with 3-4 ideas ready to go. I usually do one session per track needed for the project.

Filtering ideas into a concept

This phase is one that you need to do outside of jamming. Why? Because when you jam, you’re in your creative state (right brain) and have tons of ideas but your judgement is off. You can’t be a judge then. You need to feel free and explore without boundaries. This second phase is about going into a more analytical side where you will be curating your crop.

  1. Go through all recordings you’ve made and loop part of it. The question is, can you listen to a loop and feel inspired? If yes, you have something to hold on to.
  2. Use different size loops like 1, 2, 4 bars. Compile different ideas.
  3. Use the session view to make scenes of loops you like.
  4. Try to see if certain loops, once layered, make unexpected motifs.
  5. (optional) Add a kick & hihat to give you an idea of the groove and adjust the timing of the loop.

The definition of done (DoD) of this phase is when you have a few scenes in your session view that feel solid.

*Note that you may go back to create more ideas (Round 1) to complement what you have. You may also create a pool for all ideas of all sessions and then make ideas from that. No rules here, only possibilities.

Building a core loop

At this point, you should have X number of projects (based on your project definition you decided on at the beginning, i.e. EP, LP, whatever), each with material that has been organized into 2-3 ideas. Now comes the moment to put it all together.

The loop you’ll build here is the middle part of your song so it should have all the bells and whistles.

  1. Add a foundation. The fundamental part of your song is the low end and the bass. From the main idea, add a bass that either supports or responds to the idea. Adjust it so it’s in key.
  2. Add percussion. Complementary to the bass, you may add kick, percussion, or anything complementary of what will create the groove. I usually start right away to decide what groove template I’ll use on this core part.
  3. Add melodic touches if needed. Decide how long your melody will be and how it progresses (if it does).
  4. Create a background and space if desired. This is usually the reverb and textures. However, this can also come later on.

The definition of done (DoD) of this phase is that you have a main loop that you can place in the arrangement window, right in the heart of your song (which means you need to know roughly how long it has to be). A good loop is one that is centered around your motif where if you solo that part, it would be what someone would talk about to describe your song.

In the process of working through the core loop, you might need to go back to create more content or you may import some from other sessions.

Template structure

Now that you have the core part of the song, it’s easier to build out the remaining structure. In the arrangement view, create three sections: a beginning, middle and end. You will now lay out your structure to have an idea of what you can do with your core idea.

  1. Copy the elements from beginning to end  that will be present the whole time through the track.
  2. Work backwards by deconstructing the timeline of what comes in first and so, until you get to the middle part.
  3. Do the same process until the end. You may repeat some elements.

The definition of done (DoD) of this phase requires that you have a temporary structure from beginning to end. It might take you a while, I encourage you to do sprints of 30 minutes at a time. The problem with working too long on this phase is that you lose perspective regarding the strength of your song. I usually want some sort of structure to come out of this phase, but I may go back and forth with the other phases until I am happy with it.

Arrangements

This is the final phase. You might need to come back to it as everyone has different needs that will arise in this process. Arranging – in simple terms – is creating the story-line of your song, but also between songs for your project! How do your tracks relate to each other? I have songs that have brothers and sisters, while some are from a completely different family.

After working on the arrangement of song, the last thing I do is export what I’ve done so far. When I switch to another track, I import the last session in the arrangement to see what I did and compare. I adjust the arrangements so all my tracks don’t have the same structure; beginning, breaks, and punches. I adjust them so they can be fun for DJs to mix too.

Arranging is a massive topic that I will detail in a future post and is involved in most music production techniques – but this explanation is a full conceptualization of how I work. Hopefully it helps you somehow too!

 

SEE ALSO :   Non-Linear Music Production 

Adding life to sounds: movement in electronic music

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Creating movement in electronic music

One of the most misunderstood concepts in electronic music is movement. By movement, I am referring to the way that each sound constantly evolves throughout a song. I was once talking with someone who is very into modular synthesizers and he was saying that he cannot stand recorded sounds such as samples because according to him, those sounds are “dead”. With modular synths a sound can be repeated for minutes and it will never be exactly the same because the hardware components constantly give the sound slight variations. A recorded sound is frozen just like a picture. Since we don’t all have the luxury to own a modular synth, let me explain how we can use software tools to make sounds feel “alive” and develop some movement in our own electronic music.

First, let us agree that movement in electronic music is about having some elements that are in “motion”. There are a variety of different ways to create that feeling:

1. Changes in volume (amplitude)

Volume change in percussion are often associated with groove and swing. Both can alter the volume of the sounds. That said, you can apply a groove template not only to percussion, but also to melodies and basslines. If that’s not enough you can also use the midi effect velocity which can not only alter the velocity of each note, but in Ableton Live it also has a randomizer which can be used to create a humanizing factor. Another way to add dynamics is to use a tremolo effect on a sound and keep it either synchronized, or not. The tremolo effect also affects the volume, and is another way of creating custom made grooves. I also personally like to create very subtle arrangement changes on the volume envelope or gain which keeps the sound always moving.

In general, using LFOs – such as what is offered in Max patches – can be used to modulate anything, and they will automatically create movement. For each LFO, I often use another LFO to modulate its speed so that you can get a true feeling of non-redundancy.

Tip: Combine the use of LFOs and manual edits and then copy sequences until the end of the song. I suggest you try stepping out of 4/4 and regular blocks structure to step out of a “template feel.”

2. Filter

Another great way to create movement is to have the sound always changing its tone. Using a filter in parallel mode is a very efficient way to create colours. The important part is to make sure that both the frequency and resonance are constantly in motion by using either LFOs or envelopes. By being in parallel the sound always appears to be the same but will have some added body to it because of the filter. What many people don’t know is there are different types of filters, so you can try different types of filters into different send channels and then your song will feel like its moving. While filters are great for subtle changes, you can also do the same trick with an equalizer but still in parallel. Adding an envelop on the filter so it detects incoming signal and change the the frequency is also a very nice way to keep things organic sounding.

Tip: Try comparing how a Moog filter can differ from any regular ones.

3. Textures

Background textures or noise is another great way to emulate analog gear. There are many ways to do that, but the one that I recommend is to get a microphone for your iPhone and then record a part of say, your next visit at the coffee shop or restaurant, or even in your house where we don’t realize that there is still a very low level of noise. Adding that recording at low volume to your song automatically adds a layer of every evolving sound. if you want, you can also convert certain noise into a groove pattern which creates a form of randomization on your sounds. Some high quality effects such as saturation used on certain sounds will add a form of texture that prevents your samples from sounding stale.

Tip: FM modulation on a filter or oscillation can create gritty textures.

4. Stereo and Panning

For this point there are different effects that play with the stereo image and – while you should be cautious – it’s good to have at least one or two sounds that have these kinds of effects. Some of these types of effects include of phaser, chorus, flanger, delay, reverb and auto-pan. They can all give the sounds movement if the modulation is unsynchronized and if the wet/dry is constantly being slightly modified.

Tip: Just be careful of what effects you use as overusing can create phasing issues.

5. Timing

A sound’s position in a pattern can change slightly throughout a song to create feelings of movement; a point people often overlook. This effect is easier to create if you convert all of your audio clips to midi. In midi mode you can use humanizer plugins to constantly modify the timing of each note. You can also do that manually if you are a little bit more into detail editing but in the end a humanizer can do the same while also creating some unexpected ideas that could be good. Another trick is to use a stutter effect in parallel mode to throw a few curve balls into the timing of a sound every now and then.

Tip: turn off the the grid locking in the arrangement section to intentionally be imprecise.

 

SEE ALSO :   Dynamic Sound Layering and Design