Tag Archive for: music production

The Success Trap

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I went to a local club to hear a visiting friend from Romania for an all-night of music that was more aligned with my tastes, and while the DJ before him was a bit linear and predictable, my friend opened up with fresh-sounding music. He didn’t drop the Beatport top 10 music or anything directly linked to the previous DJ, not even an introduction to please the crowd. He dropped some obscure techno, which was a bit audacious, and he quickly followed it with a song from the 90s. The main idea of that track was a vocal saying, “Get House,” which was this song by Caliesto. Beautiful contrast.

 

 

Just hearing the sample, I had flashbacks of raves, lasers, glow sticks, and people dancing and sweating, just from a single sample that I heard, which brought me back to a specific era. In contrast to the previous DJ, where all songs blended well together in a seamless flow, there was unfortunately nothing memorable or tangible to grasp from it. I don’t remember a single moment, just a week after. This is not a criticism of someone’s music, but more to say that solid ideas age well because they create intense moments. If you listen to the Caliesto song, you’ll realize it’s relatively simple. Still, the hook is catchy enough for anyone to tell their friends later on about the primary sample, which others can probably remember easily.

It occurred to me that the definition of success has changed since the 1990s. Of course.

 

Back to DJs

 

As I got back into DJing, I’m exploring the options available, as numerous tools are now available. For instance, I got a professional account on Rekordbox and paired it with an experienced account on Beatport. This allows me to sync my playlist from the store directly to my Rekordbox, add any songs I want and then have this endless catalogue on hand. It’s basically like having Spotify, where your limitation is your music knowledge or culture. But even if you are new to it or limited, there are discovery tools to help you search what others like and play.

After synchronizing Beatport to Rekordbox and opening the music section related to it, I got overwhelmed. If you know me, you’d know that technology rarely overwhelms me. It took me a lot to get there, but I was staring at the selection and feeling lost. I wasn’t overwhelmed with possibilities; I was confused by how much junk was out there.

I’m not here to criticize the music again, but more from a meta-level, stepping back as a global view.

The number of songs that sound exactly like the previous one was blatant. Some of my favourite artists suddenly make songs with questionable sounds or presets, and many new artists create music with strange, unusable arrangements.

Am I too old for this?

Nah, don’t worry. Once I start digging, I still find a lot of fantastic music. So what happened exactly?

 

Music Democratization and Open Business Opportunities

 

In the 90s, electronic music software aimed to allow more and more people to make music by making it more accessible and affordable. This opened the path to countless music lovers interested in making music. I’d be a hypocrite to complain because I was one of those people with no music background; technology was my saviour. Jump 30 years later, add YouTube for knowledge sharing (fueled with the motivation of popularity of likes), and add aggregators who allow anyone with a finished song to access all online stores and streaming platforms. You’ll get albums of barking dogs, techno EPs made by eight years old, fart-fueled drone music and whatever you can think of, you can probably find it.

Is that bad?

It’s not me to judge, but the advantage of people being solid selectors is probably what can make a DJ stand out from their colleagues. But as a producer, I think the question is, can one escape the appeal of the mass wave of music similarity and perhaps be irrelevant?

Absolutely, but this is a tad complicated to cover because it is defined by multiple aspects, such as your Definition of done (DoD), your culture, your community, and what you consider success.

 

Success Trap

 

Whatever you see or identify as a “problem” is directly related to a micro-culture of habits that created that situation. For instance, if your bedroom is messy, you have a terrible habit of not keeping it tidy. If you want to clean it, once you have cleaned it, it will remain that way for a day or two until it gets dirty again. The real goal behind this is not to organize your room; it’s to develop cleanliness habits so it remains clean.

We can translate this to the music business as well. A considerable amount of people who consult me in private wish to finish more music because their goal is to be successful, which they translate by having:

  • Music being finished
  • Signed to a label

Labels see success by releasing music that eventually gets attention and sales. DJs see success with gigs, and Instagram reels with loads of likes.

While there’s nothing wrong with these, the focus is set on something that defines the success of an external party. You might never feel like it’s enough because there will always be options for better, and while it can become addictive, it can also feel depressing. But the appeal of seeing people having many likes, playing on the big stage, and having many streams is an image we might all crave; I can get it.

Seeing success in others as an end goal is a trap because it doesn’t focus on the habits that successful artists built.

 

Behind the successful DJ is daily research of old and new music, rehearsals, and research, but also many failures. Behind the successful release is the habit of the producer making music every day and making 23 different versions of each song. Behind the successful label is a team that spends time daily networking with media, DJs, and festivals. Behind each role model, there is a lot hidden, and that is where success lies.

While everyone is debating AI music (or images) generating tools, I rarely see anyone talk about how this is aimed at results and bypassing the creation processes and habit forming.

If you focus on having solid habits, results will follow. This starts with keeping your bedroom tidy, making your bed every day, and washing the sheets once a week. In the end, your room will be clean and remain clean.

This is not my pure invention. It comes from a book called Atomic Habits. I discovered that book years ago, and it made such an impact.

Breaking The Standards

 

In my last post, where I gave points on speeding up your work process, someone asked how this can flood the market with more unnecessary copycat music when I posted on social media. I asked him if my music was, and he said no (I know the person, so it was a good chat). It came down to how you use your speed and the aim of your intentions. But yes, if you work fast and aimlessly, you may get in the queue to make another version of the best seller on Beatport, which has probably already existed 200 times.

But how can one break standards, routines, clichés?

 

Forming Habits Based Around Originality

 

This is where it should all start. That implies recognizing what makes a song original, unique, and memorable.

 

 

Being more personal in your expression

 

There are two popular types of producers: those who want to sound like everyone and those who don’t want to sound like the rest. Each faces some issues:

  • Sounding like everyone else will not elevate you to the status of a leader. However, it can pay off if you find other people who quickly like the same sounds as you.
  • Sounding like no one will marginalize you, making it hard to find your community. When done right, originality can be acclaimed and turn you into an innovator.

But being more personal in your music doesn’t mean turning yourself into an alien. It means you can take known ideas but shape them into who you are. For instance, I love it when there is a melodic harmony in my music (using root keys and scales), but I have a hard time following typical chord progression that is popular in songs (progressive, lo-fi hip hop, etc.). When I make melodies, I just hit keys randomly using my ear and eventually organize my notes to make sense (to me). It’s weird for anyone into music theory because it doesn’t follow convention, but it makes sense because it is not harmonically wrong.

My friend Bryan, a jazz musician, said he preferred my weird melodies to some too-organized songs because ” they sounded more like you.”

A client used his voice to sing notes that he’d convert to midi. He felt like his voice would put to melody, something very personal.

It’s the same for percussion. You can follow conventions or play it weird with whatever you like… while remaining on the grid, so it’s playable by a DJ.

 

Master one or more music production techniques.

 

The more you master one technique, the more you can push its boundaries. Using a method on its low level is missing that zone where you can extract ideas entirely different from what everyone is doing. Thinking of J Dilla, he mastered sampling and swing groove, which brought his recognizable signature.

If you think of that Caliesto song I mentioned, it’s also about understanding execution more than just relying on the content.

 

 

Cross-pollinate genre inspiration.

 

If you read my blog, this often comes up. Songs that get attention are usually innovative, and recently, there’s been a news saying that David Guetta has done some country music, which is a good example. You might not like him, but in terms of business decisions, this guy always takes decisions that show the way. This also applies to handling sampling as a way of constantly innovating yourself. If you think you’re mastering that technique, think again.

Splice is also an excellent place to dive for inspiration. Their AI that suggests ideas to start with is pretty innovative and helpful. It allows you to break the routine and pick samples from other genres.

 

Avoid popular sample packs and presets

 

I can’t say this enough, but some genres rely on the same packs. Unlike drum and bass with the amen break, it’s a sample. We’re talking about a pack of multiple samples just used and reused to the point where it’s breaking any chances of growing as a musician. Considering the number of samples we can access, I have difficulty understanding why this is happening.

Using the same sample packs falls under wanting to sound like the others. One of the excellent features of Ableton Live 12 is the “Find similar samples” feature, which, with a click, proposes a wide array of options. So, perhaps you can start with a base of a few samples but then dive into your library to get similar-sounding ones.

 

While advocating for presets, primarily for self-education, I also encourage you to tweak them a bit so you can find various colours you didn’t know you had under your nose. While mastering and listening to a client’s music, it often happens that I’ll go, “Ah, he used this synth with that preset,” which is not a problem, but I find it a bit lazy. But that’s me, which means others might also think that. If you aspire to release it, you might not want a label to believe that of your music.

While there’s no “find similar presets” in Live, you can sort of work around it by creating a macro of your plugin by mapping parameters to knobs (as a group), then creating snapshots of your knobs. If you record yourself playing with your snapshots, you’ll see the knob’s position being recorded as well. Then, you can make a slew between the positions. There’s also a max patch that can do it here.

 

I hope this helps!

 

Photo by Matthew Moloney on Unsplash

Shortcuts And Speed Up Tricks

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In case you missed it, I declared 2024  “my back-to-production year.” It started slowly because I had a lot on my plate, but as soon as it slowed down, I got into full force. Ironically, the last ten years of education I provided to students and people I mentored were based on my peak time experience, but I wasn’t applying my tricks to my workflow so much.

Sometimes, you need to focus on yourself; other times, focusing on others will provide insights. You can only explain what you truly understand; explaining to others often forces you to rethink your knowledge. Since time flies, it has made more sense to do a lot of music to see the real challenges in 2024 and perhaps find new approaches.

In this post, I will try to summarize the different shortcuts and hacks that have led me to be on the road to work incredibly fast, making 1-2 songs per day on top of my regular workload.

 

Why Work Fast

 

If you read this blog, you know I embrace speed in music-making for multiple reasons. The number one reason is that you get better at something with practice, and if you work fast to make music, you’ll work with techniques, face issues and learn something new with each session.

 

By stating this over and over, it only made sense that I would be fast myself, and at first, I felt a bit rusty, so it didn’t take much time to get back into it. The first step to speed is to understand where you lose time.

 

For this, there are two main spheres:

 

Idea generation: Melodies, bass lines, percussive patterns, sequences, chord progression, hooks, song structure, arrangements, etc.

Content: Sounds, recordings, effects, etc.

 

Idea generation matters when developing your song, while the content sphere is about how it sounds. You can have all the best ideas in the world, but what does it sound like? You might have all the sounds, yet how you arrange them will be what your song is about.

 

It’s a challenge to come up with both, and many people get lost in one part of this, hyper-focusing on making the best of it and forgetting that there are other things to address. Building speed involves delegating some parts to tools that can handle it while you focus on the ones you are the best at.

 

A good example is the use of a drum machine. One might want to focus on hook and song structure but will leave the percussive side to a drum machine that won’t need much programmation nor sound design, as it comes with its sound. Another example is from the acoustic genre, like folk music, where the sounds will be guitar and voice, so the artist can focus on the lyrics and perform without worrying about finding many sounds.

 

Finding Your Shortcuts Through Tools

 

Once you know where you lose time, it’s time to realize that technology exists to simplify your workflow. Regarding tools and plugins, here is a complete list of all the tools I use to enhance my music.

 

Idea Generation

Hooks, Melodies, riffs, motifs: After analyzing so many hooks from songs I love (you should do the exercise to see what you like), I can understand that they’re either sampling-related or short phrasing of notes. If you expect to make great melodies without understanding music, your best asset would be to become familiar with the basics. Knowledge is always the best investment before any use of the tool.

That said, writing ideas can be tricky. Plus, if you want to write melodies yourself, you might likely always come up with the same routine. I suggest starting with generators that can propose some starting point and then build on that.

Ableton Live 12 has many different seed generators for creating fresh ideas. I recently related to Phil Meyer’s Suite of Generators, but I also looked at Manifest Audio, which has its palette of tools freshly ready for Live 12.

If you’re not familiar with the various tools AlexKid made, he humbly started with a drum machine sequencer in Live, but soon after, he came up with multiple tools for generating ideas, such as Seqund and the suite bundles.

I also love AudioModern and Riffer, and Rozzer and Sting can be super powerful free tools. Snake just got a new version of Live 12, which is lovely.

 

Sounds and Content

 

If we are going to relate to samples, there are multiple options on the market. In the subscription model, there is always Splice (one-shots, loops, plugin rent-to-own and more), Loopcloud (one-shots, loops, midi), Tracklib (royalty-free song content to reuse), and Soundsnap (sound library from field recordings to one-shots, used mainly by movies). You can also explore free options with Freesound, Archive.org, and Samplette (random YouTube searcher).

The best way to generate new sounds is to create a macro where I have mapped the parameters of a sampler or Synth as a macro and then hit the macro’s randomizer to access a new sound.

 

Creativity comes from action and motion. You need to sit and work for ideas to come.

 

Collaboration

 

This is not a plugin, but collaboration has the most significant impact on speeding things up. It also depends on who you work with. In-person sessions can often result in distractions, chatting, smoking weed, and not doing that much. Ideally, I prefer remote sessions where each participant works when they have time, at the peak of their focus.

The other benefit of working remotely is collaborating with anyone, anywhere. In my case, my collaborators are often in different countries.

If you want to learn how to make music fast, work with someone who knows their way. When you swap projects, knowledge will be shared. You will find collaborators in people who do something you love and do something well that you don’t. Someone who complements you will do better than someone at your level or who has the same ways as you.

Now, here’s a twist. Sometimes, it’s good to work with someone with zero music-making experience who is in good spirits and will provide you with some ideas. I find it inspiring to be sitting in the studio with someone who will go, “I imagine the song to do this, and that can go there.” then you do what you can with that information, and whatever happens, it gets you to a place you would not explore on your own. A beginner is often enthusiastic about things you might be jaded about, giving you an appreciation for things you got bored with.

During a recent retreat, we did a jam with four people. While this wasn’t new to me, everyone else had never tried that before, and they were mind-blown by what we were doing. There was no preparation at all. We just improvised, and everything felt natural and fun. What felt like 10 minutes was almost 2 hours of weird music. That was energizing, and we all shared the music that we saw fit with others.

 

Templates and References

In my fast pace of music-making, I’m having two initial sessions. One is building a base idea, and the other is creating a skeleton song. As you have learned from this blog, fetching, developing, and organizing ideas should be the base of your work, and it takes a lot of time to find the ones you love. But that shouldn’t stop you either from advancing within your music-making.

Building songs from basic ideas is a good starting point; sometimes, the main idea appears as you work on them.

You will be creative by working it out and not by waiting to feel creative.

 

This is where templates are handy. I like to save a finished song as a template, but first, I remove it from all the sounds while keeping the MIDI and effects. If you think about it, in the 1970s, people organized a mixing board for an entire album recording, which kept uniformity across the project. It would also often be recorded in a unique studio.

Keeping the song as a template speeds up your organizing for the follow-up song(s).

 

Rekordbox

I once saw someone on Instagram saying everyone should DJ, and I agree. I don’t mean that everyone should perform as a DJ in clubs, but more for self-educational purposes and because it’s fun. It opens you up to many exciting understandings of how electronic music works. If you disagree, fair enough, so we should agree on one point: anyone who makes electronic music for DJs should at least learn and play as a DJ themselves.

In the last months, I went back into DJ mode and found a new range of inspiration. Plus, playing unfinished music in Rekordbox alone pointed out flaws in the arrangements and the mix that I initially felt were ok. It even altered my workflow, where I would make a skeleton arrangement for a song and then directly drop it in Rekordbox to play it with music I love so I could see what happens, what works, and what does not.

So, in a way, stepping out of Ableton Live and going into Rekordbox is a shortcut and also a headache saver.

Everyone should learn how to DJ. There is a lot to learn and it gives you appreciation for the art, for the music while educating you on how music is made. Just as much as everyone should learn how to play piano.

 

Templates

I’ve discussed this multiple times, but when you start making music, I recommend starting by making one template per studio session. From simple to complex, creating a template ensures that you structure future sessions, organize what you do each time you start a song, and store potential techniques to explore.

Here are some ideas to explore:

  • Mixing template: Create a template of multiple pre-made channels with effects for mixing.
  • Minimal (or any genre) template: Have a template with a collection of kicks, synth presets, and other sounds ready for you to put in the spirit of making one genre.
  • Sound scrubbing: Build a template with different tools for altering and destroying samples, such as granulators, distortion, modulators and samplers.
  • Complex routing: Perhaps you’d like to explore weird techniques of gating and side-chaining with some complex routing made in advance.
  • Pad collection: Load up a bunch of synths and samplers to have complex textures in layers.
  • Percussion swapper: Open multiple drum kits and send the same midi to various kits so you can preview your options.

 

The beauty of having options in a template means two possible points: the first is that you can open a template and start working on it or import channels from a project you are currently working on.

 

Macros and Systems

 

Quite often, when I open up the projects from clients, I see they use a chain of effects. Some make no sense, while others are interesting, but however it works, I never see them being grouped as macros. I’m always surprised how so few people miss the opportunity to use one of the most powerful aspects of Ableton. Not only is it easy to group that rig of effects, but who knows if it can be used later on in another song.

Turning multiple effects into a macro means:

  • You can map essential parameters of the effect to knobs so you can control them with PUSH or quickly have access to the knobs, all centralized in one place.
  • Save parameters as global presets to have different colours quickly.
  • Randomize your rack for unexpected results.
  • Modulate elements from one spot.

I’d encourage you to add this as a habit, as it will automatically pay off in the short term.

 

Systems are a bit like macros but a bit more advanced, so they are not easy for a newcomer to explore. What I refer to as a system is when you have built a macro that generates content for your music. This falls under the umbrella of generative content but uses macros. The advantage of generative tools are to create ideas to add to your music. It can be related to percussion or melodies or weird glitches. I have a lot of generative tools I always pull out when the idea “something’s missing” pops into my mind.

Photo by Marc Sendra Martorell on Unsplash

Slice Everything

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After a few years of pausing teaching 1-2-1 beginner’s classes, I took a few lately to get back in touch with how it feels when you start making music. One of the reasons I wasn’t taking beginners was that it became redundant to me, and I preferred taking intermediate to advanced producers instead because of the challenge and because, at that level, different problems require some creative approach. Beginners require guidance, help with navigation, workflow, and debunking myths about music making and basic concepts. At the same time, I now realize that I take the challenge differently; I aim to teach them the most with as little as possible.

 

One approach I take is to see their progression with levels, like video games or Dungeons and Dragons (if you know me, I’m a big D&D fan, playing weekly). In this post, I’ll approach one technique people are constantly overlooking, and whatever level you are, it is undoubtedly something to apply: Slicing.

 

Sampling, Resampling and Hip Hop

 

At a beginner’s level, people are looking to familiarize themselves with the tools and navigation of Ableton Live (or DAW). I always insist that if you focus on hardware, you go back to a DAW, as there are a lot of concepts to learn first, and using a computer is far simpler than learning gear. Part of that navigation includes using clips, loops, and simple sounds and building songs with those to understand how arrangements work and simple theory.

 

At that level, you can’t yet aspire to sound like what you hope for, nor does someone who plays the piano for the first time practice scales. If you want to make songs, you need to practice making songs out of whatever you find. But sampling, resampling and remixing can go a long way. Some producers make a career out of those techniques.

 

Everyone wants to make songs but no one want to learn how to make them. They all want to skip the practice because they think they have it all figured out.

 

Hip-hop is a good example. The philosophy and basis of production include sampling old records or any music whatsoever and arranging them, often on an MPC. The logic comes down to “grab and juggle, rearrange to taste.”

Creatively, it is the ideal ground-breaking approach: You take what you love and then arrange it in your way.

 

I’ve been following this artist, Jon Makes Beats, who applies this efficiently. He often samples records, usually quite corny (apparently many of them were bought at a Salvation Army for a few bucks), rearranges them, adds beats (often from rearranged loops), plays some notes on top, and then booms (usually presets, which he says he’s okay with)—all that is recorded in one shot. To me, this feels like perfect, successful studio time.

 

Watch all his videos, and it’s impossible not to get inspired by the simplicity of his approach. But also, he has some good, down-to-earth tips that are aligned with mine.

 

The central concept is simple: once you have your samples, you have the material to tell your story in another way. I’ll share some points and ideas for you to try.

 

Numerous notable artists have made amazing things with samples, but two who come to mind are the Beastie Boys and Daft Punk. In the Apple TV documentary, The Beastie Boys share how one of their early hit songs relied on three samples as the basis; the rest was a drum machine and their rapping. On the other hand, Daft Punk layered multiple little samples from various records to achieve a song. Those 2 are good opposite examples, but both did so much with taken ideas used creatively.

 

 

Creating your own Slicing preset

I wasn’t super happy with the sampling presets in Ableton Live, so I created my own. When I slice a loop, I want, by default, access to a specific macro mapped to what I usually use.

 

First, if you’re unfamiliar with slicing, you can do so by taking any loop you have, and then, when you right-click, a menu will appear. From there, you pick “Slice to Midi Track.”

 

 

Then, you’ll be prompted on what preset to use for the slicing.

 

You’ll then get a drum rack with each sample (slice) assigned to the rack’s pads. A Midi clip will also be generated with a note pointing to a specific slice. If you play the clip, you’ll hear your original clip, but now you can rearrange the clip so the notes come in a different order. You can also pick one sample.

 

 

They’re all OK for vanilla slicing, but the rack’s macros feel underwhelming. Making your preset is so easy and fun that I’ll explain how I made mine so you can do your own.

Create your slicing preset

First, open an empty MIDI channel.

Second, place a Drum Rack and add a Simpler on the C1 pad.

 

 

Third, you can map some parameters of the Simpler to the Macro-knobs of the Drum Rack. This means that when you slice your clip, each slice will have its own Simpler, but a simple mapped knob will control all of the same parameters. This has pros and cons. On the positive side, this means that you can, for instance, maintain the length of all the slices, making them short or long. But if some clips are intended to be short while others are long, that can be tricky.

Some of my knobs are controlling these parameters: Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release, Volume on the lower right side. Then, the Filter’s Frequency and Resonance. Make sure that you uncheck the Loop and Snap options.

 

 

 

The last step is to save this new preset in the right folder so it can be used in the slicing option.

You drop the drum rack in the User Folder, under Defaults, in the folder “Slicing.” You can then rename it whatever you want, like mine below, “My Basic Slicer.”

 

 

If you slice a clip to midi, your new preset will appear in the list.

 

You’re now set to go!

Now, let’s do a few little experiments.

 

Slice the Ugly Into Beauty

 

Sometimes, you might have bizarre and ugly recordings of a synth or perhaps a dissonant effect. I’m particularly interested in those because you can get some unusual melodies or percussion once you slice them. I find there is something poetic in transforming something you’d automatically discard and finding a new, unexpected life.

One issue might be that it might not have transients to be detected, so you might want to slice it into forced regions. I’d encourage you to try different settings, but it could be 1/4 or 1/8, depending on your desired size. Ensure the sample you’re slicing isn’t too long; otherwise, you’ll end up with too many slices, which won’t be interesting to work with.

 

 

From there, you can see what slices came out, modify the length, and discover new patterns.

TIP: You can try a sequencer before the drum rack to generate sequences without the MIDI clip. Some fun sequencers exist, such as Rozzer and Snake.

 

Slicing Melodies

This technique comes from Hip-Hop. They usually slice a melody into more extended regions and then, by playing a MIDI instrument, play the song with a different articulation or change the order of the notes. But you can also take a more abstract approach, have shorter notes, play them randomly, and see if it makes sense.

To do this, people would select a region size that is 1/2 or 1 bar long. But if you’re into Micro-House music, you’d go for tiny regions.

TIP 1: Get a MIDI controller to experiment with playing the regions.

TIP 2: Use the internal LFOs of the Sampler to add some life to your sequence.

 

 

Swapping Sounds

In Ableton Live 12 (if you have it), the drum rack has a new option that allows you to swap all sounds for a new selection of similar ones. This can be a rabbit hole because you’ll start with a few sounds, and then you’ll end up discovering plenty of alternatives. You can lock some sounds you like and then dice roll the other out.

To do this, you’ll first need to go into the sample list and consolidate the slices; otherwise, they won’t be detected as single slices.

 

 

TIP: Whatever slicing you do, if you use transient mode, mainly for anything percussive, you’ll have a midi DNA of where each transient falls on the grid. You can also use one slicer’s midi and pass it to another. This means that the rhythm of one slicing pattern can trigger the order of another. This leads to rearranged sequences and a fun, unsteady swing.

 

Third-Party Samplers

 

It’s also fun to explore third-party VSTs beyond Ableton. There are quite a few out there, but I’ll share my favourites. Not that you won’t be able to create a slicing preset with those. The slicing presets can only be made with the native sampler/simpler from Ableton.

 

Life / XO

This plugin is XO’s little perfect companion. If you don’t know about XO, it’s probably one of the best drum machines and samplers. XO excels at creating percussive sequences, giving you variations with sounds and patterns. It also visually organizes your collection of samples by category and family, allowing you to find similar samples quickly. Life takes this to another level where you can resample your samples internally and then create new sequences out of them but with many variations options. It also has this option as an app on your smartphone to record sounds anywhere and then link them to your DAW. It is awe-inspiring.

TIP: Use both with automation to really bring your sequences to life.

TIP2: These are essentials if you have the budget.

 

Serato Sample

For DJs to play their sets digitally, Serato has been around for a while. It started with a Vynil encoder where they could beat-match music from their computer. This evolved in 20 years, and now digital mixing is a standard for many. DJing for hip-hop artists who do DMC scratching competitions is an art, and Serato developed a sampler version for artists who want to explore sampling parts in production. This plugin is highly rated because it offers simplicity and easy workflow.

 

 

Loopmix

The guys at AudioModern have a series of excellent studio tools I use regularly. Loopmix is quite fun as it’s designed to be used with loops. The idea is to use multiple loops (ideally, it works better with percussion), and then it will slice them to recreate new sequences, blending the different sources. It’s pretty impressive what you can do with this live but also in the studio if you want to recycle the loops you have.

 

Dawesome Novum

I’m not too familiar with this one, as I only saw demos, but from what I understand, it decomposes the samples into layers. Instead of slicing them in time, it does it on a spectrum layer. This means you can decompose your sample into layers. It’s on my wishlist, and I’m resisting trying the demo because I know I’ll buy it in a glimpse. This is the kind of tool you’ll want if you love drones, textures, moods and anything ethereal sounding.

 

I look forward to hearing what you’ll do with this technique. Please share your experiments.

 

 

Photo by MW on Unsplash

 

 

 

Ableton MIDI Tools And Workflow Optimization

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Whatever your level of mastery of Ableton Live is, you might have occasionally seen some advanced tutorials on YouTube and wondered if these were for you. While I will cover some of the advanced techniques I use below, I want to introduce the topic of what advanced techniques are and why you’d like to use them. It’s one thing to be interested in them, but sometimes, simple might be even more powerful than something advanced and complicated unless you want to do something complicated.

Whenever I have students who ask about advanced techniques, we always end up in a rabbit hole conversation about what is advanced in the first place or why one would want to use that. We talk about ambient music, IDM, EDM, or music that seems to be advanced. The thing is, techniques are always divided into categories, and that’s where it all begins.

  • Live performance.
  • Arrangements.
  • Sound Design.
  • Mixing.

While music production is a non-linear series of phases that go round and round, you initially use a technique to replicate a specific effect/sound or solve a roadblock. To know which technique you want or need to use, you’ll first need to be able to name the issue you’re facing. That might be difficult because sometimes, we don’t even know we have an issue.

 

Circular learning Instead of Linear

 

One of the issues many students who work with me have faced with traditional learning or online classes is that they use a linear approach to teaching and a mono-directional state of lesson sharing. The linear approach is basically like cooking, where you follow steps on the how-to with a result at the end. This issue in electronic music-making is that experiences are more like a tree of possibilities than a unique result. Think of a tree as an entity with multiple roots merging into a core and expanding in multiple branches. It’s the same with music: your roots come from various spaces, and your future should lean towards a wide expansion of possibilities instead of a one-directional place.

Mono-directional lessons mean that you receive information and then apply it. I don’t believe in that method so much because I’m curious, always wanting to know more. Curiosity is one of the most important traits for learning electronic music. I prefer a bi-directional method, which means I will get to know the student, where he’s coming from, how he learns and where he wants to go.

The approach we use is circular when it comes to learning, and it is mainly about understanding the roadblocks and then using strategies to overcome them. This will lead to explore techniques.

Notes from a private class I gave. Working, learning in a circular motion.

As you can see, we start by keeping the student in a state of flow, but when they encounter a roadblock, we have a strategy for finding solutions within an approach.

Now, let’s see how some techniques will work for them.

Problem Solving and Fixing them

 

It’s one thing to encounter technical difficulties, but it’s another thing to face technical limitations. Sometimes, you don’t know that you don’t know there is a problem, and that’s tricky. In teaching, passing all the knowledge to a student never proved to work. One of the best ways to learn is to start making a song, a miniature or a little live experiment.

As Live came to 2024 with a new version (12), one of the first things that came to my attention was how the whole midi section evolved with the direct implementation of max patches within the clip’s properties. Not long after the new version was out, two developers proposed a series of advanced tools, and I’ll explain below some of the potential issues they’re covering.

 

MIDI Tools by Phillip Meyer

The first one that piqued my curiosity was Phillip’s MIDI Tools collection. As the name states, it’s a collection of MIDI-oriented tools divided into two categories.

The categories are new in Live 12. They consist of containers that transform signals or create new ideas. This approach is similar to modular synths, where you have sources and modifiers. So, it is not alien to anyone who comes from that world. It was like that in version 11, but it was not explained in that fashion.

In a way, the new version of Live goes to its roots: playing live.

The tools Meyer offers are numerous. Here they are and what they do.

 

Blocks

Blocks

Category: Generator

What it does: Mainly used for rhythmical generation. Creating abnormal patterns in an unusual way

What issue it can help with: Breaking your percussion habits, making breakbeats or strange beats. Useful for breaking writer’s block.

I think this one is my favourite. You say how many beats or notes you want and then play with the sliders. Depending on the position given, the notes will be placed proportionally. It’s not euclidean sequencing; it’s a logic of its own.

 

 

 

Phase Pattern

Category: Generator

What it does: Creates sequences logarithmically.

What issue it can help with: It can create a bouncing ball effect, meaning that beats can take speed or change halfway. This is useful for breaks, transitions, effects, and rolls.

This one is fun. It is a good way to create elastic-sounding patterns where things speed up, and it can also be a way to change pace during a song.

 

 

 

 

 

Turing Machine

Category: Generator

What it does: Emulates what the Turing machine does in the modular world.

What issue it can help with: Coming up with new melodies and patterns. It is excellent for breaking writer’s block or providing complementary, supportive ideas.

If you’re unfamiliar with what the Turing machine does, I’d encourage you to look at this. It’s a system invented by Allan Turing during WWII to decypher the Nazi codes. Now, we can use it to generate sequences, melodies or patterns.

 

 

 

Polyrhythm

Category: Generator

What it does: Makes multiple patterns at once.

What issue it can help with: Making complex sequences, percussive or melodic.

If you’re unfamiliar with polyrhythms, I would encourage you to look into this. Basically, polyrhythms are a way of programming patterns that aren’t the same length, making the sequence non-linear and not always falling under the same loop. It can have a hypnotic effect and confuse people about where an idea starts and ends, typical in African percussion. This generator uses Euclidean algorithms to create its sequences.

 

 

 

 

Condition

Category: Transformer

What it does: It takes an idea, and it can propose alternatives upon certain conditions.

What issue it can help with: Finding different variations for a sequence.

Why settle on an idea when you can have unlimited alternatives and choose the best for your arrangements? This transformer will do exactly this.

 

 

Develop

Category: Transformer

What it does: Similar to condition but time-related. It takes an initial idea and then develops it, fades it out gradually. See it as an intelligent note-enhancing tool.

What issue it can help with: It can be a good way to develop an idea unexpectedly.

This one is similar to the conditions. It works well in the Arrangement section, where you take an idea and then see multiple ideas evolve from an initial idea. It’s not condition-based but more of a way to have an idea evolve.

 

Divs

Category: Transformer

What it does: It takes a note and subdivides it.

What issue it can help with: it’s not a problem that it fixes, but it makes ratcheting out of anything.

This technique has been popular with Trap lately. It is made as a buddy for the Blocks tool.

 

 

Draw

Category: Transformer

What it does: Gives a melody to pattern or life in different ways

What issue it can help with: Turn a sequence you generated into a melody. You can easily draw pitch or other characteristics and see how it goes.

It is a spontaneous way to create melodies and transform quick patterns into something else, automatically giving them a second life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pattern Transform

Category: transformer

What it does: Take a pattern and, upon certain rules, revise melodies and make decisions for you.

What issue it can help with: Slight modifications to a hook can help you create alternatives for other sections of your song.

See it as a condition-based decision-making assistant.

 

Segments

Category: transformer

What it does: Subdivise a note, but it is condition-based.

What issue it can help with: Similar to Divs but with an approach similar to condition.

Ideal for complex IDM micro glitch patterns.

 

 

Feel

Category: transformer

What it does: It’s a humanizer.

What issue it can help with: To break from a robotic, stiff sequence and induce it with a swing and a human fee.

 

 

Shift

Category: transformer

What it does: Take a pattern and then shift it around, either pitch, duration, velocity, etc.

What issue it can help with: Useful for having variations on a sequence or to test the shift of its characteristics across a loop.

 

 

 

 

 

These tools are what I would call a good selection of roadblock removers. They’re not basic, but anyone can use them, and with a bit of patience, they can provide solid ideas or help move forward to variations.

I would say they’re part of my essentials.

Miniature Songs Concept

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Sometimes I find really lovely videos with production techniques that I love and after practicing it, I thought I’d share it with you so you can benefit from this finding. In this case, it’s about the concept of miniatures and also how this pairs with some sound design principles I’ve been applying. Recently I joined Sarah Belle Reid’s Sound and Synthesis program which turned out to be insightful. Once I started diving into sound design and its mechanics, I not only started understanding sound’s DNA from a different angle but also in the context of a song.

 

 

What are miniatures?

I was recently browsing YouTube when I found this video that got me excited. Miniature is a step back from making songs and has the perspective of using a sound in a tiny bubble concept. Think of it as a 10-second to 1-minute idea. Nothing more. It’s not about trying to cram in as many elements as possible but more of taking one sound and see how to you can pull out the most from it.

When I teach music production, there is more exercise that I like to suggest to students which is to take a very basic sound (sample) and to turn it into a “main idea.”

To do so, I’d suggest picking first a random sound, preferably something you consider boring, and then playing it repeatedly to find a pattern from it. Change the pitch perhaps, but sometimes, leaving it to its original pitch will be enough. See how you can make a phrase from it and make a song (1-2min) from that alone. Sometimes I see an eyebrow being raised in doubt but then I explain that any sound, on its own, can be a song.

For example, John Cage made a song for hand clapping:

 

So back to miniatures.

Think of tiny ideas that work, ideally with 1 to 2 sounds. Watch the video below:

 

The clickbait title, at first, had me roll my eyes but then I checked it to find something that was pretty fun. To summarize it, he suggests that you write down ideas on a card, which will create a little challenge, as a miniature idea. Those prompts have certain criteria:

So this would be an example:

 

We often forget that songs are a collection of sounds and sounds that evolve on their own, maybe for a short lapse or during the entire song. The idea of creating miniature becomes useful because you’re creating ideas that can later be included in a song. Thinking of music production in a modular way (not modular synth) can help you work on different elements of your songs before diving into arrangements.

One of my principal sources of guilty pleasure is to find fun loops on Splice as a starting point so building my loops is valuable for making songs later.

 

Envelopes and macro envelopes

One element that we approached in sound design is how envelopes shape sounds as their shape. But when thinking of miniatures or songs, it can be useful to think of a macro envelope. What I mean here is how you have an evolution within the entire song.

One exercise Sarah gave us for a performance is to draw the shape of how your song or pattern evolves over the entire experience. It could start abruptly, then fade, and then increasingly get louder until the end. If you’re a Shaperbox user like me, you know you can use its internal envelopes to shape amplitude or filter over a long period. It becomes handy if you want slow modulation repeating.

 

If you want some Miniature ideas, I’d encourage you to watch the video up there. I got some instant inspiration for my sounds.

 

Pheek’s Guide To Making Dub Techno

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I think making Dub Techno is one of the most requested blog posts I have been asked to do, and for years, I resisted it. I think there was some sort of shyness and perhaps, a lack of technical vocabulary on where to begin when teaching others how to make Dub Techno. But I think it’s time to take a chance and open up on all the ideas I compiled about my beloved Dub Techno direction.

This post won’t necessarily explain how to do the typical dub techno. While I’ll cover some of the most asked questions about it, I want to expand on the philosophy and aesthetic itself so you can take the best part of it and merge it into how you work.

Origins of Dub Techno

Before we get into how to make dub techno, it’s very important to me to honor the artists who were behind the genre and to talk about where the genre started. For this, there are some nice videos by Dub Monitor. There are these 2 videos that explain the origins of dub techno better than I could about how the genre started and how it developed.

Dub techno is a subgenre that emerged from the fusion of two influential musical styles: dub and techno. Dub music itself has its origins in Jamaica in the late 1960s, with pioneers like King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Dub music is characterized by its heavy use of effects, echo, reverb, and the manipulation of existing tracks, often stripping away vocals to emphasize the rhythm and instrumental elements.

 

The Techno Connection: Techno, on the other hand, had its beginnings in Detroit in the early 1980s, with artists like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson. Techno is known for its repetitive beats, synthetic sounds, and a futuristic, often industrial, aesthetic.

 

The Emergence of Dub Techno: Dub techno began to take shape in the early 1990s when electronic musicians started experimenting with the fusion of dub’s spacious and echo-laden soundscapes with the rhythmic patterns and synthetic textures of techno, thus making dub techno. The result was a genre that retained the hypnotic beats of techno but incorporated the atmospheric and dub-infused elements.

 

Basic characteristics to consider while making dub techno: Dub techno is characterized by a few key elements:

  • Reverberating Soundscapes: Dub techno producers use extensive reverb and delay effects to create deep and immersive sonic environments. These effects give the music a sense of spaciousness and depth.
  • Minimalism: Similar to techno, dub techno often relies on minimalistic compositions with a focus on repetition. The use of minimal elements allows for a meditative and trance-inducing quality.
  • Subdued Rhythms: While techno can have a pounding and relentless rhythm, dub techno tends to have more subdued and laid-back beats. The rhythm is often more relaxed and groovy.
  • Incorporation of Dub Techniques: Dub techno incorporates dub’s signature techniques like echo, dropouts, and phase shifting to create a sense of movement and exploration within the music.

 

Notable Pioneers: Some of the early pioneers of dub techno include Basic Channel, a German duo consisting of Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, and their various aliases like Maurizio and Quadrant. These artists were instrumental in shaping the genre and creating its distinctive sound.

 

Global Influence: Dub techno’s influence quickly spread beyond Germany, with artists and labels from around the world embracing the genre. Labels like Chain Reaction and Echocord played a significant role in promoting the making of dub techno, and artists from countries like Sweden, Finland, and Japan contributed to its global appeal.

 

Obsessing on the “How-To” While Making Dub Techno

Over the last 25 years, I’ve come upon multiple and countless discussions online about how the genre is made. People would discuss what piece of equipment was used and be obsessed with recreating the original sound. While this is a state of mind that I totally get – because I also get obsessed about how certain sounds are made – I can’t help myself asking why would you want to redo the exact same results. In a way, it explains why the genre never died in the last decades. There are always people who keep making dub techno.

I think there are a few motivations to join the sound of dub techno. On one side I see it as a self-soothing experience and on the other, by passion, to join others who also make it.

But my take is that people are puzzled about how something that sounds so simple can actually be so mind-boggling to do.

The Main Aspects Of Making Dub Techno

I’d like to cover multiple techniques and strategies to infuse your music with the dub techno approach while also making sure we apply certain tweaks that can make your music have a similar aesthetic.

The first thing to explain is that there are 3 main categories to consider while making dub techno:

  1. Sound Design
  2. Modulation
  3. Colour.

Dub techno has its own touch and sound which will be explored below.

Dub Techno sound design

One of the main characteristics of dub techno comes from the pads and stabs that are fuzzy, melancholic, and enigmatic. In itself, those pads aren’t necessarily that complex to do. I found numerous tutorials on YouTube and have 3 of the ones I prefer. I find they’re well explained and show in similar ways, how to reproduce them.

 



How To Make Dub Techno Chords

As you see in those tutorials, the way the synth is configured, is rather simple  – it’s usually one chord that repeats, but it has specific modulation and color, as I explained earlier. Once you start experimenting with this pad, you’ll already be in business and have the basis for making dub techno.

But honestly, when I found out how to do it, I thought it would make more sense to be inspired by those techniques but to go a bit deeper into the sound design.

In my past dub albums Tones of Void, Intra, and White Raven, I basically used a bunch of synths but kept them very dark in tone (eg. lower notes around 1-3 octaves) with not too many harmonics (eg. filtered). Once you understand that any synths can do that, you won’t be limited to the classic sound of dub techno.

How to make dub techno melodies

When it comes to melody-making, there are multiple approaches. There’s the classic one note (yes, one note) from the old school dub techno (Basic Channel, Chain Reaction) and there is also a more structured approach (Pablo Bolivar, Yagya), almost pop-oriented dub techno. Both work but the harmonic nature of the melodies are often in a minor key, with the root key of D being often a popular choice.

How to make dub techno bass

While making dub techno, bass is often, also very simple, with it being than often than not a one-note thing. Simply using sine oscillators and pushing them forward in the mix will often be the aesthetic of dub.

Dub Techno synth options

As we saw in the 3 videos, dub can easily be created in any context with any soft synth. Over the years, I have tried and tested many of them. While the native plugins of Ableton can do the job, VCV has been my playground but it’s not for everyone even if it’s free and there are so many tutorials out there. Here are some of the soft synths people love.

  • Diva:  So many tracks I hear in mastering use Diva. It has a distinct sound but in a good way. It sounds warm, and lush, and is close to some hardware options. It’s pricy but you get that sound we love.
  • Pigments: Pigments is versatile, open, powerful, and extremely creative. There is a huge playground here with the option of a preset store within the synth itself.  You need to work a bit to get the dub sound but it sounds nice.
  • TAL-U-NO-LX Synth: Juno has been used over the years as a default synth for dub techno, mainly the chords. This synth option works well and is close to the real thing.
  • Go2: Cheap in price but with big results. Even the presets will give you some nice options to start with. I love this one.
  • Blue-III: Rob Papen again and this one is deep. Not for the beginner as you can easily get lost in it but the sounds you get are very impressive.
  • Prophet VS-V: Not many people know but it was said that the Prophet VS was what the early guys of Chain Reaction were using. When there was a VST version of it, we were all drooling. While it is very powerful and nice, it is not the easiest to program. But the sound is very impressive.
  • Prophet 5: This is a synth we all used for years in the early 2000s when we wanted the dub sound. It aged so well and it’s fun to use. You get tons of options for synths, pads, and stabs. Recommended and often on sale.
  • Orange Vocoder: This is not a synth per se, as it is of course, a vocoder but this was used by so many people as you can basically throw any sound in it and this plugin will turn it into a lush synth sound. Really powerful and a nice alternative to just synths.

 

Dub is a vibe and an aesthetic, not a bible. You take the aesthetic and apply it to any sound.

Once you pick your aesthetic, you can apply the concept to any synths you have.

What you need is to create and amplify your harmonics with saturation (tube and tape do great), then have a colored filter and sent to delay and reverb for cosmetics. This means that if you have any synth of yours, you can make it dirty with a saturation and then filter it. The reverb will then do the trick.

What will make a difference is to juggle with the most genres of saturation: distortion, amp and saturation itself. Using a combination of the 3 will bring really lovely colours but be careful not to overcook your sounds. Keep in mind that in mastering, it will be boosted so what sounds like a pleasant distortion can become overwhelming later on.

Some of my saturation go-tos are below.

Saturation plugins used in making dub techno

  • Surge XT: (FREE!) This is a collective of developers who managed to create a badass synth and free, high-quality, effects. Their Chow Tape is quite amazing but also all other distortion/saturation tools. A must-have and hey, it’s free.
  • RC-20: This one came in popular in the lofi hip-hop community as a de facto plugin to have. It adds lofi vibes but this is an element dub techno also has so the cross use is totally on point.
  • Reamp: The guys behind this are very solid and this one has a beautiful series of plugins which are all very solid. I like the colour this one has.
  • Saturn 2: Anything Fabfilter is a leader in its domain. Saturn is not an exception, as it is very good at what it does, which is to make anything too pretty, a bit uglier, dirtier.
  • PSP Saturator: PSP is one of my favorite company for their plugins. I love their EQs and compressor and this saturator does a great job on pads.
  • Satin: This is such a handy tool here. It is tape saturation/simulation, but also a tape delay which can create weird reverbs and wobbly signals. Once you start using it, you’ll be using it all the time.

Reverb plugins for dub techno

While Ableton’s reverbs option can do the job, I always rely on third-party VST for that part. It’s hard not to mention Valhalla plugins for this. The Supermassive is free and the Digital Reverb is sort of a perfect match for dub. If you have to pick, I would recommend experimenting with “plate” models and some use of a “hall” as well for sustained notes.

Whatever you do, to me, Dub Techno really starts with a heavy use of reverb, which has to be modulated, filtered, and distorted. Understanding how to use your reverb and combining it with a delay will ensure that you have a proper dub mood. If you pick the reverb properly, you almost could say that you have 50% of your job done. The rest are the sum of a lot of details but when you have your reverb done right, you’ll automatically feel you’re making dub.

Anyone who knows me has heard my affectionate passion for reverbs. I compiled some of my favorites for Dub Techno.

 

The saturation tools native to Ableton aren’t too bad but can be recognizable easily by an educated ear.

  • Lexicon 224: I’m a big fan of Lexicon. It has a character and tone that I love. Not sure what it is, but the grain and how it feels just does it for me.
  • Springs: Spring reverb is a type that makes sounds sent through it, sound liquid. This works well with percussive sounds and you’ll feel like some classic dub vibes.
  • Fabfilter Pro-R: This one is amazing for spaces. It is a powerful tool to shape grandiose halls and give tremendous space.
  • Adaptiverb: There’s different tools on that ones that makes it unique. It has a big array of presets that are tuned to a root key, which can create pads out of unusual sounds. Quite unique.
  • SP2016: I call this one a Cadillac of reverbs. It’s elegant, warm, very ear pleasant and very visual. I feel immersed when using it.
  • bx_rooms: Extremely versatile but the interface can be intimidating. It has lovely options for different room types.
  • Blackhole: This one is spooky, deep, powerful. It is a reverb that makes you go in space as it sounds pretty sci-fi, rich, and gigantic sometimes.

 

Now reverbs for dub are essential but you’ll need delays as well. You can either use long delays or short. There’s no right or wrong but the use of delays helps you take very simple sounds and create repetition, which transforms the straight-forward pattern into psychedelic equations. Delays, combined with reverb, create a thick background and will make any sound – which feel empty at first – fill with a velvety, dreamy carpet. I think for a lot of fans of the genre, it’s a quality they’re after.

Echo and Hybrid Reverb in Ableton. They can do a long run if you don’t want to break your piggy bank.

Additional plugins for making dub techno (delays, pitch modulators, etc).

  • Diffuse: These guys are dub lovers and this tool here is a go-to for reverb/delay as it’s an emulation of the famous Roland Space Echo which was in so many studios.
  • Modnetic: Same guys as above. This one is a combination of all your need in one place to turn a single, boring sound, into a dub tune.
  • Echorec: The guys at Pulsar are very competent at recreating hardware toys and they created a tape delay with self-oscilating, magnetic fields and all you wish for in a dirty delay.
  • Galaxy Tape Echo: This is UAD’s recreation of the Roland Space Echo and it is really well done.
  • Tal Dub-X: As the name implies, this is a station with all the options to turn a simple delay into a modulated one.
  • Echo Cat: Another beautiful emulation of a tape delay. But a really solid one.
  • PSP 42: Popularized by Richie Hawtin in the early 2000s, where he’d loop-delay sounds and pitch them up/down, the PSP42 was used abusively in all his sets for years. Rich was basically doing dub techniques in his own way.

 

Modulation in dub techno

If you just take any synth sounds and send it to your effect chains, you have done the first step but it won’t be complete until you make it move, react, and evolve into modulations. There is a lot to take in in this section because this is also one of the most discussed topics in my blog – I have covered it inside out already but you now know why, because Dub Techno is all about modulations. Once you dip your toe in those waters, you’ll become excited about it and apply it everywhere.

If you watched those tutorials on how they make the dub pads and chords, you’ll see that they use modulation on the filter. There is both use of an envelope and LFO to modulate the frequency of the filter but also its resonance. That’s just the tip of the iceberg to me. If there is a parameter on a plugin, I like to think that it shouldn’t remain static and have it move, even a little bit.

But of course, a lot of this can be handled by my favorite “Swiss army knife”, Shaperbox which is designed for modulation on all levels. A must-have.

When to use envelopes and LFOs when making dub techno

Well, if it’s a modulation that is reacting to an incoming signal such as when a sound comes in, I want the filter to react, then you’ll use an envelope. That kind of modulation is excellent for accentuating or attenuating sounds, creating a more organic feel to the processed sound.

If you want constant movement, LFOs are excellent for that. They just move to the tempo or not. They give the illusion that things are constantly on the go and help blur the lines of linear arrangements.

There’s one precious bundle that I love from Make Noiss that has so many little tools, perfect for modulation and midi signal processing. Not to forget my friends at Manifest Audio and their large array of max patches as well that are perfect for modulation but they also curated many racks for dub.

The 3 Amigos are here to turn a static idea into an animated figure.

Colours of Dub Techno

I know you might be confused by colour here as we discussed of saturation as a form of colour but this is the last touch. The colours here are from different sources else than saturation and also, very complementary. What I’m referring to are the effects of the chorus, phaser, flanger, tremolo, vibrato, auto-pan, harmonizer, wobbler, and also, one of the most important parts which is the hiss. Apart from that last one, all those effects are often heavily used in dub and it’s quite a nice touch to pick one or 2 on your sounds.

These guys are a lot of fun and sound pretty lovely.

Chorus, phaser, and vibrato

Chorus, phaser, and vibrato work really well with synths, pads, stabs, and chords. They give this engaging, trippy, stereo effect that quite often, makes a dull sound jump out of the mix. Keep an eye to make sure you don’t get phasing issues which would be an overuse of one of those effects. Phasing is quite common in dub and I often fix those issues in mastering. It’s better to control it when decorating your mix.

Flanger

Flanger gives this jet-sound feel to anything. It brings pfshhh sound to metallic or noisy sounds and can be quite psychedelic if used at a low level. I like it on hats and delays.

Tremolo

Tremolos are sort of a secret sauce that everyone underuses. It’s basically a slow or fast modulation of the amplitude of a sound. It is a superb tool for creating 3D feel where you feel sounds go away from you and come back. It turns anything linear into a lively, feeling motion. At a faster speed, it can even be used as a swing/velocity for percussion. Combine it with an auto-pan and you have head spinning spaced out moments.

The hiss part is quite important as well. The noise floor is something deep in the DNA of dub. There are multiple noise makers. You can dig the internet for noise sources, recordings or noise-making tools (RC-20). Satin has a nice hiss that you can use as well.

Conclusion

Making dub techno should be a playground of experimentation. It’s a genre that I approach with a very open mind and so do many other fans as well. While often people feel like they’re just repeating the clichés and perhaps nothing new comes out of it, then I’d say, dig deeper. There are some gems from people who push the boundaries of the genre.

Music Related Echo Chambers

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In the intricate tapestry of music production, there’s an underlying thread that has been silently weaving its way through for years: the phenomenon of the echo chamber. Just as politics is sometimes ensnared in these chambers, the world of music production isn’t immune. While they might offer the comforting illusion of unity and harmony, these echo chambers can become a pitfall for creativity, authenticity, and growth.

Moreover, social media platforms and music streaming services with their algorithms can create a reinforcing feedback loop. An artist might gain popularity for a particular sound, and suddenly, that becomes the benchmark. New artists aiming for success tend to emulate that, leading to a saturation of similar-sounding tracks. While the initial artist might have been revolutionary, the subsequent floodwaters can drown the innovation.

In the political world, echo chambers arise when individuals surround themselves only with voices and opinions that align with theirs. In music, a similar phenomenon happens. If artists and producers only expose themselves to a narrow band of influences, it limits their growth and stifles innovation. In both spheres, these echo chambers can lead to a stagnation of ideas and a resistance to change or evolution.

For artists to grow, it’s essential to break out of their comfort zones. Collaborating with people from different genres, attending workshops that don’t directly align with their musical interests, or even actively seeking feedback from outsiders can be invaluable. A hip-hop producer might gain a fresh perspective by working with a classical musician, or a techno artist might find inspiration from folk melodies. It’s these intersections of diverse ideas that lead to the most groundbreaking music.

There’s been a huge fuss started by Guti recently about how many fake sets made by some artists have been going on for a while and to me, this is a pure side effect from an echo chamber. Artists encouraged by the industry to go with a pre-recorded show who anyone who would confront, would be pushed out of the way.

I believe the onus is on both industry veterans and newbies. Veterans should mentor and guide newcomers, encouraging them to learn the craft properly and not rely solely on tools. New artists should be hungry for knowledge, pushing boundaries, and not just following the beaten path.

Mr. Bill Masterclass @ KMGLife Inc. Youtube Video

 

This week I was watching an older video from Mr. Bill, who is a solid Youtuber with creative content and I noticed something about him that sort of irritated me. Over his video, he was explaining all kind of approaches about how to be loud and also, be cool. While I gave up on the whole debate of the loud is cool topic, i get annoyed at one thing precisely which is when someone spend time showing that his sound is cooler than my sound.

Like Deadmau5 said recently:”Who the F_ are you? The sound police?”

I understand that if you want to sound like him and since he is very confident that he is cool, then it makes sense but in a world where trends flashes so quickly, I believe that Mr. Bill is probably looking at this years old video and probably think that his newer sounds are cooler. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put him down because I love his sounds and techniques, but not to the point of putting other genres or sound design down. I want to remain far from a competitive mind and his view could encourage that mindset.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I prefer having a much moderate approach to understanding sound. I prefer remaining open.

Calling some sounds cool or others not, creates duality. And that creates echo chambers, hierarchy, ego boosting. So I prefer nondualism (advaita).

At its core, non-duality emphasizes the interconnectedness and oneness of everything. Translated to the realm of music, it suggests that genres, styles, and techniques are all part of a vast, interconnected web of musical expression. Rather than pigeonholing oneself into a single genre or style, a non-dualistic approach encourages exploration across musical landscapes. By seeing all music as interconnected, producers can cross-pollinate ideas, techniques, and inspirations from diverse genres, leading to innovative and fresh sounds.

A significant barrier to innovation and growth in music can be one’s ego. An inflated ego might make one resistant to feedback, reluctant to explore unfamiliar genres, or even dismissive of new techniques. A philosophy that promotes selflessness can help dissolve the ego, allowing the artist to be more receptive to external influences, feedback, and collaborations.

 

1. The Allure of the Echo Chamber

 

On the surface, there’s undeniable allure in surrounding oneself with like-minded enthusiasts, especially when one embarks on the journey of music production. The initial phase is fraught with uncertainties and questions. In these moments, having a community that echoes your tastes and preferences is undeniably comforting. The conversations flow smoothly, validation is often just a nod away, and a bubble of shared enthusiasm and aspiration forms.

However, beneath this surface of congeniality, a subtle drawback emerges. When we insulate ourselves within a particular genre or style, the nuances of that very style start to become our universe. And while it’s essential to understand and master a niche, the danger lies in becoming so immersed that we miss the symphony of diverse musical expressions outside.

 

2. The Downside of Self-Referencing

 

As a music label owner and sound engineer with over two decades of experience, I’ve observed an interesting pattern. Artists and producers, particularly when starting, tend to lean heavily on references that mirror their own aspirations. This is entirely natural. However, when these references are flawed or limited in scope, the resultant art can lack the depth and polish it might otherwise achieve.

A case in point: I recently mastered tracks for a techno artist. His reference tracks, though popular, had many inherent issues. This artist, having always been in his echo chamber, hadn’t realized the potential flaws. But once I introduced him to more diverse, quality references, it was like a revelation. Suddenly, he could perceive the richness and depth his tracks could achieve, and the difference was palpable when played in a club with a top-notch sound system.

 

3. Breaking Free with New Tools

 

The world of music production is ever-evolving, with tools like Izotope’s recently released Ozone version offering fresh perspectives. Such innovations are a boon, not just for their technical prowess but for their potential to act as doorways out of these echo chambers. By leveraging the new features and capabilities they bring, producers can explore uncharted territories, challenging their ingrained notions and biases.

It was interesting how tools like Ozone (Version 11 came out this week and it’s really well done – I don’t even understand how they keep improving it!), while designed to improve the mixing and mastering process, can also inadvertently perpetuate these echo chambers. In the hands of a novice, presets and popular mastering chains can quickly become a crutch. Instead of learning the core principles of mixing and mastering, many young producers just slap on a preset, thinking that’s the ‘industry standard’. These tools, if used without proper understanding, can contribute to a homogenized sound in the industry.

 

There’s no denying that the familiarity of an echo chamber offers solace. But for an art form as dynamic and ever-changing as music, these chambers can sometimes stifle the very creativity they aim to foster. It’s imperative to recognize when we’re in one and muster the courage to step out. Only then can we truly hear the boundless melodies that the world of music has to offer.

Your Music Direction Coming From Your Community

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The music industry, and more specifically the electronic music scene, has always thrived on the synergy between its creators and listeners. As an electronic music producer myself, I’ve come to realize that one’s journey to success often lies in understanding the pulse of the community. But what does that mean for the artists who feel disconnected, or those who gravitate towards genres with limited local support? Let’s delve into the heart of music communities and how they shape an artist’s journey.

 

The Role of Community in an Artist’s Growth

 

Having spent considerable time producing music and interacting with fellow musicians, a pattern emerges. Those producers who are part of an active music community tend to climb the ladder of success faster and more organically. It’s not just about having people to network with, but also about receiving immediate feedback, understanding what works and what doesn’t, and drawing inspiration from communal energy.

When you are plugged into a community, it’s akin to having your fingers on the pulse of the music you love. You not only learn about the intricacies of the genre but also understand what the audience desires. The shared knowledge and insights from a group of like-minded individuals can often be the difference between a track that falls flat and one that resonates deeply.

In my case, I quickly found my community of people loving the same music as me and got lucky there were events where everyone could meet. It was easy to connect and I felt quickly involved to it. One of the strength of this early boost was that I could present my music easily and got bookings organically. Nowadays I see people contacting venues for bookings but if you’ve never been to the venue, you will not know of it’s culture and direction. Going there is very important so you’ve seen and to see if the attendees are in the same mentality as yourself. There’s nothing more hard to play a gig where people don’t get what you do.

As I toured, I discovered bubbles of people in each city that reminded me of my local community. Even physically, I’d meet someone who reminded me of someone back home.

 

The Challenge of Non-Local Genres

 

But what about those producers who are passionate about a genre that isn’t prominent in their local surroundings?

Many artists look outward, connecting with labels or online groups that share their passion. While the internet has bridged many gaps, online connections often lack the depth and warmth of personal interactions. The very nature of digital communication can sometimes render these relationships impersonal.

There are people who live in smaller towns or aren’t close to a bigger city and this can be challenging because locally, there might be no chances of creating a community. How does this work?

Artists may produce exceptional tracks, but the age-old adage holds: people tend to support who they know. A community can sometimes be hesitant to welcome outsiders. This protective approach is natural, but it can inadvertently close doors for new talents who could have infused fresh perspectives and sounds. No need to think of labels who receive music from people they never heard of and those people expect them to reply. In the best of worlds, this would happen but in reality, this doesn’t happen much. It leaves artists confused.

So for people who aren’t well musically supported, there are multiple choices possible. One of them is to try to go to the closest place where there are events and a community to enjoy it as well as the music. Eventually you may find your role and space in that tribe. Then afterwards, using online communication tools maintain contact.

Let’s not forget that building your own local network and community is possible but can be challenging at first.

 

The DJ Solution

 

In such scenarios, one strategy that I’ve seen work is reaching out to DJs.

Why DJs?

Because they hold the power to introduce new tracks to an eager audience. DJs are always on the lookout for the next standout track, and they can be instrumental in helping an outsider’s music get the recognition it deserves. Having a DJ play your music can be the perfect bridge between the artist and a new community. You could also do the same with local restaurants or boutiques where you can ask them to play your music sometimes, but of course, you’ll need to do that in person after showing you care about their place and music tastes.

Also DJs love music for podcasts and that is a good way to breakthrough to a new bubble of people.

 

Building Inclusive Communities for a Vibrant Future

 

As we discuss communities and their importance, it’s also essential to talk about inclusivity. While protecting the integrity of a community is necessary, it’s equally vital to ensure it doesn’t become insular. By welcoming new members and being receptive to their unique musical offerings, a community not only adds to its diversity but also ensures its longevity.

To all the music communities out there: let’s remember that today’s outsider could be tomorrow’s trendsetter. By being open to new members and their distinct sounds, we guarantee that our community remains vibrant, fresh, and future-ready. Outsiders will bring new energy and ideas what will make sure the music won’t fall in the equivalent of an echo-chamber where everything sounds the same after a while.

 

Ideas to Discover and Connect with Music Communities:

  • Local Music Stores and Cafes: These places often have bulletin boards with events, gatherings, or workshops. Even chatting with the store owner or regulars can lead you to local music groups.
  • Music Workshops and Masterclasses: Enrolling in or attending these can introduce you to like-minded artists and instructors who can guide you to relevant communities.
  • Music Festivals and Gigs: Attend local and regional festivals. Even smaller gigs can be goldmines for networking. Often, they are organized or attended by people who are part of music communities.
  • Online Platforms: Websites like Meetup.com or Facebook groups often have local music groups where you can join and participate in discussions or events.
  • Community Centers and Universities: Many of them offer music courses and often have active music clubs. Engaging with these can open doors to local music communities.
  • Music Production Forums: Websites such as Gearslutz or KVR Audio have active forums where producers from around the world discuss music, equipment, and events.
  • Collaborate Online: Platforms like SoundCloud, Bandcamp, or Splice can be great places not just to share your music but to collaborate with others, which can organically introduce you to communities.
  • Attend Open Mic Nights: These nights often attract local musicians and enthusiasts. It’s a relaxed environment to meet people and get feedback on your music.
  • Visit Recording Studios: Interacting with studio managers or technicians can give insights about local musicians and communities they work with.
  • Engage with DJs: As mentioned before, DJs have their fingers on the pulse of music communities. Engaging with them can often lead to introductions to these communities.

 

Closing Notes: A Call to Artists

 

To my fellow artists feeling a tad adrift, remember that every community started small. If there isn’t a community for your genre, consider starting one! And if that seems like a monumental task, don’t hesitate to reach out in person. Attend local gigs, music events, or even workshops. Establishing a face-to-face connection can be more impactful than a dozen online interactions.

In the ever-evolving landscape of electronic music, one thing remains constant: the value of connection. So, whether you’re an artist seeking your tribe or a community member wondering about the next step, remember that it’s through inclusivity, understanding, and personal interactions that we’ll continue to thrive and create harmonious symphonies for the world to enjoy.

Keywords: electronic music, music production, community, DJ, networking, inclusivity, artists, local gigs, music events.

Applying Da Vinci Principles to Music Coaching

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As you already know (well I hope, at this point), one of my speciality is to work with young or veteran music producers and remove struggles so they can create freely. Recently I’ve been studying how Leonardo Da Vinci was learning and creating, so I saw a crossover to what I do. After all, each song we make is basically a creation in itself, an innovation and a prototype for future project of ours. If it’s not already, I invite you right away to think of each song you make as a step taken in a direction that will lead you to greater things.

Leonardo da Vinci, mastered the art of innovation and interdisciplinary thinking, modern musicians and producers can draw inspiration from his principles to unlock their potential in the realm of music production. In this blog post, we will delve into each of the seven principles from the book “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” and explore how they can be skillfully applied to music production, enabling you to become a true maestro in your craft. If you’re seeking to enhance your music coaching journey, embrace these principles as guiding stars to navigate the musical cosmos.

 

Curiosità – Embrace Musical Diversity

 

Leonardo da Vinci’s insatiable curiosity fueled his passion for knowledge and exploration. As a musician and producer, nurturing curiosità involves delving into various musical genres, styles, and cultures. Too often, as a producer, we get obsessed by a genre, a song, an artist and we focus on it for a while, forgetting anything else. Sometimes, the answers to our questions and inspiration pitfalls come from another unexpected source.

Break free from creative boundaries and venture into new territories to experiment with new sounds and musical elements. Diving in genres you dislike, switching to past eras of time, exploring the roots of another country are good places to look into. Drum and Bass took loops from funk. Hip hop samples jazz, while dub techno is inspired by reggae, which has roots in old African music. All genres taps into another culture and this means you can softly break rules by doing the same, whatever genre you’re doing.

TIP for inspiration: Find a genre to explore, pick any song and isolate an instrumental moment where you can hear the main melody then convert it to midi in Ableton.

 

Attend music festivals, workshops, pay attention to street artists and listen to a wide array of musicians from different backgrounds. Learn who inspired your heroes such as Villalobos’ love for Keith Jarrett. This diverse exposure will not only enrich your musical palette but also infuse your productions with unique flavours.

Dimostrazione – Hands-on Learning and Experimentation

 

Da Vinci’s approach to learning through practical experience resonates with music production. Aspiring producers should engage in hands-on experimentation with different instruments, digital audio workstations (DAWs), and audio effects. There is different projects one can do such as DIY reverb units, foley ideas or simply recording percussion out of anything at home.

A fact that I share to clients all the time: practice, practice, practice and make mistakes.

Practice creating diverse arrangements, experiment with modulation and synthesis, and explore various mixing techniques. By consistently practicing dimostrazione, you’ll build a deeper understanding of music production that theory alone can never provide.

TIP: I am curating a Youtube list of experiments you can try. That list is growing everyday and is filled with ideas to try.

Sensazione – Developing a Keen Ear and sharp vision

 

Sensazione refers to the sharpening of one’s senses, and for a musician, this means cultivating a keen ear for music. Train yourself to listen actively to various musical compositions, both old and new. Pay attention to the nuances of melodies, harmonies, rhythm patterns, and the subtle production details that make each piece unique. Regularly practicing ear training exercises will help you identify and appreciate intricate musical elements, allowing you to apply them creatively in your own productions.

 

TIP: Write some few notes and test all music scales to see how it sounds for you. Try all different chords as well. Spending time to know them will help later to understand melodies.

 

While we know music is about the hearing and that ear training is important, I also encourage to train your eyes as well. One thing I disliked when I used to work in a music school was that all teachers were telling students to only rely on their ears and from what I was seeing, that tip was frustrating for them. This is why I tell people to first learn to trust your eyes when you use sound analyzers and then train your ears to make the link with what you see.

As we work with visual tools such as a DAW, training yourself to know what happens when you click here and there or where to find your tools comes with practice but the visual organization is essential for speed. The faster you are with your tools, the more you’ll be in the flow when you think of an idea and want to execute it. This speed and understanding can only happen with practice… yes, once more and now you know it. I notice that even for myself, if I skip a few days of not practicing, I forget some ideas I have.

One thing I invite you to do is to learn and practice critical listening. That skill is extremely important for whatever you want to achieve and you’ll thank me later.

 

Sfumato – Embracing Musical Ambiguity

 

In the realm of music production, Sfumato encourages you to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty. This is where many producers struggle but also, the average listener. In the psychology of music listening, people can be on various modes. One is about listening to a song to reconnect with the mood, emotion, idea because of the emotional craving of having the song inducing that. An other is about discovering something new. Even when someone is open to listening to something new, they’ll have a bunch of personal filters that will make them decide if they like it or not: sounds used, tones, density, speed, scale, etc. If you come with expectations, you’ll most likely be not enjoying it.

Understanding that your listener has it’s own personal story once they listen to your creation will help you understand how you want them to hear it. Finding the right balance of ambiguity is the key to educate your listeners to be able to deal with more.

 

Music is an art form where unexpected twists and creative risks often lead to remarkable breakthroughs. Allow yourself to explore unconventional chord progressions, atypical song structures, and unorthodox sound combinations. Question what others tell you that you can’t do. Of course, some technicalities are essentials but if it’s purely arbitrary and personal tastes, it might be worth exploring the why behind anyone’s discomfort. Embracing the uncertainty will open doors to uncharted musical territories and give your productions a distinct, avant-garde charm.

But uncertainty is also the path of the musician. We don’t know if people will like our music, we don’t know if what we do will be understood, what kind of reaction it will bring us and ultimately, open or slow down our ascension as an artist. To develop ambiguity endurance is a good investment.

 

TIP: Consider that there are so many songs that have technical imperfections that eventually became seen as a risk, that they set the path to new standards. Accepting ambiguity means to accept imperfection, which is hard for perfectionists.

 

Arte/Scienza – Balancing Artistic Vision with Technical Expertise

Leonardo da Vinci famously harmonized art and science, a practice that resonates with music production, especially in electronic music. I firmly believe if he was around, he’d certainly be interested in how electronics can mimic sounds. Balancing your artistic vision with technical expertise is essential for achieving a polished and professional sound. While artistic expression fuels creativity, understanding the technical aspects of audio engineering, mastering, and sound design empowers you to bring your musical ideas to life with precision and finesse.

Some classes, courses and technical knowledge you could look into that would be beneficial could:

  • Studying computer science. I often say that if you’re computer challenged, it will be a hurdle to make electronic music for all the technology needs behind it. Studying how your computer works, hard drive, files management, hardware optimisation and also, coding, will definitely help in one way or another, especially if you have to troubleshoot.
  • Signal flow. Understanding the basics of sound with phase, polarity but also basics as what is loudness, how speakers/monitors work will help. You don’t need to study engineering in itself. But if there’s one concept I find essential, it’s gain staging. Especially for DJs, since so many are completely clueless on how to use a DJ mixer properly, which leads them to misunderstand how music is made. This would also cover bits and sample rate, two concepts essential for basic quality upgrade of your music.
  • Music theory. Maybe not that much needed as one can go a long way with little knowledge but to know the basics will certainly help.
  • Computer logic. If you’re not familiar with Boolean maths, logic (If, Then, etc), I would encourage you to look into it.
  • Sound synthesis. Looking into envelopes, LFOs, MIDI, signal rate, etc. There’s a lot to learn but getting the base will help you across many tools you’ll use because those ideas are general and used across many plugins, synths.

If you want to break rules, you need to understand them first. It will be also useful to be able to criticize all the misleading feedback you’ll read online.

 

Corporalità – Nurturing Physical and Mental Well-being

In the fast-paced world of music production, it’s vital to prioritize your physical and mental well-being. Long hours in the studio can take a toll on your health and creativity. Make time for regular physical exercise, meditation, and activities that rejuvenate your mind. A clear and focused mind leads to enhanced creativity, allowing you to channel your emotions effectively into your musical compositions.

Over the past 30 years, the rave scene and electronic music world has built a lot of glorification upon drugs consumption and many artists received royal treatment for how poorly they’ve treated their body. While I value the importance to celebrate and do experiment, I also think that all the self care possible will do justice on the long run. If your art needs years to be recognized but your health won’t let you see it, then you’re failing your success.

In my case, I see how running, doing workouts and lots of yoga has paid off. The days where I run 10km are extremely productive and more creative than any evenings I spend partying and trying to accomplish something. Finding the balance helps much. I’m happy that in the last few years, there are more importance for healthy lifestyles and I totally see the point of that.

TIP: Learn to spot inner tensions when making music which should be a cue that you need to stop, go for a walk to think about whatever is happening and then come back.

Connessione – Uniting Musical Elements

Finally, embrace Connessione, Leonardo’s principle of recognizing interconnectedness. Music production involves various elements like melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture. Learn to see the bigger picture and identify how each component contributes to the whole. Effortlessly blend diverse musical influences and genres, making your productions a testament to the beauty of unity within diversity.

One exercise I’m doing much these days is to listen to melodies in any song and then pay attention if the notes are going up or down, what is the pattern. Then I pay attention to the rhythms of those notes and see if they come at the same time or not. That kind of attention is a way to observe how music is made across genres in order to see how I can create my own melodies. Any notes can then be applied to my music, maybe also reversed engineered in modular terms, such as a way to use an LFO to create regular melodies.

 

 

As you embark on your music production journey, channel your inner Leonardo da Vinci and embrace his timeless principles. Cultivate curiosity, experiment boldly, and listen attentively to the musical world around you. Embrace ambiguity, balance artistry with technicality, and prioritize your well-being. Recognize the interconnectedness of musical elements, blending diverse influences into your unique compositions. By applying “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” to music production, you’ll unleash your creative genius and pave the way for a remarkable musical legacy.

Generating Ideas and the Listener’s Attention Span

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(photo credit Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash)

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

Attention Is Competitive

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Don’t Fall Into Extremes

 

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

 

You Have No Control Over The Listener

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

How To Keep People Interested In Your Song

 

Here are ways to keep someone interested in your song:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Music techniques to find new ideas

 

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

 

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

 

Randomize effects, modules, and macros. 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you can link parameters to macros.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

Randomize Melodies

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

I hope this helps.

 

How To Compose With Consistency

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I’ve always been interested in the restaurant industry and particularly with the whole process of how they give awards like Michelin Stars. There are a number of criterias that will define if a chef will earn one and I find there is some inspiration to take from those points to apply them to one music producer’s work. While there’s no written notes on what the criteria are, what we do know is that there are key points such as ability, quality, and the chef’s personality. However, one that really stands out is consistency.

 

This is a common shared topic with clients of mine. Everyone pretty much dreams of finding a formula that will make sure each song is good and that each time they hit the studio, something worthy will come out from the time invested. There are straightforward ways to make sure we get there but there are also some points that I will explain that might be a bit unsettling.

 

Managing Expectations

It’s always a bit hard to talk about expectations with clients. There are a few points to keep in mind when it comes to that. First, many people are passionate about music in the first place and rely on that hobby for multiple hopes such as, acceptance and validation from their community or other hero producers of theirs. This alone creates some big goals, which creates stress that can glitch creativity and productivity. Same for other producers who have released some music and feel a pressure to do more, but they’re facing some tensions towards what they do: feeling of being inadequate, hitting technical limitations, unfair comparisons to others, etc.

I personally don’t really believe that having constant positive sessions from the studio, where you are 100% happy with your music, is humanly possible. For those who do, I would also question how much fun that is since in the long run it can be really stressful and tiring.

 

So rather than having perfect consistency in music, I think it’s better to change the approach to defining what your victory conditions are. In the Definition of Done article we covered how to set yourself clear points to know you’re done with a project while accepting how many imperfections you can live with. But victory conditions are slightly different, yet, also similar.

 

So for instance, I used to know some professional musicians that were forcing themselves to go to the studio everyday and make one song minimum. Since I worked with them, I had the chance to listen and I had to say I thought the songs they showered me were interesting about 5% of the time (there were a lot of them). We talked about it and realized not only was he not happy about the situation nor the outcome, but he also realized he was just not achieving anything he hoped for. So we worked together to shift his workflow and expectations.

I proposed my non-linear music making technique where he would work on several tracks at once instead of one song at a time. I also talked about what he loved doing so we can make sure that part would be at least 50% of his studio time. In his case, he loved sound design and creating new songs which are perfect. I showed him that music can also be about that and that making music is an important part of music making but it is not the only part of it. Starting new songs is, to me, just as important as finishing them. The more you start one, the better the odds to really create solid and original ideas. Then you harvest the best ones to turn them into a song. We also revised different ways to do sound design and techniques to try.

 

This changed a lot the outcomes of his music and the quality of the following tracks got much better, even if the pace of them coming out got a hit. This is why I sometimes encourage people to focus on tracks made per season instead of days, or weeks.  

 

Victory Conditions

We all have different conditions and there’s no real best way to do this but I find that victory conditions should be different than releasing goals. Some people feel victorious if they get their album out after months of work, but soon they want more of it and then they face a return to the studio that feels like a pain. In my case, after years of experience, I find that my victory conditions has boiled down to having a blast when I’m in the studio, even if that implies working hard on solving issues.

 

This implies two different things: First, there is a part of me that is there to solve issues, install gear, create an environment that is workable and fix details to ensure all is well. Second, I have to prepare for my conditions by making sure that I have all the necessary skills to make music. So, if in a Definition Of Done, we set the points that would make us see we’re done, in the Victory Conditions, we establish what is needed to go there and what is also to make it possible. 

Since for me, it is related to fun, I had to reverse engineer it. 

 

That implied that I had to look back at a really fun session and see what happened to make it work, and to enjoy it. More often than not, while a session can be ruined by technical problems, it’s clear that some sessions in the studio should be dedicated to preventing issues, but also, some other sessions would be dedicated to practicing a technique or new concept, so that when I hit the zone, I have all on hand.

 

So what about you?

 

In the development of an artist, there are numerous stages and phases. You might be in one that is so challenging that the fun doesn’t happen too much. It might be because you feel overwhelmed by a specific issue, some software limitation, lack of knowledge on a topic and aiming for fun might seem a bit of frustration. The thing is, if that can help, I have to say that there has been many years in my life where I accomplished so many things without knowing much and that the more I knew, the more I slowed down. I often say that it’s important to finish something and learn rather than chase perfection.

 

In other words, whatever you are struggling with might actually be a distraction. There are a lot of things to learn on Youtube and if you can’t find it, there are always people to help – that includes me. You don’t have to stay with a problem for long nowadays, compared to times before the internet’s abundant tutorials.

 

Perhaps you can create conditions where you work on a few things at once, small things and try to make the most of that.

 

Quality Control, being practical

We talked about the philosophical and workflow part of this topic but what about the technical side of things? What are some of the main elements that do maintain consistency between songs?

 

There are multiple points you could use a checklist. After years and years of working on music, I do see correlations between songs that manage to get some kind of success. I won’t dive into the promotion, releasing and anything unrelated to production though because that’s a bit of a rabbit hole which changes every 3-6 months. I can’t follow.

 

In music making, I feel there are 2 types: commercial and artistic.

 

By commercial, I don’t mean it in a derogatory way. I’m basically relating to music that is intended to be pushed for sales. If you make music and want distribution, there are chances the distributor might turn it down if they consider it will not sell enough. This is a norm for P&D (press and distribution) deals, because the distribution is basically covering the costs and will expect a ROI (return on investment). In my book, if you make music with the idea to make sales, it is mostly and clearly commercial (eg. we’re producing it in a sales angle). 

On the other hand, artistic music might be simply digital or released at the expense of the artist, without distribution and there is very little expectation of sales. This kind of music is often a bit more edgy, abstract, risky, not following many rules and has a bigger chance of not being able to be fitting any rules.

 

If we compare that to a restaurant, the commercial one is often knowing what sells and will feature a direction, style with some star dishes that people want each time they visit. The artistic ones would be a restaurant where they change the menu each day and take risks. 

They both need consistency on a number of things: fresh ingredients, recipes being respected, taste being coherent on each serving, temperature, etc.

 

It’s pretty much the same with music as well. There are certain criterias you can follow that will ensure that your songs will always deliver. Sometimes it might not have the same punch but if you cover the basics, you’ll have for sure some coherence.

 

Here are the criterias I have in mind:

 

  • Solid hook, main idea. What makes the reason for a song to exist is that you found a solid idea you want to share a story about. That’s how I see music. If you think of traditional music, people write a story and that will be the main idea. For electronic music, more than often there will be no vocals so the sounds and ideas are your story. Don’t make songs for the sake of it (note: I encourage people to make music for the sake of it though, which is different). Find an idea and build a story about it. It can be a sample, a pattern, a fun sound… There’s no rule here but to find one thing you want to listen for 3-6 minutes and really push forward that idea. 

 

  • Song in key, scale. This might sound weird, especially for people making atonal music or industrial techno who use a chromatic scale, but making sure all your elements are in key will give the song a much more wholeness to it. Not all songs follow one but having a coherent harmony will please many people, especially if in a specific genre, some scales are respected. Optional point here would be chord progression. You don’t always need one but if you have one, make sure that it is solid and coherent. Often when I give feedback to people who are starting in music production, I notice they aren’t respecting this basic point and once they do, they really bring it to another level already.

 

  • Rule of thirds in arrangements. This is a bit of a concept I bring up in feedback where I explain to producers that if they divide their song in 3 sections, they all should have some variation, to give the listener a sense of evolution and to keep the attention. If you understand the listening experience as a challenge of keeping attention, you know you need to bring new ideas, but not too much. The rule of third never fails. If you compose pop or anything needing a structure, keep that in mind as well.

 

  • Flat mix, coloured master. Clients don’t always understand what a good mix is. If you keep your tone flat but work with an engineer that can color it to match similar songs on the market, you’ll most likely always have a solid, enjoyable song that can compete well. Also, a flat mix means that your elements are not too all over the place, which is important.

 

  • Avoid masking, phasing. This is more technical but if you have a busy mix where many elements are used, you’ll most likely end up having a muddy mix. I won’t go into how to fix this in this post and you can google about it but keep in mind that it’s essential to quality.

 

  • Get Feedback. Show it to people you trust and ask for specific feedback. Otherwise people will say its cool. Be technical about what you need from them.

 

  • Get help. I don’t understand why people want to do everything themselves. It’s basically setting you up for average music. You’ll learn yes, but why not become a master at making music you love doing and get a master to help you mix so you get the most of it? It’s like, if you want to make a sandwich but you want to make the bread yourself, mayonnaise from scratch, grow the veggies, make the cheese, etc. Yes you can, but you could also buy the best ingredients possible and have a killer sandwich too.

 

  • Quantity for quality digging. If you see each song as an experiment to learn something new or master a technique, you can speed up your process and make more music. A good way to keep up with quality is to producer many, many songs and then trim down your output to the ones you know are shining. The more you finishing music, the more you’ll develop skills, which make sure the following tracks are better quality. Then when you can pick what you share abroad, to the outside world, they’ll only see quality.

 

If you cover these points, you’ll most likely have something you’ll be proud of and when you share a song, people will know what to expect from you, even if you take risks, creatively wise.

 

Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production

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Perhaps you’ve been making music for a little while or you’re completely new to it, perhaps on the verge of jumping in this as a new hobby, and you have this overwhelming feeling of being overwhelmed or lost. Let’s be fair, some hobbies are easier than others to start with. Maybe you’ve tried DJing and you saw how fast it is to get into it and then tried producing and found it to be a steep learning curve. Therefore, I thought I’d write about the different challenges people face when they start and the workaround or strategies that I give to students in order to get through the difficult emotions. 

 

Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production

 

There are so many different misconceptions about our passion that it’s a bit difficult to list them but I’ll try to debunk many ideas that confuse people I work with.

“Electronic music is easy to do” or a variant, “If you have everything you need, then it’s easy to do.”

 

This is honestly the one I debunk on a regular basis. I often also argue with strangers about it and I gathered so much theory. So to start with how easy it is, that’s absolutely not true. I’ve explored making music for 30 years and  there are still times where I’m not totally sure what I’m doing. Also, I learn something new every single day I practice. 

 

Do I need to know everything to make music? No, absolutely not. I’ve been able to make over 20 albums and on some of them, I was just scratching the surface of what production is about. 

 

The idea that it’s easy comes from the idea that compared to someone who grabs a guitar and performs music theory, rhythms and all that is related to music perfectly is harder, that’s something not everyone can do. On the surface, technology has democratically opened music making by making so many tools, software, and hardware that can let many do more than anyone could, 30+ years ago. It doesn’t mean it’s easier.

 

If you want to make a loop and play music, yes, it can be similar to video games and that part is honestly where most of the fun is. Anyone that wants to go deeper will soon feel like that will not be enough and want more.

 

This is where the second variant kicks in, with the idea that you need something else to do that. You’ll also be exposed that you need something from all the ads we are exposed to or if you talk to other producers, they’ll quickly tell you all the things you need… Which is a bit of a trap.

 

I’ve said it many times before, but to do music you basically, at minimum, need one device that can make a sound(mobile phone, tablet, hardware, computer) t and something to listen to (headphones, speakers). That’s really all you need. 

 

When I tell that to people, I often then get the famous “I knew it was easy!” response. 

 

That’s when I drop the bomb. 

 

Oh yeah, it’s easy… You’ll just need to understand the basic theory of sound design, signal flow, music fundamentals, engineering, storytelling, and perhaps also recording too, to name a few. So then again, it’s confusing because as a newcomer, you might be aware of how little you know and this triggers confusion and frustration. 

 

So this is where there’s a paradox. On one hand, everything is there, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll know how to get your way through to achieve what you want to do. 

 

My approach is simple – it’s about convincing  anyone diving into music  to start with little steps. I saw many people wanting to learn how to play piano and some of the first exercises they’ll start with is to get familiar with hands on the notes, play around with scales, and basically just practice going up and down the keys. If you learn piano, this is what you expect to do at first because it’s the basis of playing. 

 

When it comes to electronic music, people are all over the place. They want to make a song, they want to make music like an artist they love, they want to try this and that… So much to do and there’s not much of a methodology anywhere so people try things and it often fails.

 

So, more myths follow.

 

“You make a song by starting from the beginning and then finish it”

 

This one is probably the most damaging of all because it puts people in a workflow that is counterproductive, alienating and just not fun at all. If you are familiar with this blog, you’ll be familiar with my idea that making one song at a time is one of the worst ways to work. So perhaps let’s think about what it means to you to make a song, or what a song is supposed to be.

 

For some, it’s a little story, for others it’s an experiment, or it can be something for a DJ to play. The thing they all have in common is that they have a beginning and an end, plus some ideas that evolve (or not) in the middle. Some songs have one idea, others multiple. But what this means is that each song needs at least one idea. This is where music starts, by finding ideas. That means you can probably listen to music you like and love something in it. Perhaps you want to sample something from an old record or just want to write notes of a melody yourself.

 

I usually stress the importance of finding ideas as one of the main things to do because it’s not hard to do and because it’s fun. The other thing I tell people who start is to spend countless hours in their music software and not have any goals other than to basically test everything with intense curiosity and openness. The more you are goal driven in front of something you don’t understand, the more you might be lost and lose interest. One of the main conditions for finding flow in an activity is to do something that seems doable but a bit challenging while having fun. 

 

Exploring, getting familiar with your software, and doing little experiments is where you start.

 

Here are some little projects you can do if you’re really new to it:

 1- Drag a song or samples you like in your DAW and play with it

chop it, add effects, stretch it, pitch it up or down, destroy it wildly and see what happens. Note what you do and be aware that certain tools bring specific results.

 

 2- Spend time playing 1-2 notes on a keyboard and listen to the results.

This means, test all the synths you have, samplers. Play long or short notes, and see how they behave. Record the notes and try to record the sound, destroy it.

 

3- Be responsive instead of curating.

One of my approaches with music is to pick any sound and have the attitude that if someone paid me $1000 to do a song with this, what would I do?  The problem for many people is that they have access to way too much and they’ll spend the entire studio session searching for a specific sound they’ll never find. This makes you creatively lazy. You’ll learn more working with something crap  than searching for the perfect sound. You might actually learn how to make sounds you love by goofing around.

 

If we agree that ideas make songs and that you like specific ideas, you need to practice playing to gain ease, spontaneity and control in order to eventually make your own ideas. This is why I invite people to play with what they have to become fluent. 

 

So, to sum it up:

 

To make music you don’t need a lot.

There’s a lot to know but you don’t need to know everything to have fun.

If you have fun, you’ll want to spend time exploring.

Remain curious of what you think is useless or too complicated.

Exploration means practice.

Practice brings new ideas. 

Ideas can be turned into songs.

It’s easier to get the most out of a sound than searching for the perfect one.

Simplicity is sophistication.

 

Making music is about having fun. If it doesn’t feel fun, you’re not seeing it from the right angle.

 

Last belief that causes harm:

 

“I have great ideas in my mind but I can’t put them all together in my songs”

 

Anything one has in mind is wonderful but once you try to replicate it, things are never really exactly the same as what you’d expect. In years of making music, I never really was able to translate my inner world to sound. Perhaps if you’re a singer or folk artist, this is easier but in the realm of electronic music, things are completely different. You can have a nice melody idea but you’ll need the right sound. You might have the right sound, but then the melody might not fit. The more you chase something abstract, the less grasp you’ll have on what you actually control.

 

There’s a vast number of elements that can really cloud your judgment and to chase something, always brought me frustration. I sometimes had way more fun working on simplistic ideas than going for a very ambitious project. It doesn’t mean that you have to stop yourself, but it’s important to understand where you stand, technically, and operate with your current skills.

 

Someone was asking, how do I make very long techno tracks like some artists do? My answer was, don’t do that. He was surprised and disappointed. My explanation was that it’s more important that he becomes really good first at doing what he’s doing now. Then you expand and do something a little more challenging once your basis is solid. I explored longer tracks once I managed to make solid 6 minutes ones, then moved to 8, then 10, and then up.

 

Bonus tip here:

 

“My friend told me this software is crap”

 

I could have added a lot of quotes here but my point is that many people will tell you what their experience is, and how they came to some conclusions but in the end, it’s just someone’s perspective. I’m always a bit cautious of people telling me to not do something (especially if I never asked for advice) and will be more curious of people explaining how they managed to do something I like. Many people have self imposed rules that are super weird, not backed by anything technical. Many times I heard some bogus claims that some software wasn’t good enough (FLStudio, for instance is often put down)  or that a plugin isn’t for music, while I know so many people that made amazing ideas with the most ridiculous setup and ressources. It’s not what you use, it’s really what you do with it that matters.

 

How To Use Hooks To Finish Songs

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

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

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

The Hook Is Your Song

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

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

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

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

Making Non-Pop Hooks

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

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

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

Hook Modifiers

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

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

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

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

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

Build Everything Around The Hook

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

Make Something New

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

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

 

The Problem With “Good” Music

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Here’s the problem with good music – it’s subjective. One person’s idea of a “good” song is certainly different from someone else’s unless they come from a similar cultural background. And even with a shared cultural background, people still differ between what they think is good and what isn’t. This is similar to people calling music “interesting.” 

The term interesting is subjective as well. What is interesting to me might not be interesting to you. For instance, I could enjoy a technical aspect of a song that someone who doesn’t understand that technical aspect might not care about.

Art Is Often Philosophical

The foundation for this article all started with a client of mine who came to me and asked if I could make his song interesting, which perplexed me, since as I said before, what’s interesting to me might not be interesting to someone else. This led to a debate about if it’s really the mandate of the artist to be interesting. Is it the artist’s fault if the music isn’t “interesting” enough? After all, music is subjective.

For instance, some people absolutely hate the music that’s on the radio, but if you’ve ever run a club, you know that it’s your Top 40 nights that are going to make you the most money. It’s reasonable to assume, that to the patrons, there is something about the music that makes it “interesting,” or else they probably wouldn’t be there. Sure, it might not be the music itself, but it could be the purpose… the intention.

I got the sense that my client doesn’t appreciate philosophical debates as I do, so they may have just been annoyed. But that’s what had me thinking about this article, because when people come to me and ask for me to make their track “interesting,” or “good,” I would like to have a reference to show them to help them describe what they really mean. So that’s what this article is about – giving people the tools to objectify something that is inherently subjective.

 

“Interesting” Is Intentional

Instead of interesting, it’s best to describe a context and/or an emotion that goes with it. Maybe you want the song to be exciting, emotional, tense, or have a narrative flow. Perhaps you imagine it in a soundtrack to a movie, or you want it played in a club. These will have different technical and compositional elements, which segment into their own specific terms.

For instance, if you want a song played in a club, that’s going to require more compression, and often more density so that it can keep up with the loudness of all the tracks it’s mixed with. However, if you want it to be in a soundtrack, it will be more transparent, and use frequencies that don’t clash with whatever it’s being overlaid with, whether that’s dialog, or foley sounds in the film, etc.

Also, the length of the song will matter. If someone comes to me and say, “I want a radio-friendly song” and they give me an 8-minute song, we have to figure out how to isolate 5 minutes of it for a radio version. We may even have to add other compositional elements to so that there is a congruity to the song when we reduce it that significantly.

Nowadays, whether we like it or not, social media runs everything around us. There are tons of DJs who get gigs because they have a great social presence, rather than artistic output. That means, in order to compete, many artists who do have a sizable artistic output still have to do stuff for Instagram, or TikTok. And if it’s good for TikTok it might not be good for Spotify. I was reading an article about making music that grabs attention in the first 4 seconds, and if they don’t do that, then it will fail on places like Instagram Reels and Tiktok. Once again, these are things I need to know in order to make it “interesting” for those contexts. 

 

The Axis Of “Interesting” Music

The aforementioned thoughts are best explained by an axis, I think. This axis is pretty arbitrary, as it’s my own personal one, but I think it does a good job illustrating the intention of music in general.

The axis is a pie chart of purpose, emotion, and technicality. Then somewhere surrounding that pie chart is distribution. 

When all of the elements are congruent, then magic happens. If they are off-kilter, there is a good chance it won’t sound right.

Purpose is the context: is it meant for the club, is it meant for at-home listening, is it meant for a movie, etc? Emotion is the existential part of it; it’s the part that makes it feel human. If it’s too emotional, then it may not develop, or it may seem campy, or annoying. Technicality is the musicianship and the engineering on it. While you want it to be technically sound, if it’s too technical, like a Dream Theater album, then it might sound emotionless, or pretentious. However, if there is too little technicality, then it might sound sloppy. Having a balance of these to fit your goal is the key. 

Sometimes songs are “purposely” untechnical. These are the songs that might sound kind of jangly or have poor mixing, but you can tell, based on the style of music, that this may have been intentional. Take “lofi” music for instance – it’s purposely mixed weird.

Or sometimes, things are purposely overly emotional in order to illustrate a point. Maybe it’s part of a skit for a campy comedy/parody about romance or something of the sort. That is bound to need an overly emotional track. 

However, what all of these examples have is a purpose, which grounds them.

Distribution is the final part. Is it going to be on vinyl, or is it made for TikTok? If it’s on vinyl, then certain mastering will be required. Also, you will need to consider the length of the songs as it has to fit on the grooves. 

If it’s TikTok, as I mentioned earlier, you have to grab their attention in 4 seconds, or else it won’t carry on the algorithm properly.

 

Attention Matters

Right now, one of my projects is to create a 12-hour long ambient album. Do I expect it to be intently listened to? No, it’s background music that sets the mood. 

The idea came from these playlists, or stations, that I leave playing for an entire day because it’s a presence that isn’t actively listened to. It’s more an atmosphere rather than for attention. 

There are different levels of attention: passive (background), attentive (stopping what they do to listen with care), critical (either people who are trained with music theory/engineering listening for flaws). It’s up to the artist to set that intention.

 

What Is Your Intention?

A label once asked me for “good music” and I was like that doesn’t make any sense – I don’t go into the studio thinking I’m going to make “bad music.” I try to make something that is meaningful – that’s all

At the end of the day, the question is: what are you chasing? Are you chasing appreciation, artistic integrity, or attention? You can’t have all three, because you can’t please everyone. But does that really matter?

Service Update: Track Finalization Is Now Exclusive

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It’s been a hard decision to make since I’ve enjoyed collaborating on so many tracks that have been sent to me through the track finalization service that I offer. However, I have found that by just allowing anyone to purchase this, it becomes not only a source of a great deal of stress but also the work to reward ratio often doesn’t pan out. Therefore, I am indefinitely pausing my track finalization service, except for people with who I have enjoyed working with in the past. 

However, rather than just pausing the service, I feel like I owe an explanation. This blog post will be a little different than most and will have two authors. First, I’ll explain my reasoning, and then someone who has used my service a few things will explain his thoughts on working with me.

 

Pheek’s Perspective

I have clients that have standards that are pretty high, which I have no problem with. I’m happy to help. However, paradoxically many producers come to me and love their track just how it is. Yet they still want me to work on it. This is confounding to me, because if you love your track, why do anything else to it? Music is subjective, and in the ear of the beholder, so it will never be great to everyone. The only thing that matters is if it’s great to you.

However, they still hire me and have a track that they are emotionally invested in because they have put so much effort into it. They just want the track to be perfect, so they think that I can do this, which isn’t true. Hiring an engineer won’t fix everything, and transform a piece into the hottest track to hit their respective Beatport chart. And while this sometimes may happen (usually by pure luck), engineers can only fix what we are allowed to, and often have to contend with people’s cognitive bias’ towards their track. 

Therefore, with these clients, it’s necessary to communicate that nothing is perfect and that the concept of perfection, especially in art, is folly. To be fair though, as an artist, this concept took many years to accept. I eventually realized that no matter how much I tackle imperfections, the end result is often staleness. And staleness is something that nobody who is writing art-focused music wants since it’s these imperfections that make songs exciting. It’s these imperfections that make them human. And humanity, especially within electronic music is sorely needed since the criticism from detractors is often that electronic music sounds too engineered, or robotic. 

This pursuit of perfection messes up my client’s workflow because they are often obsessed with having the perfect track rather than just finishing them. To me, this is essentially chasing unicorns in a field of chocolate, because, like I said before, perfection is a fantasy. Still, this mindset persists in many since people set standards for themselves that can’t be easily changed.

Now, a perfectionist mindset would be fine, if it was tolerable. However, after all these years of consulting, I’ve noticed that perfectionists always comes with one personality trait – they’re micromanagers. And let’s be real here when was the last time you heard someone praising a micromanager? Probably never, because it drives everyone crazy. 

The end result is usually two things: they will either say that the track is too close, or different from what they gave me initially. However, I usually don’t know which one it is until after I submit the track back to them. They reply with what else needs to be fixed, so I go and fix it, which I’m happy to do because there is no way I’m going to get it right the first time unless I’ve worked with them before. However, quite often, I spend hours going in a loop and reverting it back to pretty much exactly what they gave me in the first place. Or they will ask for so many additions that it eventually warps the track to a point where it doesn’t match the patterns they have set in their own heads. If you’re a producer, you know what I’m talking about – you can anticipate what is going to happen before it happens and if you miscalculate that, or if it’s different, it creates cognitive dissonance.

This cognitive dissonance is because producers are emotionally engaged with their tracks, and they have heuristics in their mind about where things should be in the mix, or compositionally. They EQ’d it a certain way, they didn’t have certain effects or compositional elements in it that are now in it, so when they hear it, it is jarring, because they expect it to be a certain way. Therefore, it doesn’t sound “right” to them. 

However, more often than not, a producer’s home studio is not representative of the outside world, so it’s no wonder that it doesn’t sound “right” to them. But since they are so wrapped up in it, they ask for more modifications, without realizing that what they are asking for is actually incorrect. However, this sometimes forces me to go back to how it was, because of their inability to realize that the reason why they hired me in the first place was to provide them a track that translates well across all systems. 

This happened again recently, where the producer lamented that it didn’t sound close enough to their reference track, which they never provided. So I asked them to send that over, and lo-and-behold, the reference track wasn’t properly mixed. Now, I happened to know this artist pretty well, so I provided them with a reference that was correct. Strangely enough, I haven’t heard back from this client.

As you may have surmised, I’m not a fan of doing business this way. Therefore, from now on, track finalization will only be available to people I’ve worked with successfully in the past. Because at the end of the day, why would you want someone to finish a track that isn’t on the same creative wavelength as you?

 

Alex Ho Megas’ Perspective

Ok, so none of you know me. However, I’ve been doing marketing for Pheek for almost a year now. And sometimes we trade services, and one of those services is track finalization. He asked if I would write something about my experience working with him on this since we have done it a few times. You may be thinking, “how can someone be unbias towards their client?” The answer is, I really can’t. However, I’m going to do my best to explain what working with him is like.

Reading Pheek’s perspective above, I intimately understand the cognitive dissonance that comes from having your track modified. You do expect certain things to be in certain places, subconsciously. Consciously, I know that they are most likely wrong since I don’t have a tuned studio and an acute knowledge of mixing and mastering. I, personally, just like writing music and designing sounds. 

One thing we often agree on is that music is usually a collaborative process and that electronic music is one of the only genres where it’s often not. Therefore, I hire Pheek knowing that collaboration often leads to better music. So you know, I’m not always immediately happy with everything I get back. I just know to give it time and to send it off to people that I trust to provide feedback. Then, I think critically about it and note things I would like changed. 

For instance, sometimes I notice that the tuning on a sample is incorrect, or that an element needs to either be extended or shortened. Sometimes there are parts that I want to have emphasized that Pheek deemphasized, like how a snare hits at a transition. So I confer with him and ask if it makes sense to change those things. Often he says they can be changed, however, I always make sure to just trust that 1) my room is incorrect and 2) that a new perspective is helpful. Sure, sometimes I override his recommendations, but only after careful consideration. And to be fair, I still could be wrong about those decisions, but as he said earlier in this post, music is subjective in many ways. 

I would say that the most difficult one we’ve worked on was the last one we did. Right from the beginning, there were some warping errors that made the channels not properly align, and therefore significantly changed the composition of the track. This was hard to explain because he was not familiar with the track, so he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. To him, of course, it’s correct, why wouldn’t it be? However, I just pointed him to a time in the original track where it was wrong, and had him compare it to the version he sent over. It took some time to figure out an effective communication method on this, but ultimately, we got there.

Then he added a bunch of foley sounds to the track, per my request. However, they were either too maximalist or minimalist, so I asked for a modification. These weren’t exactly what I was looking for, so we went back again. Being content with what it was, I sent it in for a mixdown. Then I sent the mix to another engineering friend to see what he thought of it – and it didn’t think it was right. So I just asked Pheek to bounce down the stems and send them over so I could see what my friends sounded like. Funny enough, after comparing the two, I prefer Pheek’s and will use his version when it’s eventually released. This example just goes to show that this track had a particularly strong hold on my perceptions, which makes sense – I worked on it forever. It was only after a good amount of time that I was able to crack these biases. 

 

The best recommendation I have about his track finalization service is to make sure to clearly mark where there are things that need to be changed. Note the time, note the duration. Make sure to have a copy of the old track handy that you can send him so that you can point to when you need things reverted. Make sure to mark the times and durations on those. He has a blog post about “how to communicate with an engineer,” which provides tips that will smooth the process of working with him on track finalization. However, it seems like now, he’s only working with people he has vetted in the past. So if you’re reading this, and have successfully done track finalization in the past, I recommend reading this article.

Another good thing to read would be his post on finalizing tracks on your own now that the service has been made exclusive to previous clients,

Is It Best To Produce One Style, Or Many?

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Why do people keep producing the same kind of track when there are others who have a wide palate of styles? I’ll admit, I’m a victim of the former. I’ve been producing the same type of music forever. Sure, often they sound different, but overall, I use the same formula and workflow, which translates into a bunch of songs that sound somewhat identical. This results in some people questioning why I don’t expand my palate. 

In response, I try to break out of the mold and create something entirely different. Then, the people who listen to me because of my consistency get annoyed and start complaining. There is no victory here, which is why I always suggest just making music for yourself. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is be satisfied with your finished product. However, let’s explore the advantages of disadvantages between the two.

 

Producing A Similar Sound

Ok, let’s first talk about making the same song over and over again. In an era of algorithms and playlists, this is a sensible approach if you want to build a brand. With streaming, listeners have infinite choices nowadays. They can go on Spotify or YouTube and build their own playlists that fit their mood. And when they want to augment their mood, they often go and grab songs from familiar artists that satisfy that emotion. If you’re an artist that produces a bunch of different styles, they may not go check out your new stuff, because they know that it won’t fufill that emotional anchor. However, if you have a palate of sounds, tempos and styles that fit into a similar trope, then listeners can reliably count on you to produce something that satisfies their need. 

 

The Benefit Incremental Improvements On A Sound

Another reason for producing similar-sounding tracks is because the artist wants to keep on improving on something. Often they believe if they keep on working in the same vein that their tracks will get progressively better, which may lead to some sort of breakout moment. If they decide to take a tangent into other realms, then that may cause them to lose sight of that goal. They may even start making more predictable, cookie-cutter stuff since often when artists explore new genres, they start watching tutorials that thousands of other producers have watched. Often, this regresses their sound, when by staying the course it may have led to new, exciting sounds, even if they fall inside a stereotypical frame that they defined throughout their years of producing.


What To Do With All Of These Similar Tracks?

When you have 100 songs and they’re all the same, what do you do? Is that a waste? If you release all these 100 songs, you’ll burn yourself out because not all are worthy of release. I usually recommend making bundles of 3 or 4 and seeing which ones work by passing them to DJ friends who can play them. They’ll let you know which ones work, and what doesn’t. 

Also, don’t forget to store all of your projects. You never know when you can go back and finish a track with the new skills you have acquired. 

 

How To Change Your Sound, Without Becoming Cookie Cutter

However, there are ways for producers to keep a template and still change their sound. For instance, they can change the key. Each key has a different mood associated with it, and while the timbres and samples may be the same, the new pitch can redefine the emotional impact. You can still retain the mood that listeners expect if you switch the key to something harmonically relevant to a previous song’s key. Just check the Circle of Fifths to find out what works harmonically.

Another thing composers can do is time signature changes or add polyrhyms in their music. In dance music, it’s often hard to do something outside of 4/4. Sure, there are some tracks that work, like Jon Hopkin’s “Neon Drum Pattern,” which is in 5/4, or the rave classic, Jakatta’s “American Dream.” However, those are a pain to mix, and are a rare breed of dance songs. What I suggest is things like using triplets, or doing things like making your song half time or cut time. Another thing you can do is make your rhythm 4/4, and your lead 6/4, since they are both common time. However, if you don’t care if your songs are mixable, feel free to make songs in 9/8 or 17/4. Who cares? Like I said, it’s about feeling satisfied with your music, and nothing else.

 

Producing Many Different Styles

Ok, so let’s talk about artists who have a bunch of different styles. I would also say that I do this too, as I release dub techno, minimal, ambient, and more. However, with my sound, it all comes from a similar root, as I mentioned before.

Then there are artists that are all over the place, and cannot stay tied town to one process. A good example of this is the band Underworld. You might now them for their song Born Slippy, but they are way way more than that. They were originally an ‘80s rock band that evolved into the techno juggernaut that we know today. However, if you go through their catalog, you will hear many genres of music. There is house, techno, and breaks, for sure. But there are also ballads, and ambient pieces. Sometimes there are big beat songs as well. Then occassionally, they’ll return back to their roots and make a more rock oriented song. 

Another good example is Radiohead. Pretty much every album they change up their style. Ok Computer does not sound like Kid A, Kid A does not sound like In Rainbows, In Rainbows does not sound like King of Limbs, A Moonshaped Pool does not sound like King of Limbs. This process all started with Kid A when they wanted to make an anti-album that was intended to alienate their fans by switching things up dramatically, replacing drums with drum machines, guitars with synths, and normal vocals, with distorted ones. In other words, they were sick of stardom. But that backfired, and it became arguably the most critically acclaimed album of that decade.

 

Having An Artistic Signature To Tie It Together

However, if there is one thing that Underworld and Radiohead have in common is that they have an artistic signature, whether they like it or not. With Underworld it’s the timbre of the sounds they chose, paired with Karl Hyde’s spoken word vocals. With Radiohead, it’s the production veneer and Thom Yorke’s distinct crooning. This keeps the fan grounded in familiarity, even when the styles change. 

 

We Live In A Different Era

Keep in mind that Underworld and Radiohead are from a different time though. They existed in a time when I believe labels were looking for artists that pushed the limits of their creativity. Nowadays, with algorithmic streaming, labels are often looking for consistency, because they have artists put into boxes that they can market to said demographic. If you’re going to take this route, you may have to self release, or do a lot of research in finding a label that still has this old ethos. 

Frank Zappa has this great interview where he laments that cool kids running labels ruined artistic expression. He says that in the ‘60s, the reason why so much amazing, forward-thinking music broke into the mainstream is because the label heads were just old businessmen who didn’t know anything about music. They were like, “what do I know? Put it out, see what happens.” Then some of those records had great success, so they hired young, long-haired hippies to come in to advise. Those hippies became smug and decided they knew what was best, because they had taste, and thus began the decline of forward-thinking music, because often, they had no idea, despite thinking that they did. 

This has progressively became worse, and now these label executives have developed formulas for what should be released and what shouldn’t. Luckily, we live in an era where self distirbution is possible, and with the right marketing, and luck, you really never know where your multigenre music can go.

 

Whatever Route You Chose, It Doesn’t Matter 

Whichever route you choose, there is no right and wrong. Releasing the same sort of song can be fulfilling from a commercial standpoint, but from an artistic standpoint, it can become dull. Chances are most musicians are not going to be touring with thousands of adoring fans, so it might behooth you to make whatever you want, rather than trying to placate a potential audience. But, if you have a sound and know how to market it, then by all means, refine it. God knows that’s what I did. But I also expanded into other genres too. So perhaps, somewhere in the middle is a solid approach

How To Have Fun Making Music

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Sometimes making music can be a chore. To people on the outside looking in, music seems like an enthralling, exciting, fun experience, but anyone who is a composer knows that making music takes focus, dedication, and frankly, at times, can be pretty boring, and stay boring. That’s why it’s important to know some techniques for how to have fun making music, just in case you fall into one of these creative ruts. What I’m about to share isn’t the definitive way for how to have fun making music, but rather things that I have done for a while that take the pressure off, and just allow me to be creatively expressive without all of the arduous parts. 

Having The Ideal Setup Does Not Guarantee Fun Or Even Ease

I have written about this to death, but it deserves to be mentioned again. So many creatives think that they need the perfect setup in order to have fun. They think they need that new module for their Eurorack, or that new audio interface, or the latest poly-synth, and then, and only then, will they have the ideal creative experience. This is just so, so untrue. Every new piece of gear you get has a learning curve. 

Unfortunately, the world of electronic music is not entirely standardized, so things won’t be immediately intuitive even if they are relatively similar to something you’ve already owned. Chances are that thing you already owned will allow for easier, more fun creative expression since you already know it. But, the cognitive fallacy that new equals good is just that, a fallacy. There is even a term for it in cognitive psychology – “appeal to novelty.” 

Therefore, if you really want to know how to have fun making music, use my first advice would be to use something familiar.

 

Work With Loops 

Go on Loopcloud and just start grabbing loops. The more complete the loop, the better. The goal here isn’t to make something super original, the goal here is to have a good time making music. Now drop those loops into session view in Ableton, and start triggering loops and see what happens. Maybe MIDI map some basic effects like delay, reverb, flanger, gate, pitch bend, and a filter. Then MIDI map the volume faders on the clip’s channels. Then start triggering loops! Fade the clips in and out, change the wet-dry on the effects, bend the pitch, and make the sound melt. Think of it kind of like DJing, but in a compositional sense.

Loopcloud Makes Everything Easy

Working with Loopcloud makes the process of choosing clips easier, as they have built-in search filters and algorithms that help identify contextually similar loops for you to play around with. All you have to do is click “find similar sounds” and Loopcloud can filter to you either harmonically or rhythmically similar sounds that will work well together. Then, with their native plugin, you can load the samples directly into the DAW without having to download the files, and sort them, allowing for seamless integration, and immediate use. 

Another great thing is that this quick sorting loop function teaches you how to have fun making music that’s not the same as what you’d normally make. Maybe you’re a minimal house DJ, but you have a penchant for disco house – yet not a lot of experience with it. Well, with loops, it’s easy to throw together something that sounds good without the time or practice it takes to create something from scratch. 

THis Isn’t About Art, It’s About Fun

Some people might take artistic integrity into question here, but we’re having fun, not creating our magnum opus. If you can’t get over that, think of it like DJing. When you’re DJing, you’re not only playing your music, your play other people’s music, just like other people made these loops. However, what you create will ultimately be more unique, and also royalty-free. 

You may even like it and use it later in a more serious composition, but for now, the goal is to figure out how to have fun making music.

 

How To Have Fun Making Music With An Artificial Crowd

An artificial crowd, you say, Pheek? Yes, an artificial crowd! In this day and age, we have access to a plethora of crowds that will dance no matter what we do! How, you ask? Simple, by putting on YouTube videos of dancing crowds, and jamming to them. They don’t care what you do, they’re going to have a good time anyways! So, load up your smart TV, your projector, or even an auxiliary computer screen, load up a long video of people gyrating to some 90’s acid house, put that shit on mute, and start jamming.

 

Just Start Jamming

Better yet, keep the audio playing on the video of the crowd dancing, load up your favorite gear, and start jamming over it, like you’re just an accompaniment instrument to the mix. If you’re really fancy, you can route the audio through Ableton using a virtual audio cable. You can add fills of effects, tap in drum patterns, play auxiliary basslines or leads, load in some samples from Loopcloud! Basically, whatever your imagination can conjure on the fly, do it! Just make sure you press record.

Then once you’ve recorded all of these, you’ll have a fresh sample bank of new ideas that you can incorporate into fresh productions. Now, all that fun time was actually spent being productive, rather than frivolously. You also got some solid practice in!

I’ve been doing this technique for 15 or so years, and it has lead to a plethora of new material and inspiration. 

 

Download A Ton Of Plugin Demos

This is a fun one. Basically, download the demos of a bunch of plugins that you would otherwise not use. Then grab a loop, or sound from somewhere, or make one quickly from scratch. Then load in the plugins, and start stacking them on top of each other and see what happens. Start flicking through presets on all of them, adjust knobs, and create massive, cacophonies of sound. Now filter those sounds, and see what happens. Maybe resample them, and then throw more plugins on top, while dropping the pitch. 

 

How My Follows Have Fun Making Music

lotech/hijack says, “Honestly I find exploring and experimenting makes it fun. Don’t approach it as a process. Just remember that you love music and the feelings you get as a listener. Then go at it with that mindset. Works for me (usually).”

a photo of a facebook post that describes how lotech/hijack has fun making music.

Camilo Jesus Ramirez says, “After years of making music I get the most of me when I don’t push myself to do it, I only do music when i feel to, sometimes I don’t touch a project in months and sometimes everyday non-stop, the fun comes when I feel in the mood”

a photo of a Facebook post saying how Camilo has fun making music. You can read the text in this article above.

Steve Moss laments, “Every time I buy new gear or a new synth I tell my wife: ok now I’m complete. My wife tells me: that’s what you say every time and you’re never complete! Hahaha.”

A Facebook post of how Steve learns how to have fun making music.

Pierre Deniel simply replies, “LSD.” I guess that’s one way too.

Steve knows how to have fun making music - it's with LSD, that psychonaught.

 

There Are Many Ways To Know How To Have Fun Making Music

There are many ways to have a fun, enthralling musical experience that doesn’t involve thinking too deeply, or seriously about the process. 

To reiterate, it all starts with having something that you don’t have to troubleshoot too much. It’s easy for the fun to be sucked out if you have to spend your time learning, or fixing something. Therefore, start on gear you’re familiar with.

The next step to having fun is to try something without expectation. Don’t be afraid of dabbling in new genres, especially with an amazing tool like Loopcloud which allows you to load in, find, and sort samples in a heartbeat. 

Don’t be afraid to try new plugins either, and do things that don’t make sense. At the end of the day, nobody really cares how you made something, as long as you make it.

The real magic here is that if you record it, you’ll be left with so much unique stuff that you can use in your future work. Never underestimate the usefulness of just having fun.