People often say that MIDI controllers are mostly for performing live, but they can also be your studio's most useful tool. My advice to people who want to invest in gear—especially those who aren't happy working only on a computer and dream of having tons of synths (modular and such)—is...
One of the most underestimated approaches to electronic music is collaboration. It seems to me that because of electronic music's DIY approach people believe they need to do absolutely everything themselves. However, almost every time I've collaborated with others I hear them say "wow, I can't believe I haven't done...
One of my favorite aspects of music making is to use proportional ratios regularly. While this seems perhaps counter-productive when compared with the artistic side of producing music, I use it to eliminate a bunch of technical roadblocks that emerge in the process of decision making. Because making decisions can...
In our Facebook group, I was asked to share some tips about writing melodies and how to approach this process while arranging. In electronic music, many artists are self-taught and the concept of music from a melodic and harmonic perspective is often built over intuitive understandings and reading online tutorials,...
Music arranging techniques are a topic I've been asked about most in the last few weeks. For many people, this is the part of music-making that causes issues. And rightfully so; arranging is all about storytelling. In past posts, I've said that even though your sound and production might be...
Given the quantity of hours of mixing I do regularly, I work on lot of projects from a wide variety of clients. I also have to do a lot of "cleaning up" before I get to work on the actual mixing of a song. I wanted to share with you...
When it comes to mixing and mastering, my work involves to listening to many, many songs. Some are great, while others need more love, but from the numerous songs I hear daily I can pinpoint one important thing that makes a song stand out the most: arrangements. I believe your...
It's been a while since I promised a post about one of a number of music production techniques I use: non linear music production. The very first album I did using this technique and really sticking to rules of it was Intra; and then I recently went deep in to...
Creating movement in electronic music One of the most misunderstood concepts in electronic music is movement. By movement, I am referring to the way that each sound constantly evolves throughout a song. I was once talking with someone who is very into modular synthesizers and he was saying that he cannot...
Lately I've been working on a live set, and I realized that I have a personal checklist I use to see if I covered everything to help me decide if a particular song is finished; from little details to bigger things, sometimes it's easy to overlook important factors. Just like...
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...
(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,...
When you're up against the wall, pushing forward to break through and get things down can be taxing. It's a mental game of will and strength against creative effort. What you need to know is this - waiting around for that very brief moment of inspiration and creativity will always...
I’m always looking for ways to improve upon what I do, and how I can better serve my clients. I’m not taking any breaks on becoming better and better every day. I read a lot and especially enjoy reading words from entrepreneurs to learn from, and help build upon the...
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