Tag Archive for: Ableton Live

Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 3)

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After the first two parts on this series of posts about playing electronic music live, we arrive at our final topic: clip arrangements, song organization and sound preparation.

Clip Preparation

I hope you did your homework from part two where I asked you to take your arrangements and turn them into an Ableton Live session. If you’ve done this, you’ll see that this task is pretty demanding and can be confusing, because you might feel your song(s) aren’t the same anymore, or perhaps they don’t make any sense. But trust me, even if you feel like you have failed in arranging your sessions, it will start to make more sense as we continue. What really matters is that you now have material loaded into the session view.

“What if my track is so simple that I have only a few clips in the session view?“

That’s not a problem, the idea is to have something. Part of the beauty of a live set is that once you have all your tracks in the session, you’ll shape them into a longer set. A live set isn’t like a DJ set, where you focus on transitions and track selections; it’s way more flexible and involves constant shaping to create a bigger picture.

1st To Do: Import all Your tracks into one big project

For the sake of this exercise, please start by creating a blank new live set that you’ll name “My Live Set” where you’ll have 12 channels to start with.

Next we will import all songs into that project. There are two ways to do this and it’s up to you to decide what is the best for you. I personally like to open a track, grab all clips in the session, copy (cmd+c), then open your “My Live Set” project and paste. You can also copy through the browser and should you be more comfortable using that method, do it that way.

One of the great new features of Ableton 10 is that groups now appear in the browser; which could be a good way to organize your work to re-import later on.

You should also consider copying audio leftovers over from each track. These unused pieces are more precious than you think, in a live context. A leftover is anything in your track that was created but didn’t make the final cut. It could be a variation, some weird FX, vocals, whatever – basically, anything will do. The idea behind leftovers is to create material for your live version to make it differ from the original song; it will add an edge.

Once you have all your tracks imported, you have a better idea of your whole session.

“How many tracks do I need for a 1h set?”

The answer here is hard to figure out until you’ve rehearse and determine your natural flow. After years of playing and recording my sets, I’ve figure that each of my tracks average a rough 6 to 8 minutes in a live context. This also includes the transitions (i.e two songs overlapping for 1-2  minutes, to make things smooth enough like a DJ would).

The total time of the tracks is not necessarily important to figure out. If you’re creative, you might even play the tracks in a random order.

2nd To Do: Name and color all clips appropriately

People often overlook this part but trust me, the better the organization, the less stress you’ll have in a live context. Never believe yourself when your mind says “oh I’ll remember what this clip is.” This is why names are important, but also, the clip color. All kicks should be the same color, basses and so on. My personal coding colors have been:

Kicks: red (grabs my attention)

Low end, bass: brown

Percussions: yellow

Claps/snare: Orange

Hihats: grey

Melodic elements: Blue, in various tons as some are different.

One thing about colors that helps is if you’re playing a track while in transition to another one, you can see the color of the other clip that you can’t see on screen.

Please note that I don’t necessarily recommend putting all of the same sounds in the same channels. You might want to mix, for instance, hihats of track A with the ones of track B. If both track’s hihats are in the same channel, you won’t be able to mix them and one will play after the other (only one clip can be played in a channel at a time).

Scene organization

Organizing your scenes is time-consuming, and it will also be what you’ll be reworking the most. It will also get your songs to have more of a live feel. For this section, I’ll use an example of one of my latest live sets to explain what I did, and why.

This song starts at the second row (scene).

Channel headers: As you can see, header colors aren’t important to me so much but there is a section all in white. This is because I use two MIDI controllers for controlling the volumes and the second section is for the second controller. This is also why they’re numbered so I know which slider they refer to on the actual controller.

3rd To Do: Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers

Think of how you want to control your set on a base level, which is the channels in most cases. This is the most important part to pin down, because as you prepare your set, you’ll need to control volume sliders. Map your channels to the appropriate elements of your controllers. If your controller has buttons, I’d also map them to the mute buttons. Mutes are very important.

Buffer rows: As you can see, alternating rows before and after each busy row have scene of empty clips. You can also see that they have the “stop” square in them. I create “buffer rows” for two reasons: the buffers help know where the song starts and begins, but they also serve as a quick way to toggle a clip to stop playing if necessary.

4th To Do: Add 1-3 buffer rows between each song

The first scene/row of each track: The first row, to me, is the most important one. Over years of playing, I’ve settled on a super minimalist version of my live set where I play mostly loopy music with variations which really enforced the importance of the first row of the set.

The first row has various various roles:

  • It is the introduction of your song: It will be used in the transition from the previous track.
  • It is the core idea of your song: All sounds that are playing from beginning to end of your song should be placed here and remove everything below. In my case, the kick will be the same from beginning to end. The length of the kick will be 4 bars long and include variations. Some people like to add multiple clips underneath as variations to trigger, so that is always another option, but think that whatever remains the same throughout should be there.
  • Tension relief: If you noodle around, create an improvised breakdown or start removing sounds. You can use the right side play to then trigger all sounds at once to come back to the song’s full intensity and main idea. This point is very important if you think you’ll be exploring and improvising as you’ll need an anchor.

5th To Do: Make a solid core

Supplementary/following scenes: There are multiple ways to use the scenes that follow your initial introduction. To “play it safe” you could simply have each scene play as the track evolves. The good thing about this approach is that by having all scenes on hand, you can deconstruct the timeline of your song by playing them in different orders. My favourite way of doing this is to have variations of a scene, such as one line with hihats, one with none, one with two playing and a clap, etc, same for melodies. This way I can play variations but I can also trigger one entire line and have a “ready-to-go” new take. If you look at my live set screenshot above, you’ll also see that under one sample “Tommydrum”, I have the same clip three times using variations in timing or tweaks in the versions. I can toggle between them as I need them.

Last To Do: Plan your follow-up lines/scenes and decide what you use.

In the next post, we’ll discuss rehearsing, sound calibration and advanced clip settings!

Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 2)

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After deciding the direction your live set will take, we will now discuss how to prepare a live electronic set in terms of how we approach each individual song, or moments as I call them. This article is the follow up to Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 1)

Before continuing, make sure you have read the article linked above; after which you should have a better idea the style you’d like to play live. Since most electronic musicians are software users, we’ll start with that approach which is easier and allows for playing both at home for fun or in a club. A common mistake I often see from new artists who want to perform live is to make things too ambitious and overly complicated; the preparations become too demanding and actually playing the set loses its fun.

First idea in preparing your set: turn your tracks, finished or not, into moments to be played live.

In a previous post, I said that making many loops is something that eventually pays off. When you want to play live, it’s always best to have a lot of options on hand that you can trim, to see what works together and then turn these perhaps unfinished loops into new songs.

For years, I always had a main project file for playing live in which I would test drive any new ideas I would worked on done over a given period of time. This live set was like a laboratory for experimentation; it was where new ideas would sprout, where loops became completed tracks, and where some sounds were replaced or remixed into another track. In other words, I recommend turning your unused arrangement loops into a scene in Live, play them, and record the output. Rinse, repeat.

But where and how do I start? 

For example, let’s take this simple arrangement and see what we can make out of it. Let’s say you have a track in the works or done, partially set up in an arrangement view (Note: Any DAW, in arrangement, not just Ableton); firstly, you’ll need to know how the track is structured.

Figure 1 – Arrangement view with markers

 

Do you want to play the track like your arranged it or do you want to have the parts so you can improvised with the different section?

As you can see in the above screenshot, I have inserted markers in my arrangement which represent the main changes between sections; everything is mostly organized in blocks. You’ll need to slice out these blocks to trigger them, and also what will become important is how you decide to play them. If some parts are heavily chopped, I would recommend that you either turn that section into an entire block, or if you want to jam those sounds you could add them to a Drum Rack. It depends if you want to do some jamming in your set or not. The point here is to have a better view of how your blocks exist so that when you are in the session view, the parts are easy to see.

1st TO DO:

  • Stretch the little blocks that repeat to create bigger blocks that cover the area where they should be repeating (note: make sure the clip is in loop mode) .
  • Use cmd+j to consolidate chopped blocks into bigger block. If some blocks have changes in them, consolidate them as is.
  • Use colors to clarify where the blocks have changes. Say a block is repeating until a given time but then changes pitch; you could change the color of the one where the pitch is changed to symbolize this change.

Figure 2 – Consolidated vs. Unconsolidated blocks

In Figure 2, the left section has been consolidated, and the right side hasn’t. You can the Duplicate left section to the right after consolidating this way.

This may appear time consuming, but it’s not that much extra work and it will pay off once you move everything to session view.

When you’re finished here, you need to bring the new blocks into the session view.

If you have groups, I’d suggest to ungroup them. The reason is that it is not only inconvenient to use groups in session view, but there are chances that your groups differ from one song to another, and in the end it might be more confusing than helpful. If you have grouped FX, I’d suggest you export the entire channel as a stem and decide later how to use it in a live context. You could perhaps decide to use FX during the live and so, not to bounce the channel. It’s hard for me to tell you what to do here.

2nd TO DO:

  • Grab all clips using cmd+a, click to grab, press Tab and then drop them in the session view.

    cmd+a, click to grab, press Tab and then drop them in the session view

  • You might have a really large amount of clips. After moving things to session view you’ll see that some “scenes” are made up of the same clips. You’ll need to delete all scenes that are the same; you don’t need them. In the end, you might go from 60 possible scenes, to about 5 (!). In live situation, you want everything in front of you, and the simpler things are, the faster you’ll be able to get in the zone. You can also go from Scene A to B, to C to D in any order, which gives you the option to remix your music on the fly.
  • Some people might have a huge number of channels grouped in 5-8 groups. Groups make things difficult to play live as they add a lot of complexity. I’d suggest you perhaps export the track’s stems for the groups and then chop them in sections as I explained above. This might also eventually invite you to reconsider how you use channels – I often feel like people use too many. I never use a single channel for a one hit that happens once in a song. I’ll have a reserved channel where I drop all the one-hit sounds. This can be a game changer for you if you use many as smaller projects are easier to understand and you’ll feel more focused (and use less CPU!)

 

Regarding the number of channels to use, you’ll need to do tests on your own set up before deciding how to do this. In the previous post on this topic, I was advised to be careful with the number of channels/tracks you use. Ideally you want to deal with a max of 12. To trim down the number of channels you are using in the event that you are already using more, you’ll need to mix down a few that are similar or combine channels that don’t have much going on. For example, I’d have a channel that would be a longer loop that would combine all FX and random hits. Playing it as a longer loop as opposed to a shorter one creates more of a live feel that isn’t as “loopy”.

Rehearse your session by hitting certain clips or triggering a scene to see what happens. Once you have removed the redundant scenes and trimmed down the number of channels, you’ll start having a first real glance of what your song looks like in terms of playing it live.

Of course, you’ll deal with the existential question of if you want to play the track “as is” or have a special version just for a live context.

Personally, I think it’s a bit boring to not offer something different in a live set, Two ways you can change things up are through pacing and jamming. jamming will be touched on more in part 3 as it is a very important part of preparation and can also be something that can also forever change your approach regarding how you make music.

Pacing will be the last part of the preparation of your live set. I will cover most of the preparation phase of pacing below, and the following blog post will be more concerned with how to play your live set.

I think my best live sets were good mostly because they had a core to work around that had some preparation, but also had a lot of room to improvise, dependent on how the actual event turned out. These sets were versatile; I could open an evening with them or play peak time, mostly because of how flexible they were. These sets were more or less made up of the same songs but the variations would be so easy to perform on the fly that I could really just follow what felt good to me in that moment in time. I’ve never really understood the point of having an overly prepared set. I’ve tried the prepared approach before and it just made the whole experience boring, because there would be no risk-taking; it also felt out of sync with whoever was listening. For example, imagine that your track has been built to have a drop, breakdown at one precise point and a moment of tension after, but if the dance floor is just starting to warm up when you drop, you might lose people’s attention or it might feel out of place.

A well prepared set has moments for building tension, others to release, variations, and material to raise the intensity if needed, without it being a fixed bunch of parts that aren’t easily movable. Each songs need an intro and outro so that you can move from one song to another in a very flowing way, just like a DJ would do.

Last TO DO (3):

  • Try to decide on the first scene of your songs. They shouldn’t be too busy but usually, you want a solid groove plus some teasers of the melody to come. Establishing the groove is always important to get people’s–what I call–dancefloor trust. That trust usually comes from kick-low end that is clear and precise, which people can relate to, no matter what happens in other parts of the frequency spectrum.
  • Your intro should have openness and space. If you have a melody, try muting a part of it. This will allow the possibility of mixing a part of the melody of another song with the current song; they will be “talking to each other” by echoing. This happens when the first few notes of a melody are answering the last few notes of another melody. DJs love that in a song and by playing live, you’ll see why; you’ll discover “dialogs” between your tracks which could even teach you the good and bad of your track’s arrangements.
  • Define the hook. The main hook of your song will follow the intro. It doesn’t mean you’ll drop the hook right away, as you can build towards there.
  • Set two variations of the hook with some complementary percussion. If you listen to a DJ set, especially techno or loop based music, you’ll see that it’s mainly a loop with variations. Try to have variations in your percussion, melody or bass. That way you can toggle between the hook and this part. I really really encourage you to listen to DJ sets to get ideas.
  • Create one tension-making moment. This can be a breakdown or a moment where something happens. I always loved to define this moment to be a scene where effects and atmosphere to create something exciting.
  • Release the tension. This scene is basically what would be played after the breakdown or tension-making moment and it’s usually the hook with some more intensity and or variations. This scene should be the most important one.
  • Outro. This is similar to the intro but it should be slightly different.

In the next post, we’ll go into more detail about the actual clips and how to create the perfect little “laboratory” for you to jam with. I’ll propose some ways to jam that will open doors to finally playing live and having all the fun that comes with it.

SEE ALSO : Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 3)  

Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 1)

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Playing electronic music live is a huge topic and I could dedicate an entire blog to it; this is the first in a series of posts outlining some advice to help electronic and computer-based musicians perform a live set. My goal here is to cover everything you need to know to perform live.

Prior to writing this post, I talked with MUTEK Festival’s director Alain Mongeau about how the festival has been sticking to prioritize live acts. I asked him if live acts were still popular compared to when the festival’s debut in 2000. He said that while it is an important thing for them to promote live expression of music, there’s still confusion on what it really implies.

Firstly, we need to answer the essential question which has been debated for years:

What is a “live set” and why would you do it?

I’m not going to explain this in a ton of detail, but let’s clarify one thing, no one person has the right to say what a “correct” live set is. You should have your personal opinion about what a “live set” means in electronic music, which will then in turn be the foundation of your own approach to creating a live set.

Before I offer any answers to this question, let me share my personal interpretation of the phrase “live set” which has defined my own sets since the very first one I performed in 1999.

To me, a live set of electronic or computer-based music:

  • implies playing your own music.
  • is not playing songs as is. Nothing pre-recorded unless live tweaking is involved.
  • involves some improvisation; experiments and an element of risk taking.
  • means that there are some possible interactions with the audience; therefore the timeline of songs played shouldn’t be planned in advance (like they often are in a DJ set).
  • should be unique every time you play it. But I understand this is difficult and/or not important to everyone.

While I’ve always felt that these should be the basic “rules” of live sets, I’ve come across so many well-established artists who don’t follow any of these points and would argue that “live sets” are something different. Like I said previously, it’s not up to me to decide how “live sets” should be. Picture your own interpretation of a good “live set” so you can build your session accordingly.

This series of posts will address certain ways to prepare a live set in Ableton Live, mainly from my own perspective but I will also cover other points.

Why do you want to play live? This is an equally important factor to consider. I feel that live sets in electronic music are very important and meaningful to both the artist and the audience. It’s a rare moment for an artist to share, connect, explore and be creative with a lot of other people. I don’t believe it approaching live sets lightly unless, well, you’re music is light-hearted perhaps! But even then, I still think devoting time and love to your set can do great things.

Live set preparations

I’d like to cover three main types of live sets to start to help you decide on a direction you want to take for your own sets.

Live Set Type #1 – Playing close reproductions of your own tracks

This type of set is what I’ve been doing most when I play live, but I really make sure that no matter how I’ve prepared my set, it has room for improvisation. I remember a tour where I had one person see/hear my set three nights in a row and told me years later that each night was pretty different, and each felt like a different trip – that really made me happy!

  • The logic of this set type: You have songs that are done or halfway done and divide them into scenes and groups in Ableton (note: the new version of Ableton gives this approach crazy potential). I do not like the idea of an artist simply playing one scene at a time, one after the other until he/she gets to the end. I find there are no risks taken here but understand some genres are limited to this approach.
  • How much of a base should I use? I would say that an average song should have about 3 to 10 scenes and groups, and audio channels are more effective if you limit yourself to 6 to 12. Think of CPU too as you don’t want it to stutter in the middle of your set. A MIDI controller is often limited to 8 faders so if you have more channels, it gets a bit complicated, but more complex arrangements are still doable.

mutek 2008

Live Set Type #2 – Playing mainly improvisations with little-to-no preparation

In the early years of my live sets, this was how I approached live sets, but I came back to the first method as I find that for me type #1 is the most fulfilling. This method however, will definitely result in completely new versions of your music each time you play.

  • The logic of this set type: In my early live sets (circa 1998-2002), I would prepare the core of each important moment of the set at home; I would treat these moments like songs. I would know what the melody would be, a bit of the drum sequence, effects, etc. In those days I’d have analog gear alone, and I would save the melody in the piece of hardware I was using. The narrative of the set would be that I’d go from one song to another, in no precise order, sort of similarly to how you can now do this in Ableton Live. You can keep it simple and go from one scene to another in no particular order, which also opens doors to improvise or add new ideas on the fly. I call this approach the elastic live set.
  • How much of a base should I use?  In Ableton, contrasting to the approach I outlined in type #1, using this type (#2) I have only one scene but have 12-15 channels. In a live set of this type, I jam around one scene using the clips I already have saved, going from one scene to another in no particular order. In the past I would need to make sure all my hardware would be on the appropriate settings.

Live Set Type #3 – Playing with analog gear or hybrid with A laptop

This type of live set is fun and looks good on stage but is also very tricky, mostly because of the sync problems you might have between gear and the laptop. But if you make it work, it can be pretty damn epic.

  • The logic of this set type: There’s no formula here, as uses either of the type #1 or type #2 approaches, simply complemented by a piece of gear such as a synth, drum machine or modular stuff. You can use the computer for sequences or as a potential helper to handle things you can’t do alone. Bitwig is actually really really powerful if you are using modular because of the way it’s built. I’d consider running Ableton Live and Bitwig, sync with Link. I find Bitwig to be a bit more tight on the sync and Ableton to be more easy on playing sequences.
  • How much of a base should I use? The mistake you might run into with this type of live set is wanting to do too much, to cover too many aspects of your music and potentially to never be able to do it all in live set. I find that the less you have to do in terms of sync’ing and parameter tinkering, the more focused you’ll be, which means you follow the flow of your improvisations and music more easily.

 

mutek_2017_YoureMeBand_TRUNG-16

Other Live Set questions you might want to address

  • Are you going for one representation of your music or do you plan to play it multiple times?
  • Does it matter to you if you can repeat the same set exactly or do you want it to be evolving?

These two questions can also influence what type of live set you decide to build and play.

Concluding thoughts on live set types

Think ahead; think about which direction your live set might go. For instance, if you want to play your own tracks, think of which ones you’d want to use, and try to have them all in a folder (use the “collect all and save” from Ableton to make sure you have everything on hand ready to go). As for the improvisation and hybrid sets, think about what kind of setup you might want and feel comfortable with. And lastly, the audience you are performing in front of is important. You should never play the same set in a club as you would at an outdoor festival.

Stay tuned for part two of this series of posts on playing electronic music live.

 

SEE ALSO : Playing Electronic Music Live – How to Prepare Your Live Set (Part 2) 

Free Ableton Live Mixing Template

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I’ve put together a free Ableton template after receiving feedback that it was very helpful for many people I’ve worked with. The template available on this page is aimed specifically at mixing. I’ve noticed that many aspects of mixing are often misunderstood; I’ve assembled a starting template that has bundled together many useful tools to deal with basic things – this free Ableton template will be useful for those involved in music making!

This template includes:

  • 6 Groups: Kick, Bass/low end, Percussions, Hihats, Atmosphere, Melodic.
  • 3 Busses: Low end (Where kick + bass are routed), Percussion, Melodic.
  • 1 MIXBUS: Where the busses are routed and is actually your pre-master channel.
  • 1 Reference channel: Where you drop the your reference track.
  • Multiple Sends as enhancers.
  • Macro tools on each groups and busses to help you tackle tone and potential issues.

This template looks very close to what pro engineers use like the one Andrew Scheps did for Puremix, but I found Andrew’s template wasn’t really as suitable for electronic music. I’m sure he would disagree but underground music isn’t really handled like commercial music is.

 

Is this template for producing or just mixing?

You could use this template to start producing with if you feel comfortable with it, but I’d encourage you to export stems from a project and then use this template to mix. Yes, it’s a bit more work, but it will also make free up your CPU and make your project ready for a new phase of production. It’s fun also to put an end to tweaking details and then focus on the mix alone.

 

How do I use this template?

There are many ways you could potentially use a template like this but I’d like to explain a few things to get you started quickly. First off, grouping your sounds is always a good start. I like to to think of it this way:

  • Kick group: This group is made to hold the different layers of your kick(s); the best way to make full range kick is to have up to 3 layers, but that will be handled by the group’s macro tool that uses compression and saturation. I created another little macro tool to help beef up your kick with a sub generator and a transient enhancer. I included some sounds from my collection for you and feel free to add more. If you balance everything properly, you’ll have beautiful, warm and punchy kicks.
  • Bass/Low end: This group is essentially the same thing as kicks, but to be used as the bass. Include the multiple layers of your bass (sub/mids), and I’d encourage you to also include anything that is below 200hz such as toms, synth, pads. The macro on that group will help balance it out.
  • Percussions: Anything percussive from bongos, claps, snares or percussive synthetic sounds. This group can get busy so don’t be afraid to add multiple new channels in the group itself.
  • Hihats: Hats or anything that is regular in your group and an important part of your groove could be put in this area. In my case, I sometimes include snares. Please note that there’s no right away to use the Percussion & Hihats group and experimenting might get you some interesting results.
  • Melodic groups: These two work hand in hand. One is for anything in the background and the other is for the melodic elements to be forward. The way the macros work, they will help you position properly the sounds and make the best of them. Try playing with the various knobs to see how they influence the groups.

Please note – I’m applying high pass on these groups and feel free to change the steep which can influence the sound in some good ways, sometimes.

The three busses are quite interesting to work with once you get the levels of your groups finished. For instance, you want to find the best relationship between bass and kick that are routed together. Once they are balanced, the bus allows you to control both the bass and kick at once; this can help you more easily decide on the tone of your track by moving the bus up and down.

I’ve also included a reference channel to remind you to use a track that can be used as a mood and reference board. Reference tracks are great to help you to take inspiration from parts of other tracks you like and would potentially like to use in your mix.

The various sends are simple tools to just beef up or open up your sound. Sends are really for finishing touches to your mix and they’re meant to be used as gently as they can be; subtlety can also make things intense.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback for the development of this free Ableton template; I am glad I can continue to help everyone enjoy making music!

Click to download this free Ableton template:

[download id=”29936″]

My tracks always have the same song structure

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(Cover Photo by Luca Bravo)

One of the common things I often see and also struggle with myself is that sometimes I feel like my songs are always arranged in the same way; my song structure is often the same. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with following a regular song structure, often I feel like I need to have more arrangement variations in my work and new ways to present my music.

ableton live, ableton, structure, arrangements

So, what’s wrong with repeating song structures you already know work?

There are secret ways to consistently get great results with certain arrangements that, for the most part, will always “work”. When I used to DJ hard techno or drum and bass in the late 90s, eventually I became really bored of all the tracks had the exact same structure. Yes, it was extremely easy to mix the tracks together once you understood the “tricks” but at the same time, it was also underwhelming for listeners and DJs with a creative minds who preferred more challenging music and mixing.

It’s important not to fall into repetitive habits and patterns; you might find new arrangement tricks while exploring and experimenting with new song structures.

Before jumping into slice mode to get your arrangements upgraded, let’s outline a few rules that will be very useful to consider before we actually begin editing:

  1. Export a wav file of the last track worked on (any project!), finished or unfinished. Especially if you’re working using my method of Parallel Music Production; this technique will be very useful. Start a new habit of not only saving your project at the end of your session, but also bouncing a wav file of what you have.
  2. Import your file into the current project you’re about to work on. By importing, I’m referring to the arrangement section where you can drop in an empty, dedicated channel.
  3. Use markers for the arrangements as for where there are key points, changes, transition. With these references, you can see if your current project has similar points as your previous wav file, and then you might want to change it up if they are similar.
  4. See if the two projects can be easily mixed by a DJ. This is a good test to see if your track has too much going on, or if things will be fun to mix. I’ve said countless times before that if your music is fun to mix, DJs will carry a copy of your track for all their sets.

Slice your song structure

With your new habits in place, now go into slicing mode and get things started. As I’ve discussed before in a previous article, How to Turn a Loop Into a Song, you’ll need to decide the bpm and length of your track as starting point and build from there. I invite you to refer to the post if you need the full tutorial on that topic.

So let’s say you finally have a structure made up that you’re happy with. Here are the main key points I often use to avoid redundancy:

  1. Find the main sections of your song, and slice off the beginning and the end. A “section” of a song is a part that is different than others for its content. In pop music, we refer to these sections as bridges, breakdowns, choruses, etc. In electronic music, these types of sections might be a bit more subtle or non-traditional, but they’re still there.
  2. With your sections isolated, determine if your perspectives are balanced. By “perspective”, I mean this just like it is used in photography; see if your track has balanced ratio.
  3. Insert empty slices in middle of the parts as well as some random points in the song. Check some “winks” that you might be able to make from the reference track you originally imported. “Winks” are when one song might “talk or reply” another if mixed properly.
  4. Move around your sliced blocks/sections. Try wild swaps and mess with perspective. Be creative. In contrast to the often useful “use your ears not your eyes” advice, in this case I highly suggest working on your structure visually alone without any sound at all so you’re not biased or held back in your arranging experimentation. If you’re new to the idea, make sure you make a backup copy first of your project. Personally, I spend quite some time to make something visually appealing with my blocks even before listening.
  5. Intentionally leave mistakes. Did you move something slightly off the grid? Did you paste a section at the wrong place? Try leaving in it the structure until next time you come back to it.

Try messing with your song structure; let me know how it goes!

SEE ALSO :   Lego Blocks as Song Structures 

Dynamic Sound Layering and Design

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Sound layering can be a very complex or very simple technique in music creation and production depending on your goals. In a past post, I gave some really basic sound design tips; I have a lot of readers who are just starting out with mixing and producing, so it made sense to start with something less intense. This second post about sound design, however, will focus on something a little bit more advanced but still very simple: sound layering. It’s actually surprising to me to see so many people who ignore techniques that allow them to get the most out of layering, so I thought I’d write about it.

First off, I would like to discuss Ableton’s groups. Many people use them as the equivalent of busses, where all the grouped sounds will all be treated in a specific ways and yes, that approach works really well indeed. However, I prefer using a solo channel as a bus instead and use groups for sound design or classification. A good example is for kicks or claps, which are usually a combination of up to 3 different samples or sound sources (ex. 2 samples, 1 synth, etc.). Basically, since each sound is a collection of multiple samples, then I could say that they will work best as a group.

Visually it looks better and is easier to manage, and additionally you can also put effects on the group to glue all the sounds together – generally you’ll need a compressor and one or two EQs for a relatively uniform group. Once I’ve done that, I usually like to have an additional bus for all sounds (eg. groups) that will glue everything else together.

A second point to keep in mind, is that there’s always multiple ways to do sound design. Keep in mind that what I show you here is simply how I do it but there are other people who use different techniques; I try to keep it simple. Two methods Ableton will describe here that I like are the arranger and the drum rack.

If you work in the arranger, you drop sounds in the channel and it’s an easy way to see the layers. I like turning off the grid to do this so it feels a bit more natural.

You can adjust the volume for each layer and tweak the EQ to get part of the spectrum of one sound, and the complementary part of another.

You can do the same with the attack and release; there are so many options. I really recommend using the faders too for more control. So basically, volume, EQ are your best friends here. Brainworx has an amazing filter I recommend, it’s super solid for sound design.

If you prefer, you could also mainly use the Drum Rack to do the same thing. Load up the same samples in the pads of the tool and then sequence them by MIDI instead of putting them in the arranger. Some people dislike working this way because they can’t easily see the frequency shape of the audio file. But the advantage of this approach is that you get to have access to more options to manipulate your sounds, like the extra controls in Ableton’s Sampler window.

What I think is best in the end is to combine both the sound arrangement layering, with the an extra channel of Sampler use so you can work on constant movements. The main thing you want from your sound design, is a feeling of liveliness and emotion. The sampler has LFOs you can assign to filters, panning, or volume, which is a subtle touch that creates a nice layer of movement and liveliness. In the same way, I’d even add a synth of your choice to give richness to the sound with oscillators working to reinforce the fundamentals with a discrete tone; more complex sound layering.

Finally, on the group of the sound itself, I would add nothing but an EQ and compressor to “glue” everything together, but you could also use reverb to broaden your stereo image. These techniques should help you improve your sound design skills!

SEE ALSO : Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head 

Background vs forefront to create dimension

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Nearly every week I have a similar conversation with my clients. In good faith, and to save both my clients and myself time I’m writing this post to help answer the questions many producers keep wondering. The question of background vs. forefront to create dimension.

My clients often send me projects with a lot of sounds going on, which if you know me and my label well enough is something I’m a big fan of. That being said, there is a way to work with a song made up of lot’s of sounds without things becoming a bit too much.

During the production of your song, how many times have you listened to it all the way through? Twenty, thirty times? More? As songwriters, we need to consider the listening perspective of our audience, who will likely never hear all the nuances and details that we do. Perhaps if they’re big fans, they’ll listen to our track ten times. With that number of listens, the impression you get from a very busy song is very similar to looking at a very busy picture – You’ll discover different ideas on each view, but the whole image will be taken for what it is. What will sound like a mistake to you will likely be perceived otherwise by the casual listener.

When we use many different sounds together in an arrangement, it can be impossible to hear them all equally. As producers, we care for the work we’ve put into our sound design and often make the mistake (myself included) of trying to give every sound (big and small) the same amount of emphasis in hopes that nothing will be missed.

Even during active listening, both simple and complex music will often have subtle details we may not hear at first.

The important thing to understand is this – many sounds working together shape and create an experience. Some sounds only work when combined with others to form a unique layer, much stronger than the sum of it’s parts.

Sound design is a complex science that often takes years to understand fully. For many producers that ‘a-ha’ moment comes with the understanding that many sounds aren’t massive all by themselves, but rather a combination of several sounds carefully layered together.

For example, a punchy kick may have three layers (low, mids, hi-mids for transient shaping). A warm and full sounding pad may have harmonics created from a layer of richer oscillation in the hi-mids (using a square oscillator). This is the technical part of it but for someone not interested in sound design and is purely a listener, he/she will experience these sounds in an entirely different language, but he will get it though.

TRY: When listening to music, force yourself to identify layers in sounds.

With the concern that some sounds will not be heard equally at rest, we can start looking into how to create details with dimension and subtlety.
These details are as important as each of the featured sounds as they are needed to support the main element(s) of the song itself. Let’s see how to approach this:

  1. Decide what the core or backbone of your song is. If someone has to sing your song to someone else or attempt to explain what the song is about, what would that person say? In other words, the most memorable part of your song is the main idea. If you remove that, the song is not really there since most of the sounds are there to support that main idea.
  2. In the percussion sounds, identify what are the main elements that support the groove and the main idea. Usually, there’s the kick, a snare/clap, and a hat. Some tracks have multiple claps or additional  percussions here and there, but it’s important to decide what the main percussion sounds are.
  3. The other sounds will be EQed to create dimension. Only the use of EQ combined with volume changes will be enough here.

TRY: Next time you listen to a song, try to give attention to anything that is mixed low in the mix.

 

How to apply the distancing technique, on a very simple level, is to apply a low-pass filter/EQ on the sound. The more your filter up, the thinner the sound will feel and also the more pushed away it will sound. There’s no right or wrong here, but you’ll need to adjust the volume to your own taste and feel. I would suggest compressing your sounds to bring them together somewhat.

This is a regular cut that usually removes a lot of muddiness.

 

This cut would move sounds to a bit behind any of the featured sounds.

 

This place sounds far off

 

For subtle positioning.

 

The other trick would be to use reverb but that one is something to use with great care. Depending on your reverb unit, this technique can introduce muddiness which the previous trick won’t do. Like always experiment and find what you like in the process. You can also combine the EQ trick with the reverb use for better feel.

Let me know how it goes!

 

 SEE ALSO :  Dynamic Sound Layering and Design    

Templates As Seeds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One exercise you can start applying today would be:

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

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

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

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

 

 

SEE ALSO :  Pointers To Define Your Sound

Bouncing stems and mix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SEE ALSO : Use a main project for organizing yourself 

How To Quickly Audition New Plugins

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

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

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

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

What are some of the problems with learning something new?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SEE ALSO :  Plugin Review: Circle 2 VSTi 

Two birds one stone. Separating ideas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ideas, ableton, productivity, how to

 

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

    Session view in Ableton

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

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

    ableton crossfade

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

JP

SEE ALSO : Pheek Talk 3: Productivity Tips 

Bonsai Method

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

With so many tools anything is possible.

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

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

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

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

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

What is the Bonsai Method?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things you can do to alter and modify your sound:

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

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

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

 

JP –

SEE ALSO : Two birds one stone. Separating ideas.

Making and breaking genres in your music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

JP.

SEE ALSO : Where to Get Fresh New Ideas for Tracks  

Lego Blocks as Song Structures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ableton, arrangements, live, techno, clean

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

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

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

3. Work from bottom to top

ableton arrangements, organization

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

4. Use patterns as a mosaic.

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

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

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

lego blocks as song structures

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

ableton arrangement, techno, music production tips

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

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

JP.

SEE ALSO :  Finishing Your Projects 

Beats and Melodies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

How to use all your new sounds?

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

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

How to write melodies and beats in Ableton Live tutorial.

Creating beats and melodies tutorial with Ableton Live.

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

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

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

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

JP.

SEE ALSO :  Making and breaking genres in your music 

How to Create a Deep Kick

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

Things have drastically changed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

What is a deep kick?

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

There are different kinds of kicks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

Pheek deepkick maker, kick maker, deep kick, kick drum machine, analog

 

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

Let me know what you think of it!

 

 

SEE ALSO :  Sound design: create the sounds you imagine inside your head  

How to Turn a Loop into a Full Song

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

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

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

How to turn loops into full songs: drag your loop into the arranger

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

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

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

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

From loop to finished track: screenshot of track in Ableton

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

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

So, one block equals 4 bars.

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

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

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

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

Use variations, and replicate that loop over four bars.

turning loops into finished tracks: screenshot of loop replicated over 4 bars

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

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

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

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

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