Tag Archive for: workflow and organization

Digital Hoarding and The Electronic Music Producers

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If there’s one thing I miss from making music in the ’90s, it is how my choices for making music were limited compared to now. What we saw as a limitation was an opportunity to be creative and get the most out of what you have. In the 80s, as kids, it was also the same thing: we would get some toys, but it was limited. Being forced to be creative with what you’d have was the perfect training to jump-start my electronic music exploration. I remember going to the music store, where there was a section in the back where they would sell synths, samplers, and effect units. The selection was pretty small, and if you wanted something special, such as a 909 or 808, you’d have to search because stores couldn’t get them at all.

Softwares were also limited in terms of selection and what they’d do. I remember getting some software, and we’d discuss our wishes and options. It was both frustrating and, in hindsight, liberating because the lack of options meant you’d be done quickly when you ran out of possibilities. In my latest album, I tried to get back to that state because after following numerous classes online, I realized that I was doing some digital hoarding and had to focus on the essentials to decide of a direction on how I would do things for my project.

Credit Gearspace.com

So, what would be digital hoarding?

 

Digital hoarding for electronic musicians tends to accumulate a vast collection of digital resources—such as plugins, samples, presets, and templates—without fully integrating or mastering them in one’s creative workflow. This behaviour often stems from the constant influx of new tools and content in the electronic music scene, leading to a cluttered digital library that can hinder efficiency and focus. Instead of exploring a few tools in depth, the musician has an overwhelming array of options, which may result in creative paralysis or a diluted artistic identity.

Some symptoms or actions that could indicate you’re tending to do hoarding would be:

  • Over-Accumulation Without Use: Continuously downloading or purchasing new plugins, sample packs, and presets, yet rarely revisiting or using many of them in actual projects.
  • Disorganized Digital Libraries: A cluttered folder system where files, presets, and samples are stored haphazardly, making it difficult to find what’s needed quickly.
  • Procrastination on Mastery: Spending more time exploring and acquiring new tools than mastering the ones already in your arsenal.
  • Analysis Paralysis: Overwhelmed by choices when working on a project, resulting in indecision about which tool to use or a tendency to switch between tools without fully committing.
  • Redundant Purchases: Repeatedly buying similar plugins or samples, often influenced by trends or free offers, without a clear plan for integration into your workflow.
  • Neglecting Cleanup: Rarely revisiting your collection to organize, delete unused items, or update your setup, leading to an ever-growing pile of digital clutter.

For hardware, the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) syndrome is often pointed out as a problem musicians have because it is apparent that hardware physically brings new material to the studio. It is less evident for software and digital tools because they are within your computer and so easy to lose/forget.

This doesn’t only refer to digital tools but also to skill hoarding. Some people spend hours watching tutorials or buying classes to learn how things are done but without putting what they just learned into practice.

Hoarding impact on one’s workflow

 

This leads to some pitfalls. Let’s discuss some. I will also propose ways to address the issue with practical tips.

Shallow Mastery vs. Deep Expertise

 

Mastery of a skill or a tool comes from hours of practice. Having too many options divides your time of practice between multiple tools. One thing in electronic music that can pose a problem is when a musician decides to do everything by themselves. This means they’ll be set to become a jack-of-all-trades. The DIY culture within electronic music has gone a long way since the early ’90s, but in today’s competitive market, aiming to do it all means you’re not maximizing your output’s quality. The positive side of having multiple tools means you’ll have the proper material to go through the various phases of song development. But you’ll still need to sit with the tools and learn them, before adding new ones to your toolkit.

Some essentials for each phase can be a game changer. If I had to start all over, I’d focus on the minimum tools per phase. This lets you organize yourself better.

The phases I teach to newcomers are:

  • Research, analysis, ideation and development: In this phase, you basically need a Splice account to fill up your moodboard with ideas to start with. Once you have some ideas, you can create a song mockup, reworking your imported samples with tools like Shaperbox alongside a few synths of your own. If you want a versatile synth that can answer pretty much all your needs, I’d go with Pigment. Honestly, that’s pretty much all you need.
  • Hook: This is where you trim the chaos and ideas from the previous phase and find your song’s hook. You don’t need anything here, but a powerful drum machine like XO can help structure an idea.
  • Structure: To see if your hook has potential, sketch a structure. This will reveal your idea’s strengths and flaws. A tool exists that will build up some basic structures for you. Song Sketch is a lovely tool to speed up the process.
  • Arrangements: This is all about how you use your DAW. The best DAW is the one that you know and have fun with. Some prefer Ableton Live, some Bitwig or FLStudio. They all have a different way of working.
  • Mixing: While there are countless tools needed for mixing, I would say that sticking to your DAW’s compression, EQ, and dynamics can do the trick. If you feel like you’re reaching the limits of one of them, perhaps expand to upgrade that specific tool with a third-party plugin.

I like to make buying decisions based on two things:

  • Can my stock plugins fix it? If not, what else can?
  • Am I using a tool that works but compromises on the quality?

 

If my tool is creative, I usually will ensure I finish a few projects before buying a new one.

 

Overwhelm and Decision Fatigue

 

This is a topic I have covered before, but decision fatigue is something tangible that can impact a person more than they imagined. I have been teaching newcomers lately, and one of their first comments about making music was about how tiring it was to work on music. Each time you have to make a decision regarding your song, a chunk of your mental energy dissolves. If you also need to think about how to solve a problem and have multiple options, this is another chunk that is taken away. If you have various tools for numerous issues, you’ll be draining yourself down faster, and what was supposed to serve as leverage will tank you down.

There are ways to solve this, though. One is to keep a notepad with :

  • Nature of the problem: Does this problem have a name, or can I formulate it in my own words?
  • Potential solution: Ex, for phasing issues, you might want to control the width of a sound.
  • Tools available: If it’s the width, perhaps learn the limits of how much you can widen a sound or rebalance your mono signal.
  • Link to use. Youtube or another tutorial.

Fine-tuning your workflow comes from decluttering tools and habits that slow you down. Keeping simple notes is a fast way to get your answers. The more you have tools, this can not only drain you but also make you lazy. Tools with tons of options are the combination of multiple existing tools but with an interface that makes it easier for you to use. For example, a compressor could be replaced by an Envelope follower and a utility unit, but the compression has a few more options. Having less forces you to understand the nature of the problem and the tools you have to work around it.

 

Clutter and Inefficiency in Workflow

 

As mentioned previously, a workflow works best with a minimum of tools. The more you add to it, the slower you get because you have more parameters to handle. This is an issue someone with much experience, like myself, faces when starting to work on a new song because I already see the long list of all the things to take care of. One thing about being a helpful beginner is that by knowing less, you work with what you know alone. It might be less perfect, but at least it progresses quickly. Collecting tons of samples and libraries is also something that slows you down, mainly because there are not so many tools that will help you organize everything properly. Even some DAWs will let you face chaos if you’re not organized. Ableton has recently added tags in version 12, which can help you categorize your samples and tools. However, if you do it halfway, you’ll quickly lose control over your digital environment.

Just like plugins, whenever I buy new samples, I ensure I use them on a specific project before adding new ones. Some people stick to presets, which can get messy if you collect many of them. In Ableton, I haven’t found the best way to organize all my macros properly, which sometimes forces me to redo a patch that I did previously.

 

Financial Drain and Resource Misallocation

 

Constantly chasing the latest plugins or sample packs can quickly add up financially, diverting funds from investing in quality tools or learning resources. The temptation to acquire “free” tools often leads to a glut of subpar options that may not integrate well with a streamlined setup. There was a time when the number of plugins coming in was limited, but nowadays, multiple ones have been added. A site like KVRaudio is quite handy for following up on what is coming in, and they recently added a plugin manager to keep track of your installed plugins. Plugin Boutique has also been quite helpful if you have to reinstall all your tools because it is a portal to all the plugins you bought. Both have user reviews that come as applicable when you want to know how to invest correctly.

But if you are obsessed with the latest options and buy anything fancy that gets released, knowing which plugins are helpful for your workflow will be challenging. Considering how much money one gets from their investment, it is worth buying carefully. Using trials is undoubtedly something to consider.

 

Stunted Creativity Through Overexposure

 

The barrage of new sounds and tools might lead to analysis paralysis, where too much inspiration prevents a focused creative direction. I see this with people who have difficulty finding their own sound signature or identity as a musician. Instead of nurturing a unique style, producers might mimic trends or switch approaches too frequently. This means that if you don’t know how one tool works, you’ll be using the first few presets instead without going deeper into the options your tool is providing you. With an overabundance of content, listeners might find it hard to develop a personal taste or to follow an artist’s evolution, as the constant turnover of music can blur the lines of musical identity and innovation.

Each time you add a layer of tools to your kit, you are also potentially distancing yourself from your natural self-expression. One might have a challenge of not sounding like others or professional, but there are always simple ways to get there. If you always rely on audio cosmetics, you will be limited to the outcome of the tool’s options.

When I teach newcomers, I insist they work with the minimum possible. This limitation might be frustrating at first, but if you’re curious, it pays off quickly.

 

Reduced Value of Curated Experiences

The art of crafting a coherent track or album can be compromised when the production process is scattered across too many tools and ideas. Well-developed sounds tend to create a more cohesive and impactful musical narrative than a collection of half-explored ideas. If you go back to the 90s when the acid house or early techno had similar aesthetics, you may understand this was not a choice but because of the limitation of tools. Not having all the necessary tools might be a good thing for you. Perhaps organizing your ideas in batches of material where you can plan your next round of song exploration based on what you just acquired can direct how you want to use them.

 

 

Digital Hoarding can happen even if you don’t realize it. You are officially hoarding if you find yourself overwhelmed and disorganized and gathering more tools than songs being produced. The more you are conscious of this, the more organization you’ll have for your next studio session.

 

Guide To Templates

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I’ve recently finished an album. The tracklist has 19 tracks, which means I had about 40 songs and discarded half of them. For some, this feels like much, but when I work on an album, there’s a point where the more I make songs, the more new potential ideas emerge. This motion feels like a force where all falls in place with ease, and the efforts become less intense.

But there’s a secret weapon that makes it all easier and fun. Well, a few tricks come together when I work on multiple tracks at once because, speeding through the ideas, I have to save macros that fix an issue; the same goes for presets and eventually, I create templates where I can pick up tools.

I thought I’d write a post about templates. People overlook this tool and don’t see the point of exploring it. It deserves some attention because it could bring you speed and efficiency.

 

Productivity, Speed and Organization in Creation

 

I’m not sure where I read this, but this person said something like:

 

“I don’t believe in efficiency while creating because it is normal to be messy, lost. and chaotic; it is the core of troubleshooting, which is what creativity is about.”

 

While I understand and relate to it, I also see the benefits of having some tricks when working on more significant projects, whether mine or a client’s. There are things in art where your intuition will guide you to make decisions, and that will get you to take steps towards zones that aren’t controllable. However, regarding electronic music, we have multiple steps towards the end of the projects, and some are purely technical. Frequently, I get clients who come to me because they’re on the verge of giving up. Once you go through the multiple layers of everything to be handled, you get to overhear your music and, perhaps, start changing things that were working in the first place. This is why if you can use some tricks, tools and organization, you’ll cut out some time from the wrapping part.

That said, you can have the best of both worlds: You want to remain intuitive and explorative, but you want to achieve results rapidly when it is time to conclude.

Being organized solves multiple issues, such as:

  • Time saving. One challenge electronic musicians face is digital hoarding, which means they constantly get free or bought plugins, tools, and macros more than they use them. This results in having more options than one can easily integrate into a solid workflow. Organizing this will give you quick decision-making.
  • Better understanding of technical needs. Having templates helps you separate your workflow into modules, where you will already know what tasks to do next.
  • More energy. A challenge that new electronic musicians face is mental exhaustion from exploring music. This is partly due to decision fatigue. The more you have to make decisions, the more you’ll feel exhausted quickly.
  • Effective validation process. When you have a process that is also a checklist of all the elements you need to decide if your song is done, you will rely less on others to know if you’re finished.

 

Regarding templates, if I look at what I do, I have multiple templates categorized according to the tasks and needs. There are also various ways to use them, which I will cover. Let’s go through the categories and how they can be done and review the tools I use regularly.

 

One Template Per Need

 

The point of making a template is to turn something that worked into a tool you can reuse. If you think of any tool you have, such as a stove, hammer, drill, or MIDI controller, they are all the results of people having to solve an issue they wanted to address and turn it into something that can be used repeatedly. Using someone else’s template could be a shortcut for your workflow but it’s essential to keep in mind that it was made from someone else’s trial and failures. I believe it’s essential that you develop your templates so you can learn and tweak tools to your needs. Other people’s needs will never be precisely adapted to what you do.

I want to share some template ideas and tips for turning your work into future shortcuts. My work approach involves multiple phases, so I have made my templates based on that to avoid having to redo the same repetitive tasks.

 

Default Template

The Default template in Ableton is where your day starts. It’s helpful to have a few things ready, so you don’t have to prepare your environment each time you open your DAW. There are a few things I want to set up my Master/Main channel, the default audio and midi channels, and organize your sidebar properly to avoid searching.

 

Master/Main Channel:

  • EQ: Handling garbage low frequencies means you want to have a high pass at 20Hz. You can leave it with a smooth curve, but if you do this, you’re already solving many issues beginners have with their mixes. I would suggest not doing many changes and keeping it flat but if you have tendencies to compensate for your listening environment, you could do a default EQ to fix that problem. Compensating implies that your listening environment might be badly treated with acoustic padding, making you push or cut frequencies that don’t need changes. People who don’t have a sub in their studio tend to push the lows too much or completely miss it.
  • Utility: This simple stock plugin is probably the most useful of all your plugins. Having one on the main channel lets you sum your low end to mono, which fixes most phasing issues and solidifies the mess that stereo low end can create. Some songs have a stereo low end, but this is not something I would encourage newcomers to explore. The width is also a good way to balance your mono versus stereo ratio. Then, the gain allows you to compensate for too much or too little volume coming in.
  • Limiter: When we make music, we might lose track of the main channel, and the signal might overflow. The limiter is your friend to control that. It’s that policing tool that can also scrap a mix if you leave it as is when exporting.
  • Metering: While experienced musicians tell others to use their ears to know what’s wrong, I still rely on visual representation of what I do to validate what’s happening quickly. Working on a mix for a while, you will lose sense of flatness in the frequency distribution. You can look at a visualizer to see what’s happening.

 

While stock plugins will do for a while, you can get some third-party plugins, some for free.

The King of Metering is free and offered by Voxengo as SPAN. It covers everything you need to understand what’s happening. Make sure to configure it properly using Dan’s tutorial. I also love T-Rack Meter. It is visually appealing and has a waterfall/spectrogram analyzer. You can also use this one for free if you want to add it.

For Utility, you can also look into other plugins, such as Track control by DMG and Melda’s own MUtility. Both are free.

For Limiters, the one in Ableton got a lovely upgrade with v12 and is now very powerful. You can achieve solid results with it. If you’re looking for something with a bit more bells and whistles, you could check Smart Limit, which is not too expensive, versatile and easy to use.

 

Send/Returns

I’m always baffled by how people don’t use return channels that much, but they’re efficient in many ways. One of those is global effects, which means you can route multiple channels towards them and have a more coherent result. It also saves CPU. I believe the default ones in Ableton are a reverb and a delay. Those 2 effects are common in electronic music production and other genres, so it makes sense. The stock plugins usually do the trick; you don’t need much more. But there are an extra 2 return channels I would encourage you to add:

  • Stereo/Sides: You may add a utility plugin sent to be in Sides Mode only on this channel. I’d pair that with the EQ and set it in Mid/Side mode.
  • Mono sum: This would be the opposite of the previous one. This means you put a utility plugin in mono mode.

 

Why do this?

Some sounds might need to be sent towards the stereo return to increase presence in that zone. You can also add “side” effects, where the effects will only affect the side part of the channels routed there. The mono channel is in the same logic, but this one is focused on the mono signal. Many clients focus on getting width for their music and forget the importance of the mono signal, which is critical to impact multiple contexts (e.g. phone, car sound system, headphones, etc.). If you use premade loops, there may be some imbalance between the stereo and mono. Using sends is a fun way to control that because once you have multiple channels routed there, you can adjust the entire track simultaneously.

 

Default Audio

Some plugins can be added automatically each time you open an audio channel. This saves some time, but if you add many, it will hog your CPU drastically. In theory, you don’t need much but if you think of general needs to its bare minimum, I would recommend adding the Channel EQ as well a Utility. These will let you control the tone of your signal and its input gain and stereo adjustment. If your CPU can handle a bit more, I would also suggest a few:

  • ConsoleX8056: This suite is badass. It’s an analog emulation suite with a console emulation, vintage EQ and compressor, and a coloured gain staging utility. When mixing, I’ve been ditching my pricy Universal Audio VSTs for these. Using the console on all your channels will bring some non-linearity to your mix, blurring the lines of a digital signal. The Gain unit is not transparent; you’ll get some crunch if you push it.
  • Envelope Follower: This is undoubtedly my favourite tool in Ableton. It will read the amplitude envelope of your incoming signal, allowing you to control the channel’s parameters or any other channel, which opens the door for creative sidechaining.
  • EQ8: The advanced EQ in Ableton with more filters than the channel EQ.
  • Compressor: If you want to control the density of your incoming signal.
  • Channel strip: If you want to turn your channels into an analog console with a similar look and feel, these aren’t available in Ableton. My favourite option is to turn to Brainworx with their numerous emulation of legendary consoles. I have a preference for the Neve (AMEK)‘s sound, and therefore, the 9099 is my default option.

 

Pheek's Default Audio chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Default MIDI

This one comes with a few options that I would recommend.

  • Scale: You want your midi signal to have the option to follow the global key/scale of the project, so scale allows you to handle that easily.
  • Expression Control: This tool intercepts the signal’s characteristics (Velocity, aftertouch, slide, etc.) and can map them to the parameters of the synth in the channel or something else in the project.
  • Velocity: Useful for tweaking the velocity to taste, including randomization and midi compression.
  • Note Lenght: Allowing you to tweak the length of your incoming notes
  • MFA S&H Pro: Reading the incoming notes will generate random information, which helps modify your instrument in the channel. This pro version of a simple S&H is very powerful in the numerous options to control the random signal.
  • Chance Engine: This allows you to add probability to the notes with the option to modify the notes. It’s convenient when you want to deconstruct a repetitive melody.

 

Pheek's Default Midi chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sidebar

Organizing your sidebar will speed up your searches. You can use the colours to tag anything and have quick access. Mine has been a bit of a mess until I discovered a new feature on Ableton v12. You can now add custom folders on your sidebar with any content you have, but it will be essential to tag your plugins properly. To add a custom folder, you need to search and then click on the “+” to add that search as a dynamic folder. If you made a side folder for compressors, the folder will be automatically updated each time you add a new compressor to your library.

 

R&D Template

 

I have a template dedicated to research and development (ideas, theories, concepts, tutorial exploration, etc.). This template aims to have quick tools to test whatever is on my mind. The way my mind works is perhaps similar to other people’s. I often have an idea of a sound based on something I heard in a song playing (maybe I’m driving or walking and not in my studio), and then I reverse-engineer what it could be. Being on the Mac ecosystem, I either use Notes or Voice Memos to write down what I have in mind and then I will try ideas in the studio later on.

Here are some ideas for an Ableton template dedicated to research and development. You could start with the default template and then build this one since some needs overlap.

Signal Analysis & Visualization

 

The first channel would be for sound inspection, and the second for testing. Therefore, these analysis tools are needed for both channels.

Visual feedback is key since the goal is to deconstruct and understand sounds.

  • Spectrogram & Frequency Analyzer → To see how harmonics evolve, check the previous link to the free Spectrogram and SPAN. I also love Fabfilter ProQ4, which has a beautiful Frequency Analyzer. One thing I like about this EQ is the matching EQ option, which will be useful for understanding the frequency shape.
  • Oscilloscope → To analyze waveform shapes. I love using the one in Shaperbox because it can pair with some signal modification tools. Otherwise, Melda has a free tool that can be helpful.
  • Envelope Follower → To extract dynamics from a reference sound and apply them elsewhere. I’d use the one in Ableton.
  • Peak & RMS Meter → To monitor amplitude behaviour. SPAN can convert this.

I would drop Shaperbox on both channels to modify and analyze. That alone will be very useful.

 

Sound Deconstruction Track

The third track will be about making tests from a song.

  • Reference Track → Load in the sound you want to analyze.
  • Sampler & EQ Matching Track → Use an EQ Match or Sampler to isolate key frequencies.
  • Transient Isolation Track → Use gates or transient designers to extract attack portions. While you can do a fair job with Ableton’s gate plugin, my favourite gate comes from Oxford Drum Gate.
  • Sustain Analysis Track → Loop specific sections to analyze their behavior.

 

Reverse-Engineering Tools

 

This channel will explore some sounds from your reference or sound to analyze. This one is optional and not necessarily one to use de facto. Instead, you could prepare this as a series of macros you import when needed.

  • Granular Sampler Rack → A Simpler/Sampler preset pre-loaded for quick granulation. The Granulator III is pretty impressive for exploring.
  • Resonator Bank → A rack with multiple resonators (Corpus, Collision, EQ) to extract tonal characteristics. Again, you can see notes from what you hear using Pro-Q4 paired with a stereoscope.
  • Modulation Extractor → A chain with an LFO, Envelope Follower, and Sidechain Compressor to mimic movement in the reference sound.

 

Synthesis & Rebuilding Section

 

This channel is also optional but comes in handy.

  • Oscillator Matching → A synth (like Operator or Wavetable) to manually match the tonal structure.
  • Noise & Texture Layering → A track that adds noise, static, or other micro-details. Melda has a noise generator that is free and very useful.
  • Dynamic Modulation Rack → LFO + Envelope tools to reconstruct movement.
  • Harmonic Enhancer → Using Saturators, Waveshapers, or FM techniques to match reference overtones.

 

 

Possible Enhancements

  • Randomization Macros → To introduce variations while testing.
  • MIDI Note Extractor → A MIDI effect chain that converts audio to MIDI for better tonal deconstruction.
  • Spectral Freezer → A track that can “freeze” spectral snapshots for close inspection.

 

Song Structure Template

 

These templates are from a different mindset, and they’ve been explored in my blog numerous times, but it comes down to deconstructing a song you love for its arrangements. This implies dragging the song in Ableton’s arranger side, matching the tempo to the project, and then looking at the waveform.

  1. Listen to the song and pay attention to all the sounds.
  2. Add a MIDI channel per sound that you can hear. For example, one channel named Kick, one bass, clap, synth, etc. These ghost midi channels don’t have any instruments loaded and are there as references alone.
  3. Once you have listened to the song and noted all sounds with a MIDI channel, you listen again and add MIDI clips to the timeline when you hear the sound coming in.
  4. By the end, you should have the song’s structure in MIDI clips, indicating the order of all sound appearances.
  5. You can go beyond by putting midi notes in the clips to see when the sounds appear precisely.
  6. Group the reference with the midi channels, then drag and drop it in your sidebar within a folder for your structures.

 

 

This can be saved as a template for later use. Once you have a solid loop and want to turn it into a song, you could import a structure you previously made and know works. This can validate a structure and the number of sounds you need to complete a song. Some people can never pinpoint whether they have enough or too many sounds.

Mixing Template

 

While I offer a mixing template here for you to check, I can explain how to create one.

The logic of a mixing template is to rely on groups you can import into an ongoing project. Then, you can drag your project channels into the imported group. I would do a group per family of sounds:

  • Kick (on its own): I’ve been enjoying Cableguys’ new tool for percussion. Pair it with Shaperbox, and you will have your compression, transient shaper, and overall volume adjustment tools all in one.
  • Low End: Bass or whatever bleeds under 100hz. An EQ like Pro-Q4 or TrackSpacer will do for clean ducking, but you could also use a simple stock EQ from your DAW.
  • Percussion: Percussion potentially needs a bunch of tools, but Neutron will cover that for you. Tools that are useful here are an EQ, Gate, Transient shaper, Compression for glueing and some saturation.
  • Melodic elements: This one is tricky because it could combine synth stabs and more extended notes like pads. Some compression can help glue them together gently, and I love using a leveller for that. The LA-3A is perfect for that. EQing and stereo control are going to be essential. Please don’t overdo it with the width enhancements.
  • Background: This is low in presence. Compression and EQing, as well as the track spacer, are useful here once more for clean results.
  • Vocals: This is a tricky one, but I would say the LA-3A is going to be your best friend and a vocal rider like Melda. Pair this with your favourite reverb, delay, and chorus for cosmetics.

 

I hope these were useful!

 

 

Learning, Growing, Pruning

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Yes, I know, this blog has been silent for too long. I was half burnt out of ideas, to the point of not wanting to do it anymore. In a way, that was a helpful feeling because I focused on learning instead.

Sarah Belle Reid

From having Sarah Bell Reid as a mentor, Omri Cohen‘s community and wisdom for inspiration and research. Plus, there are a bunch of random courses here and there. I think I learned more that year than in the previous ones combined, where I did some studying. I feel fortunate to have access to this. When I started making music in the 90s, there was no YouTube, so watching your friend’s work was the best way to learn. Montreal had a solid community then to help one another.

Reflecting on the past year (2024), I realized I love teaching and talking with people. But I also love learning (my 15-year-old self would never believe it). When you learn, you see what triggers passion and curiosity. These emotions drive me to learn, probably because I’m passionate.

I realized that so many people invest large amounts of money into gear or software without allowing any time or investment into being taught how to use all of that correctly. I have to say I’m partly guilty of that, but now I have caught up with my investment with enough classes for multiple years ahead.

One of the most effective ways (for myself) to truly learn music is not through isolated tutorials or hours of theory but by observing someone experienced in action. Watching an experienced musician navigate creative choices in real time, asking questions at pivotal moments, and understanding why a choice was made—that’s where the most profound lessons are. It helps understand each context where one technique might be used to achieve a specific result.

 

Many online courses fail because they’re out of context: with who you are, what you want to have, and what you want to achieve. Most electronic music producers don’t read manuals as they prefer to explore to learn. So courses often fail in the same fashion: linear learning isn’t for everyone.

 

Music education thrives on interaction, dialogue, and having the space to experiment without fear of making mistakes. Learning with a community is a way of getting accountability and will help acknowledge the progress of an artist. In 2016, I started offering free coaching and created a group on Facebook. It worked for several years, but eventually, it got tired. The objective of the group was to provide technical feedback on songs. I saw many people who initially joined grow into creative artists.

 

This is also why the artist retreats have been so precious. Online feedback is one thing, but things make more sense in person. We meet as friends, listen to one another’s music, share feedback, eat together, and discuss.  The weekend becomes an exploration of learning, validation and belonging. One of my favourite ways to see this is by inviting everyone to perform a song live (5 minutes more or less). Everyone says the same thing each time we do it:

 

“Why aren’t we doing this in our living room already?”

 

My most significant learning of 2024 was how the sum of all the teaching came down to the essentials of how I work. There’s not much I can learn if I don’t experiment and revise what I just acquired. Sarah started her course by explaining how circular learning is the key to progression. While I’ve been doing it all my life, it became clear that I have structured it by pruning what I learn, practice and eventually integrate.

Circular Learning: Cycles of “How Do I..?”

 

Learning (electronic) music isn’t a linear journey. It doesn’t follow a straight path from A to B. Instead, it moves in cycles—rounds or sprints of creativity. Sometimes, your learnings spring you forward, or your lack of time drags you down, but your music will never let you down. However, having people for whom you can play in person is essential. During retreats, we all agreed that we prefer five to ten people listening deeply rather than five likes/listens on a streaming site.

It’s different than learning how to play an instrument. It is multi-dimensional because it covers synthesis, arrangements, sampling, computer understanding, logic, mixing, etc.

This is where many musicians fail to learn online: a generalized lack of how-to structure themselves to get to where they want to be.

 

The typical scenario I see is someone with the time and budget to invest in music making and starts with strong motivation. As they explore, they’ll constantly hit walls and obstacles, making them realize they lack knowledge on various topics. If their workflow isn’t well defined and there’s a lack of self-organization, it can quickly bring them to the edge of giving up. As a musician, I keep getting exposed to many ads on so-called “solutions” or shortcuts, but I know they won’t solve my issues because I have experience. This is why I want to share some of my circular learning.

 

What is Circular Learning?

 

Circular learning means that instead of gathering all the information you need to progress, you’ll explore until you wonder how to achieve something and then get the information you need to move forward. As you see, you’ll be exploring, and then you’ll run into a “how do I..?” question, which will then bring you to the next step of Research. The results are usually either a solution or technique you can then test. This will open up new possibilities for you to explore.

 

I find that what’s critical is to complete your full circle, as this is a cycle that will bring you learning.

A cycle starts when you ask yourself, “How do I…?”

 

Examples: How do I make my vocal pop in the mix? How do I recreate this sound from scratch? How does this song hypnotize a crowd when played?

Maybe I’m hearing you think aloud: That’s what I’m doing already.

But how much is it working for you? If it does, then great. Now, you perhaps have the words to explain it better.

If it’s not working, maybe a phase of that circle isn’t handled correctly. Signs of success mean that you constantly add new skills and have fewer and fewer hurdles when creating. Something is incorrect if you learn new things but keep having issues before a challenge.

Cycles and their uses

 

Each cycle begins with finding a concept—an idea that sparks curiosity.

Then comes the proof of workability, where the idea is tested, put into a template or macro, and explored by jamming. If you constantly rely on tools and macros others build, you’re skipping essential steps in developing yourself.

Understanding how your concept works forces you to learn music production techniques, perhaps new tools you ignored and possibly learn more about sound itself. But sometimes, putting an idea in a technical environment doesn’t mean it works immediately.

There’s a phase of fixing and refining—adjusting elements until they feel similar to your reference. Once the template feels solid, it’s time to record ideas. This could mean capturing an improvisation, layering sounds, or finalizing an arrangement. You then have the heart and soul of a song to finalize the arrangements.

 

I often tell people that each of my songs results from a new technique I used and learned, providing a fun result. Sometimes, an album is a collection of multiple songs using the same method, making all the songs feel coherent.

 

 

But the process doesn’t stop there. The magic happens when the cycle begins again, not from scratch, but from the momentum of the previous session. Ideas mutate, evolve, and branch out into unexpected territories. Your last project is the seed of the following one. This also helps you keep presets, tools and materials you know work well. Consolidating knowledge and technique is done by repeating over and over something until it becomes very easy.

When you learn something, you need to practice it until it’s fully integrated.

 

This cyclical process mirrors how art develops in the real world—it’s iterative, messy, and deeply human. Artists look at other artist’s works, try to understand it, then come up with theories and tests. It might be a copy at first, but you’ll be elsewhere as you start practicing to perfect it.

Having references you can study will bring many questions and start new cycles. The more unique and inspiring your references are, the deeper you’ll be in your learning process.

 

Why Education Matters Now More Than Ever

 

I could go on about how learning electronic music is essential, but I’ll share some thoughts that may support my claim.

 

Market Saturation.

A few people have told me how lost they are when finding music they like. DJs feel overwhelmed by how many new tracks come up. Since music is becoming easier to make and can also be distributed without hassle, this causes a mass of music that becomes more difficult for the listener to find what they like. They might discover multiple pale copies of the music they want instead. Still, the lack of originality comes from artists who rely on shortcuts, templates, pre-made macros or any solution to speed up their workflow without an integration where they can innovate the sound itself.

The success of a song often relies on understanding what works but adding a new twist to it. The more you know what you want to do, the more control you have over your output, which means your musical vocabulary expands.

Higher quality and control will allow you to distinguish yourself and your art.

 

AI Music.

This type of music-making is entirely different from the music we make. An algorithm processes a prompt and turns it into a song. While it gives the impression that it makes music for you, your output is still limited as you don’t fully control the render. There’s room for that type of music, especially for making generic music or coming up with ideas you can revisit later on. Still, AI music skips one of the most essential parts of music-making: the long process of composition.

Making music is often more interesting than the outcome, but many people only focus on that part because it is the end of the journey. I like to compare it to travelling. Your travels aren’t the pictures you took of them, but the entire story from when you leave your home to when you’re back. All the good moments and the parts where you had to change plans are part of the journey. It’s pretty much the same thing with music-making.

If AI music expands your vocabulary or eventually replaces a lot of musicians, it will never take away the pleasure of making a song or jamming in your studio. But with education, you can make those experiences even richer.

 

Personal Understanding.

Understanding something you love doing opens the door to a community and feeds a need for belonging. As musicians often seek validation and appreciation, relying on their music to achieve this, they frequently don’t realize that they’re trying to respond to a need to be part of a community. Making a song can be a lovely business card to get into a community, but being able to share ideas, explain how to achieve them or help others achieve their goals is a need they don’t know they have. This is what education can achieve for artists because it teaches them new skills and one way to learn is to explain it to someone else.

 

Reverse Engineering Into a Concept.

The final point I want to share is how understanding allows you to hear other people’s music and be able to pull a concept out of it. Conceptual music implies that you’re not necessarily chasing or digging for a hook; instead, you’ll make music based on certain conditions. Imposing yourself limitations is a way to create focus on what matters.

 

I hope this has inspired you to dig for information and insights.

 

 

 

 

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

Basquiat Work Ethics

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Coming from a period when few people made electronic music before its art was democratized, meeting people who were making music was difficult as not many people had the opportunity to produce it. You’d meet someone who would produce music, and it felt like you’d have a lot to talk about because they might have similar gear or setup, so you’d hope to be able to share insights.

Nowadays, we have been experiencing an opening of opportunities where software makes it easier to produce music. With AI, people can skip the creation process and have music custom-tailored to their imagination. I see a feeling of jadedness about the new generation among older producers.

As a friend and fellow musician said:

Making music doesn’t make you special anymore. Everyone can do it.

 

In parallel, students asked me how they could elevate their craft above that of the average hobbyist. To answer this, I looked into the case of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

 

Basquiat, An Urban Artist

 

Basquiat was known for his prolific output and unique artistic style, combining street art, graffiti, and fine art elements. Despite his short life, Basquiat created a vast body of work that continues to influence contemporary art.

One aspect of Basquiat’s work ethic was his relentless dedication to his craft. He was known to spend countless hours in his studio, often working late into the night or early morning. A deep passion for expression and creativity drove this commitment to his art.

Basquiat’s work ethic also reflected his intense focus and determination. He urgently approached each piece, channelling his energy into spontaneous and expressive brushstrokes. This intensity allowed him to capture raw emotions and ideas on canvas, resulting in visually striking and intellectually stimulating artworks.

 

While prolific, he made a name for himself that we still relate to nowadays. If you analyze his work, you will see that he used multiple ways to make a name for himself that can be applied to music-making.

Let’s look into the points that made him rise to the status he built.

 

Source Material

 

In the video, the narrator talks about how Basquiat found a book that served as an inspiration base. Basquiat uses a collection of icons, logos, and images on a specific page in many of his artworks. It was his vocabulary, and it became his motor as well. If his pieces were set around a theme, you’d see these same icons being omnipresent. This is a way of always having a collection of repetitive ideas that, in a way, established his brand.

 

The way I teach music is not too far from that approach. I encourage any artist I work with to build a set of references and allocate a lot of time to finding samples that ignite excitement. Services like Splice offer vast items, such as samples, AI sketch generators, plugins and other tools. Compared to jazz, electronic music has too many sounds to pick up, and it’s easy to get lost in which sound one should pick to make a new song.

Your source material could be divided into 2 main categories:

  • Place holders. These are sounds you use by default in all your initial ideas. Back then, people would only have money to buy a 909 or a 303, which was the sound they would use de facto. As we now have access to everything, it is helpful to have a template go to sounds you use as a starting point, and then you can swap later on.
  • Identity. These are more about representing you. Some artists have identity sounds that you can immediately recognize in the first minute of listening to their song. These can be a selection of sounds, presets, or specific effects.

 

Very often, people buy hardware or soft synths randomly. It’s quite handy to use a demo to test it. But if you use some samples, they are often tagged with the synth’s name used to create them. It can also be reverse-engineered.

If you feel like samples aren’t you, remember that everything has been sampled somehow. Having quality samples trains your ears on what quality is. This is crucial for sound design learning.

If you read this blog, these concepts have been covered many times.

 

Steal Like An Artist

 

There’s one point in the video where Basquiat explains where some quotes he wrote come from, which are from some books or movies. Some images, are inspired by artworks he saw. He didn’t copy them, he stole them from a context and brought them into his world.

(Art) comes down to tastes. You basically want to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things to what you’re doing.

Steve Jobs

This is true for many things. To cook great-tasting food, you need to eat exceptional food. The same is true for sounds. I often feel more comfortable with the idea that I’m a curator than a musician. My music is a collection of ideas I love from random sources.

Your inspiration comes from your references. Nothing one has done that wasn’t inspired by someone else’s work. The fact that you do a genre comes from hearing that genre in a context that inspired you. So, you might as well start a collection of inspiring songs. It can be for one sound, one reverb, the way the transitions are done, or chord progression. If there’s one thing in a song you like, put it in your reference folder.

Then, you analyze your references. Take tons of notes, and try to imitate. Ask friends how something is done. Search Splice for similar-sounding sounds.

 

All these experiments build your imagination, which leads to core ideas to keep. It can take 50 ideas to find one exceptionally satisfying. Try to make many of them and blatantly get inspiration from everywhere.

Hip-hop artists are more comfortable taking ideas as they always sample other people. I have to say I’ve been seeing many clients remix pop music in the last year, so the bootleg aspect is becoming an option. However, remember to respect the work of anyone you directly sample.

 

Have A Message

 

One of the messages Basquiat had that motivated him was that there weren’t enough black artists in the art world. He wanted to change that and involve himself, making it the center of his work. The strength of having a message is its appeal for the media to look into what you have to say, and it rallies followers who resonate with it.

 

Punk music has its anarchist message, and hip hop has a gang-related message for some artists, while for others, it’s about the struggle of people in the current world. House music has also had a history of representing a safe space for queer people to dance to. Whatever genre you embrace, there’s a history of its upbringing, and sometimes people forget the political roots of it. While knowing the backstory is not an obligation, you can also piggyback a genre to bring your story and values.

 

Having a message and a vision will help bring a sense to your music, and in times when you might hit a wall with inspiration, your message will drive more inspiration.

 

Speed

 

If you read this blog or work with me, you know that speed is one element I believe in. Ideas come and go, sometimes very quickly and don’t always remain. Having the speed to bring your ideas together will help you catch ideas on the fly, perhaps so that you can finish them later but, most importantly, to see if they make sense. It’s one thing to have an idea; it’s an idea to make it work properly.

 

With Basquiat, he was working fast. Blazing fast. In the video, they share that his meeting with Warhol stimulated a lot of creativity and that at one point, JM did a self-portrait of them in a fast moment and then brought it back to Andy, who was amazed by how fast he was. One of the reasons why artists are slow nowadays comes from poor organization and lack of methodology. The more you are organized in managing your time and art, the faster you become. Music production is a series of phases, and if you sit down to make music and want to do it all at once, you’ll be hit by decision fatigue.

 

The second obstacle is ego. That part of yourself always has the impression it has something to prove, to control and to be something you are not. That leads to procrastination and distraction. My view of music making is fueled by fun in all parts. When fun is present, you are in the flow.

 

Flow is key to success.

Study, Memorize, Internalize

 

The last part of the video is where I saw the strongest parallel with what, as an artist, I do. In my free time, I listen to all kinds of music, radio, and movies and study many tutorials on YouTube. I think I watch about 10 per day. I take a lot of notes from those, and then when in front of my computer, I will test new findings or revisit techniques I was doing to give it a new twist. For each song, I started with a technique exploration, and I developed new ideas by practicing.

 

Saving macros has become something that I just now do always. I will map some parameters to the knobs of the macro and then have fun creating presets by randomizing or just tweaking with a controller.

Doing these sketches touches everything above:

  • Increases speed.
  • I have more control over my vocabulary, coming closer to my message.
  • Ease integration of ideas that I “steal” or get inspired from.

 

Turning Efficiency Into Art With Ableton Templates

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DOWNLOAD MY ABLETON TEMPLATES:

Production template here

Mixing template here.

Every musician, regardless of their experience level, has felt the excitement of sudden inspiration. It’s an ethereal sensation, demanding immediate translation into audible reality. Yet, how often do we find ourselves navigating from scratch through our Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), struggling to set up the basics when all we want to do is create?

Here, the power of templates in DAWs like Ableton Live becomes apparent.

If you haven’t started using templates, I would like to encourage you to do adopt them into your routine. At first, this might be difficult to master, but with some practice, this routine will pay off.

 

So, what’s a template (if you aren’t familiar)?

It is a project with or without material, that can be used as a starting point. Instead of starting with a new project, which would be 0% in a scale of work out of 100%, a template would be more like 10% or even 40% towards the completed piece of music. This may be confusing because 40% done usually means having a lot of material in a project. However, when everything is organized properly, you are way farther ahead than you imagine.

Creating an Ableton template

To create a template, all you have to do is open a project, go to the File Menu, and select “Save As Template.”

This will allow you to have your finished project as a starting point to start new projects, vastly speeding up the process and giving you a consistent sound.

Two ways to organize an Ableton template:

Two ways I usually organize a template is to either create a project where I organize in advance everything I need like channels with plugins and settings already set to what I usually do, macros, return channels, and master bus ready. Once this is all prepared, I save it as a template.

The other way is to take a successful project, remove all clips, audio, and automation, and then save it as a template.

However, this isn’t an exact science. It’s also fun to save projects with automations and or other weird settings and save it as a template, as inspired by Matthew Herbert Manifesto.

Starting Fresh vs. Jump-Starting with Ableton Templates

 

There are pros and cons when staring fresh vs jump starting a project with template.

Many musicians will start fresh every time, perhaps because they don’t know about the idea of using templates or perhaps because they just know that way. Starting fresh offers valuable practice, fostering familiarity with their DAW tools, and enabling a tailored approach to every project. However, there’s a flip side: it’s time-consuming.

Imagine being a painter and having to craft your brush every time you felt the urge to paint. While understanding your tools is essential, it’s equally crucial to be ready when inspiration strikes.

The solution? Find a balance.

By all means, start fresh when the situation permits. But also arm yourself with templates to expedite the process when needed.

Template Idea: Create a project where you add multiple midi channels with each armed with your favourite synths. For each synth, hit cmd+G to turn it into a macro (Group) and map your favourite synth parameters to each knobs. This will ease hands-on control or hit randomize for some new inspiration.

TIP: I would encourage you to grab this selection of free modulators named Mod Squad 2. This has so many useful, essential tools to add to your template.

 

Ableton Templates: More Than Just a Shortcut

 

At first glance, a template might seem like just a preset, a way to save time. But there’s no problem with presets and trust me, it is not cheating!

While templates are certainly is a time-saver, it’s actually much more. Think of a template as a supporting musician friend, always ready to jam when you are. With templates, you can:

  • Create Macros: Setting up macros that you frequently use ensures you have immediate access to your preferred settings and controls.
  • Organize Routing: Advanced routing configurations, once set, can be easily replicated across projects.
  • Form Groups: Grouping tracks or instruments that often go together saves time and offers a clearer view of your project.
  • Pre-set Effects and Plugins: Having your go-to effects and plugins already loaded lets you dive straight into tweaking sounds.

Ableton Template Idea: Create your own mixing template by creating 5 groups that will host your project’s channels. You can then drag and drop them in each groups. Those can have multiple plugins of your choice. You can even create a mixing template with multiple channel presets and then you can drag and drop them from your browser.

The Art of Crafting Abelton Templates

It’s not just about having templates but about having effective templates. An ideal template should inspire creativity, not box it. Here’s how:

  • Diverse Templates for Diverse Needs: Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, consider multiple templates for various purposes: mixing, sound design, production, and perhaps a comprehensive one, like my “mothership” concept.
  • Incorporate Modulation Elements: Add pre-configured modulation tools that respond and interact with what you introduce. Tools like envelope followers or audio scrubbers, such as the ones Manifest Audio offers, can automatically detect and modulate sounds, adding depth and dynamics to your music.
  • Think Support, Not Supplant: A template should never feel like it’s directing your music. Instead, it should feel like a base on which you can build. The best templates enhance creativity, not limit it.

When Ableton Templates Truly Shine

The true test of a template’s efficacy is in its ability to enhance creativity. If using a template feels like you’ve brought an extra pair of hands into your studio, aiding and elevating your music, then you’ve hit the sweet spot. It’s not about replacing the organic process of music creation but about having tools that streamline it.

In the world of digital music production, where the landscape is vast and the tools are many, templates emerge as a beacon of efficiency. They are not just about speeding up the process but about enhancing the very essence of creativity. They ensure that when inspiration strikes, you’re not just ready but equipped to let your ideas soar. Embrace the power of templates, and watch as your music production process transforms from mere creation to pure artistry.

 

DOWNLOAD MY ABLETON TEMPLATES:

Production template here

Mixing template here.

The Dysfunction of Email Promos in Music

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In an age where technology has simplified communication, it’s ironic how it has also, sometimes, made things more complicated. Take music promotion for instance. A once curated art of handpicking who you shared your work with has been lost in the deluge of the digital age. And nowhere is this more evident than in the world of email music promotions.

For a small- to medium-sized artist like me, my inbox is perpetually inundated with promotional tracks. In fact, I’ve had to set up an email rule to funnel these promos into a separate folder just to keep my primary inbox manageable. To give you a perspective, this folder recently crossed the 13,000 mark. It’s overwhelming and, frankly, dysfunctional.

Now, let’s put this into context. I’m not even a significant player in the music industry. Major artists are likely receiving 3-5 times the number of promos I get. The question then becomes, how effective is this method when even a smaller artist can’t keep up?

One of the most significant issues is the scattergun approach. I’m flooded with tracks from genres and artists that are miles apart from my musical tastes. It’s as though having access to my email address has become an open invitation to send anything and everything my way. This mass email system means that around 95% of the music I receive isn’t even relevant to me. And this poses a unique problem, not just for me, but for musicians as well. The handful of tracks that might genuinely intrigue me are lost in the noise.

 

This situation eerily mirrors another challenge – shopping for music. For every gem you find, you’re likely sifting through a mountain of tunes that aren’t quite your style. With email promos, the haystack has just grown exponentially, making the needle even harder to find.

Ironically, in this vast digital world, in-person connections seem to be the most efficient form of music promotion. When you meet artists face-to-face, there’s a directness and specificity to the exchange. But the reality is, these opportunities are limited.

Strangely, it’s hard to admit but Spotify has been my most reliable tool for discovering and curating music I listen to. I usually find music there, then continue my searches on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. But as much as I don’t like the ethics of Spotify, if there’s one thing they do right, it’s keeping me in the loop with music I will mostly like.

 

Where does this leave us?

Firstly, artists need to rethink the blind, bulk email strategy. The objective shouldn’t be about how many people you can reach, but rather about reaching the right people.

Secondly, as recipients, maybe we need platforms or systems to better communicate our music preferences. Labels have traditionally played this role to some extent, but there’s room for innovation.

Lastly, while personal connections remain invaluable, the digital age demands better solutions. We need platforms where specificity and personalization become paramount, ensuring that every promo an artist sends is a potential hit, not just another email in an overflowing folder.

 

But I also have a list of websites that can provide help with promotion.

  1. SubmitHub: A platform where artists and labels can submit their music to bloggers, playlist curators, YouTubers, and even record labels. It’s an excellent way to get feedback and potentially get your music featured.
  2. RepostExchange: This platform allows SoundCloud users to trade reposts. It’s a way to expose your music to a new audience by leveraging other artists’ followers.
  3. DistroKid: While primarily a music distribution platform, DistroKid also offers promotional tools like ‘HyperFollow’ which helps artists to maximize their pre-save counts on platforms like Spotify.
  4. PlaylistPush: Designed for artists to pitch their music to Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer playlist curators.
  5. Hypeddit: Helps you grow your fanbase on platforms like SoundCloud, YouTube, Mixcloud, and more by trading likes, reposts, comments, and follows.
  6. Feature.fm: It lets artists get their music into streaming service playlists, and they also provide tools for pre-saves and other promotional campaigns.
  7. Groover: Similar to SubmitHub, Groover allows artists to send their tracks to a wide range of bloggers, record labels, radio stations, and playlist curators.
  8. Musosoup: Artists submit their tracks, and curators (bloggers, playlisters, etc.) can browse and select tracks they’re interested in featuring.
  9. Promo.ly: A music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies to share their music to industry influencers.
  10. Echio: This is a place where you can follow artists, get workshops, pay for some feedback and more.

 

 

In conclusion, while the digital age has revolutionized music sharing, it’s also important to recognize its pitfalls. As we move forward, it’s crucial to find harmony between the old and new, ensuring that quality music doesn’t get lost in the digital shuffle.

Tools To Understand Your References

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We’ve all been there—struggling to compose that perfect melody or write those captivating lyrics, only to be hindered by the relentless pursuit of originality. But what if we told you there’s a way to break free from this creative conundrum and discover a whole new dimension of musical ideas?

 

No matter how many times I get to my computer to make music, I’m often on 2 modes: trying to make music that will be completely original or trying to emulate ideas that I love (eg. the opposite of being original). In most cases, I forget that I have fun unless things feel flowy. Luckily there are multiple techniques that can be understood from music we love and there are also many facilitating tools to help understand whatever is the magic of certain songs. I’ll suggest some of the tools I use when I do production for clients.

 

Recently I read the book by Austin Kleon’s book, “Steal Like an Artist,” where we’ll uncover five valuable ideas to set your musical exploration. I felt like I could see how this applied to music.

Embrace the Remix Revolution:

 

In a world overflowing with music, finding absolute originality can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But fear not! Kleon suggests embracing the concept of the remix—a creative collage of existing ideas and influences. Remember, even the most renowned musicians have been inspired by the sounds of yesteryear. So, dive into the archives, explore different genres, and let the magic of cross-pollination unleash your musical prowess!

The first exercise I give to any client who is in a writer’s block that won’t go away, I suggest them to get a bunch of loops and start remixing, without any goal. I would like to say that while this is the best remedy for most cases, some feel like this is stealing samples and such. But if the mind is stuck, it’s mostly due to overthinking. Getting the ball rolling with a simple exercise of playing with premade ideas is just an opened door to jump back and then expand to whatever feels right.

 

TIP: It’s hard not to have fun by using the vast amount of quality loops you’ll find on Splice. It also offers possibilities of rent to own synths, plugins or have presets for the genres you like. It also has a desktop app where you can preview loops, then import them in your DAW. I like also that you can sync the app with your project’s tempo by using the Splice VST.

 

Another alternative is to use Loopcloud, which is a bit like Splice but also features some tools like a really lovely drum machine where you can import any sounds from the library. 

 

TIP 2: I like to use Soundsnap for samples. It features so many found sounds, foleys, random recordings. It’s used in movies and it can be used in your songs as well.

 

Swipe Ideas, Not Identity:

As musicians, it’s natural to aspire for a unique sound that sets us apart. However, trying to force originality often leads to creative paralysis. Instead, take a leaf out of Kleon’s book (literally!) and steal ideas shamelessly. But here’s the catch: focus on the elements you admire and rework them into something entirely your own. Give credit where it’s due, but don’t be afraid to put your personal spin on things. After all, the world doesn’t need another copycat—it needs the extraordinary blend that only you can create!

Now, remixing can be more subtle. You could listen to Keith Jarrett, some old Studio One dub, modern classical and then pay attention to the sound used, how they are said (melody) and the space created. 

 

What are you noticing? Are the notes slow or fast? Is it dense or open? What is the time signature?

 

Write down the notes, then apply the concept to whatever you do. That’s cross-pollination.

TIP: You can buy MIDI packs or MIDI melodies a bit everywhere and look into ideas that aren’t in the genre(s) you’re doing. The MIDI notes don’t make a sound, they’re just melodies. You can use random harmonic sounds or use synths of your choice so you can pull out melodies that are out of your routine.

TIP 2: So many clients don’t realize that one step towards their songs feeling more professional is to use one root key with a scale. I like the numerous tools from Captain Plugins. They have studio related plugins that lets you understand the key and scale of important ideas or your own melodies (eg. some clients just improvise some melodies to later find out it is in a specific scale without knowing!). You can also look at Tonic for that type of analysis.

 

Curate Your Influences:

Ever heard the saying, “You are what you eat”? Well, in the world of music, “You are what you listen to!” Surround yourself with a diverse range of musical influences. From classical compositions to avant-garde experiments, absorb it all like a musical sponge. By curating a unique tapestry of influences, you’ll develop a rich palette of sounds to draw from. So, don’t be afraid to embark on a sonic adventure—you might just stumble upon the spark that ignites your musical genius!

 

To make quality music, you need to be exposed to quality songs.

 

This means, listen to music as much as you make some. From what you listen, try to diversify your repertoire as much as possible. When you discover an artist you like, dig his roots, early works and recent ones.

 

Befriend people who have deep love for music and ask them for recommendations. People aren’t asked enough about their favorites but it’s a loved topic if you’re into music.

 

I love this max patch that opens up the directory of all the sounds from Freesound.org. I love that site because it’s free but also because you can ask for random samples. I also like this page that gives me random Youtube videos to watch…

 

TIP: Elphnt did a nice patch that gives you ideas for starting new ideas or if you lack ideas at some point.

 

Constraints Set You Free:

 

Contrary to popular belief, constraints can be a musician’s best friend. Kleon emphasizes the importance of setting limitations to unleash your creativity. By giving yourself specific boundaries, such as time restrictions, limited instruments, or even unusual song structures, you force your mind to think outside the box. These self-imposed challenges become the catalyst for innovation, paving the way for musical breakthroughs you never thought possible.

 

TIP: Make yourself a drum kit and just a few samples for your song making. Pick a random songs and use that as a template for yours (BPM, section, mood, key, scale, etc). I love the tool of Decoda because it can really help pulling out a melody or understanding of how a song is arranged.

 

Embrace the Journey:

 

Creating remarkable music isn’t a sprint; it’s a lifelong marathon. As you embark on your musical odyssey, remember to enjoy the ride. Kleon encourages artists to embrace the process rather than obsessing over the end result. Each composition, each practice session, and each stumble along the way is a vital part of your growth as a musician. So, buckle up and savor the adventure, because it’s the journey itself that shapes you into the artist you were meant to be.

 

But what happens when you’re a dad or you have a demanding job and you can’t invest much time into your favorite hobby? The journey becomes a bit more complicated. Can you still embrace the results without having the time to do what needs to be done to get your project going?

 

There you have it, intrepid musicians! Armed with Austin Kleon’s invaluable insights from “Steal Like an Artist,” you now possess the secret weapons to break free from the shackles of creative blockages. Embrace the remix revolution, swipe ideas with pride, curate your influences, thrive within constraints, and, above all, savour the journey.

Remember, the music world is your oyster. So dive in fearlessly, create unapologetically, and let your stolen melodies reshape the very fabric of musical innovation. 

 

How AI is Helping Musicians Break Free From Unoriginality

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When it comes to creating music, there is a never-ending tension between the desire to innovate and the pressure to make money. Many musicians find themselves trapped in a cycle of producing unoriginal music that fits neatly into pre-existing categories, all in the name of pleasing their audiences and making a profit. But what if there was a way to break free from this cycle? 

We recently talked about slowing down to learn new skills, but let’s have a view on the the most techno-technology out there.

Enter artificial intelligence (AI), a tool that is increasingly being used by musicians to push the boundaries of what is possible in music production. As AI been bringing a lot of controversy in the artist community because it is a game changer in democratizing its access, I wanted to focus on the positive aspects.

 

Using AI to Generate Ideas We Wouldn’t Think Of

 

One of the reasons why musicians tend to produce unoriginal music is because they are constantly aware of the latest trends and what is popular among their audiences. In order to make money, they feel pressured to produce music that fits neatly into these trends, rather than exploring new territory. This results in a homogenization of music, where everything starts to sound the same. If you read this blog often you’ll know that we often refer to the “success trap” where one tries to repeat a success story and that leads to nothing.

 

AI, on the other hand, is not aware of these trends. It doesn’t have a preconceived notion of what is popular or what will sell. Instead, it is able to analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and connections that humans might not be able to see. This makes it a powerful tool for innovation in music production.

 

For example, AI can analyze existing music and identify common elements that could be used to create something new. It can also generate entirely new ideas that humans might not have thought of. By using AI, musicians can break free from the constraints of their own creativity and explore new territory that they might not have discovered otherwise.

 

AI Can Recycle Old Ideas In Innovative Ways

 

But AI is not just a tool for creating entirely new music. It can also be used to recycle existing ideas in innovative ways. For example, AI can take an existing melody and transpose it to a different key, or it can apply different rhythmic patterns to a familiar chord progression. By using AI in this way, musicians can create something that feels fresh and new, while still drawing on familiar elements that their audiences will recognize.

 

Of course, using AI in music production is not without its challenges. Some musicians worry that it will make their work feel less authentic, or that it will take away the human element that makes music so special. But the truth is that AI is just a tool, and like any tool, it can be used in a variety of ways. Musicians who embrace AI as a tool for innovation and exploration can use it to enhance their own creativity, rather than replacing it.

 

AI Tools For Making Electronic Music

  1. Amper Music: A platform that uses AI to generate original music tracks based on user inputs for genre, mood, and tempo.
  2. AIVA (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist): A composer and music generator that uses deep learning algorithms to create original pieces of music in different genres.
  3. Melodrive: A tool that uses AI to create personalized music for video games and other interactive media, adapting the music to the user’s behavior and emotions.
  4. Google Magenta: An open-source project that aims to advance the state of the art in machine learning for music and art generation, providing tools for creating and exploring new musical experiences.
  5. Amadeus Code: A tool that uses AI to help songwriters generate new musical ideas, providing suggestions for chord progressions and melodies based on user inputs.
  6. Humtap: A platform that uses AI to help users create original music by providing suggestions for chords, melodies, and lyrics based on their inputs.
  7. Emergent Drums: generate drum kits with a few clicks. Powerful!
  8. AI Kitchen: Still not public but this one looks promising. It is basically the Midjourney of audio. You enter prompts and the AI provides ideas.

How To Spot If A Tool Is Actually AI and Not Something Else:

It can be difficult to determine whether a music production tool that is described as AI-driven is really using AI, as the term “AI” is often used loosely and can mean different things in different contexts. I’ve noticed a number of plugins that say they use AI but aren’t really. However, here are some things to look for that may indicate that a tool is using AI:

  1. Machine learning algorithms: Many AI-driven music production tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze and generate music. If a tool claims to use AI, it is worth looking into what specific machine learning algorithms it is using, and how they are being applied.
  2. Training data: AI systems require large amounts of training data to learn from. If a music production tool claims to use AI, it is worth checking what training data it has been trained on, and whether it has been trained on a sufficiently diverse and representative set of data.
  3. Output variability: One hallmark of AI systems is that they can generate a wide range of outputs based on a given input. If a music production tool is able to generate a large number of unique tracks or variations based on user inputs, this may be a sign that it is using AI.
  4. Expert endorsements: If a music production tool is endorsed by experts in the field of AI or music production, this may be a sign that it is using legitimate AI techniques.
  5. Transparency: Finally, it’s important to look for transparency in how the tool is described and marketed. If a tool is vague about how it uses AI or makes unrealistic claims about what it can do, this may be a red flag.

Ultimately, the best way to determine whether a music production tool is really using AI is to do some research and ask questions. Look for reviews from reputable sources, ask the developers about their AI techniques, and talk to other users to get a sense of how the tool performs in practice.

 

Generative vs AI

Generative music is the ancestor of AI music. What we do in the modular realm is basically prehistoric cavemen stuff compared to the high tech approach of modelling systems. Modular is sort of relying on boolean logic and basic operations. I think it’s important to explore generative music to understand how machines are there to create material for you to use in your music. Generative music will provide you multiple outputs of ideas based on parameters of your choice. Generative music is something that is important to understand if you’re looking to break writer’s block.

One flaw I like from AI is its lack of understanding good or bad ideas.

It just does things it knows how to do.

You can then take clumsy takes to turn them into ideas of yours. A bit like one joke from a toddler can be used to make some funny stories in adult ways.

So, to all the musicians out there who feel trapped in a cycle of unoriginality: it’s time to reconsider your approach. By embracing AI as a tool for innovation, you can break free from the constraints of what is popular and explore new territory that you might not have discovered otherwise. Whether you are creating entirely new music or recycling existing ideas in innovative ways, AI can help you push the boundaries of what is possible in music production.

 

How I Classify My Projects and Files

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

The different stages I label with are these:

 

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

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

3- Arrangements.

4- Mixing.

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

 

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

 

Stages 1 and 2 can overlap

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Arrangements, the full story of Stage 3

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Mixing as 4th stage

 

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

 

Stage 5 is when your song is 90% done

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

In conclusion

 

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

Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash

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.

 

Thoughts On “Average” Ideas

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What stops a lot of people from making music is chasing the perfect ideas. Often people think they need to make something groundbreaking for it to be worth working on. This is not true. There are plenty of songs that artists thought were mediocre, which ended up being hits for them. A good example of this is Deadmau5, who thought that his hit, “Strobe,” would only work as a B-Side. Turns out, it’s one of his most famous songs.

If you have a process and know how to create a mood board, it’s possible to turn average songs into great songs, or average songs into songs that people will appreciate for other reasons. That said, this post will be about the importance of working on average ideas.

 

Work On Things for the Sake of Working On Them

Sometimes the greatest surprises in music come from making it in the dark, oblivious if it’s going to be good or not. These moments involve tinkering away, creating loops, pulling sounds out of our sample bank, and fiddling around on synths just for the heck of it. However, sometimes we work on this for hours, don’t see any potential in it, and perhaps get frustrated. For instance, right now, I’m working on a new live techno set, and nothing sounds very inspiring to me. However, I realize that if I keep on working on it, and go through my checklist and process, eventually something interesting will happen. I understand that while it might not be the best composition, it could be a B-Side, which comes with its own set of benefits, which I’ll cover later in the article.

 

The Process

First, let’s cover going through my checklist and process. The first step in my process is what I call a “non-linear production.” Nonlinear production is a way of working where at first you, you sum up ideas, and you pile up a bunch of sounds that you like into the live view, instead of the arrangement. This allows you to essentially build a mood board of sounds that you can pull from and jam with. To build this, I force myself to record anything that just comes out, literally anything and everything. Then, I start activating and deactivating clips and see what happens. Quite often from doing this, I come up with way more than loops – I come up with entire phrases that become entire parts of the composition. And since I’m making techno, it’s loop-based and follows a predictable pattern, so things kind of just start happening.

Before I continue, I have a caveat:  I never go to the studio with an aim to average music. People who insinuate that I do this after saying they should work on average music, are kind of insulting. I’m always trying to make something good. 

However, I’m only human, and sometimes I have average ideas that I decide to work around and see what happens. Sometimes something fun happens, which allows me to make a ghost arrangement by going through my checklist. One part of my checklist is adding a groovy bassline. That’s fundamental to many of my tracks. Next, I figure out if it’s appropriate to respond to that call with a similar arrangement. For instance, does a lead respond well to the bassline?

Once I figure out that basic part of the structure, I think, “Can I make a complementary element, like a background sound?” So I start going through my mood board and picking out sounds that I think will fit nicely in the background – this could be noise, foley sounds, or even texture to add to the instrumentation. 

Next, I start building outwards, since normally what I do in the sketch ends up being the middle part of the arrangement. So I add an outro and an intro. Once these are done, I start thinking of all of the ear candy elements – the bells and whistles. This usually includes an oddball element that makes the song crazy and unusual. Then once I get all these elements together, sometimes something that is average, can be pretty cool.

 

Time Heals All Wounds

So what happens when you do all of this, and somehow everything is kind of “meh?” Easy. Just chill for a minute. Quite often, students will record something that they think is mediocre at the moment, but when viewed in a different mindset, that changes. What you thought was boring a while ago, could sound exciting now, or at the very least, feel worth working on.

Perception will always be the enemy of progress. We all have to remember that some music sounds good at some points in time, and at others, it doesn’t. Also, sometimes you have a sound that you don’t particularly like in the context that it’s in, but when paired with another sketch, it could take on a life of its own. Or it could just be average, and that’s ok! As I said before, the average to you might be awesome to another listener.

 

The Benefits of B-Sides

The thing is ordinary tracks, in my opinion, stand the test of time longer than complicated arrangements. When I do mastering, many of the ideas I love are not that original, or groundbreaking – instead, they are efficient because they cover all the elements of a song that I find important. The over-the-top stuff? Not so much. Perhaps some Chemical Brothers or Plastikman compositions, but overall, no – at least in my opinion.

B-Sides are often some of the best music out there, especially from a DJ’s perspective. They’re typically functional and filled with fewer frills than the main single. This allows for them to be easily mixed and used as a tool, allowing for DJs to create unique moments on the fly during their sets. Due to this, they might not get as many streams on places like Spotify, but they could perform better on places like Beatport or Traxsource.

Once again, I have to mention the Deadmau5 “Strobe” situation. He thought it would be a B-side, submitted it as a B-side to the label, and it became one of his biggest songs. What you think is a B-Side could be your main track.

 

Turning the Ordinary, Experimental

One thing that people forget is that sometimes it’s also good to make experimental music out of ordinary music. Remember that average idea that you had before? You can make it extraordinary with some simple tricks. First, build a long chain of effects on one of your return channels. Then take channels and start sending them to the return. By doing this, you can end up with some really weird syncopated patterns and textures far removed from what you originally made. You can either leave these textures throughout the whole thing or use them for some surprise moments to throw the listener off guard.  For instance, I recently went to see Chaos in the CBD and one of the strongest moments of their live set was right in the middle of the set where they had this wild, all over the place, sonic meltdown from an edit of a 90’s song. I thought it was brilliant because they took something old and made it new again – something that I touched on in the Murakami post. 

 

Make Music For Yourself

So many people are concerned about making music for other people, whether that is a DJ or a label. However, most great music comes from people just making it for themselves. When you make music for a DJ or a label, often, you might find yourself trying to read their mind and overanalyzing their intentions. This results in label owners complaining that all the tracks they get sound exactly the same. While this is a product of their own doing, as they often only sign tracks that fit their meta, at the same time, they aren’t wrong. Memorable producers don’t try to imitate. Instead, they create something that others try to imitate. And in order to create something unique, it has to come from a place of genuineness. And sometimes, if you’re just sketching out ideas, forming a mood board, and working on some songs that don’t quite fit into a paradigm, this is where some truly fascinating stuff happens. 

 

Greatness is the Sum of Averages

In other words, don’t worry about average – just start making stuff. After all, if you are trying to get noticed, algorithms favor frequency, so keep on putting things out. Most will miss, but if you keep doing it, occasionally, you may have a hit.

How To Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Your Tools Aren’t That Important

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

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

 

Come Up With Your Own System When Preparing To Make Music

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

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

 

Actively Listen To Music To Prepare To Make Music

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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


DJing To Help Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Build Categorized Playlists To Help Prepare To Make Music

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

 

Take Inspiration From Your Inspiration’s Inspirations

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

 

There Are Many Ways To Prepare Your Brain

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

 

Ableton-Hardware Hybrid Setup

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Myths About Hardware

It automatically Sounds Better

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

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

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

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

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

It’s More Intuitive

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

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

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

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

It’s DAWless

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

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

 

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Hardware

Learn One Piece At A Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Record Everything

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

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

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

Make Sure Your Recording Is Clean

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

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

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

Realize You Will Be A Noob, Again

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

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

another photo of an Ableton-hardware hybrid setup

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

 

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

Play To Each Other’s Strengths

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

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

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

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

Use Ableton As A Band Member

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

Use Ableton To Preserve Sounds

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

Split Your Time Into Technical And Creative Sessions

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

This will consume a good amount of brainpower. 

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

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

MIDI Controllers Are Your Friend

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

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

Some suggestions: AKAI midimix, Novation Launch Control

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

 

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

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Electronic Music Coaching Lessons

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There is this attitude in electronic music that if you share your secrets and techniques that somehow an essence of it will get lost, and some of the magic will dissipate. Additionally, people may take that advice, utilize it, and somehow outgrow and surpass the teacher. And nobody wants to feel like they dug their own grave. This philosophy about electronic music coaching took me some time to overcome, and I’m glad I did. 

Instead of the relationship between teacher and student becoming parasitic, instead I have found it to be purely symbiotic. Sure, some students have surpassed me in many aspects, but I find that they are reciprocal about their newfound knowledge. Now I have many people who are happy to help me with aspects of music making that I don’t enjoy doing as much as they do.

A photo of George Martin coaching the Beatles.

George Martin helping The Beatles. He would have been excellent at electronic music coaching.

Success Takes A Team

As I’ve harped on in previous posts, it makes sense to delegate some of the tasks of your music making, as this is what happens in every other genre of music, yet, for some reason, seems to be stigmatized in electronic music. Think about it, The Beatles had George Martin, Miles Davis had Herbie Hancock. Michael Jackson had Quincy Jones (as did Frank Sinatra). It doesn’t make you less of a musician to be the teacher and embolden your students; it empowers you and propels you to greatness.

That’s why, around Spring of 2016, I announced on my Facebook page that I’d do free electronic music coaching to anyone who would come to me. Back then, it was just a pure invitation to share my knowledge to people and using Mailchimp’s newsletter technology, I was hoping I could send emails to people and guide them in exercises. 

Initial Experiments In Electronic Music Coaching And The Lessons Learned

My initial attempt kinda failed pretty quickly as my lack of understanding of the email technology drove some of the participants mad and I had more damage control to do than coaching. So I closed that option and decided to open an electronic music collective / Facebook group with a precise goal – to provide a safe space for anyone who was unsure about their music before posting it publicly or sending it to a label. Of course, any question would be welcomed and we would have a hive mind to answer questions from various people.

As I’m approaching 5 years of free electronic music coaching, I’ve learned a lot from this. From giving feedback and to seeing mentees grow into solid musicians, these are the scenarios I saw play out.

Common scenarios In Electronic Music Coaching

Pretty much everyone who came to me to get some help had one thing that was blocking them from something. A minority would come to perfect their skills and some would come to have guidance in different situations but in the most part, people come to me because they’re blocked. In our electronic music collective, the more specific questions are usually searching for a specific effect used to replicate a sound or getting feedback on a song. These are quickly answered by the community that share a few ideas and hints. Often, it might not be exactly what the person needs but it often guides them down a path that may lead them to something more proactive.

However when doing one-on-one electronic music coaching, I often am presented with the same problems:

  • People who are experiencing a major writer’s block and are feeling helpless.
  • Aspiring artists that have worked really hard and are feeling stuck, not seeing improvements.
  • People who have the loopy syndrome, having countless loops but not being able to finish songs.
  • People who have deep love for what they create and are stubborn about any criticism, or conversely, they have intense hate towards what they create, and beat themselves up over it.

How Evolution Impacts Knowledge

If you look in hindsight at what happened in the world of electronic music production in the last 20 years, the software world paired with the internet has made it much simpler. 20 years ago, we were limited to a few resources and we’d always be in stasis waiting for our answers to come (if they ever did). We are now living in a world where we are constantly having our attention pulled in multiple directions, with each direction espousing that “this is the true way,” when there is rarely a “true way” for anything, especially in art.

It’s these conflicting statements that seeds a ton of doubt, or unnecessary confidence in their practitioners. This doubt, or this overconfidence that my one on one sessions seek to remedy. 

There is nothing wrong with being confident in your work, but overconfidence creates barriers to learning, and conflicts with progress. Sometimes I wonder why these people want electronic music coaching at all, but the fact that they get it, shows they at least have a conscious understanding of its importance, even if their subconscious confidence conflicts with it. 

Conversely, the doubt that many musicians have creates a similar problem. They may be in coaching to become more confident, but their lack of confidence results in that sort of barking little dog syndrome, where any bit of critique damages their already delicate creative ego, even if they consciously know it’s necessary. This can be likened to something like physical therapy; it’s going to hurt to walk again if you broke both your legs, and you’re going to hate it, but you know it’s necessary.

Successful Students

After coaching for over 15 years total, I had noticed that some people did better than others. At the beginning, I was working with a plan, and would teach all the people the same things but I quickly adapted that because it was not working well. Some were learning fast and would provide some interesting challenges or questions while others had some of the same questions but were always struggling on basic issues.

I understood one thing which is, you can’t really teach electronic music theory and music production training from a rigid approach because what makes it successful is to understand someone globally and then, as a team, find strategies to build a routine and work habits. More importantly, I tried to help the person find its own way of learning through the internet jungle.

Here are common points that people who succeeded had:

  • They had a clear direction: People that I see with a clear intention and direction, such as “wanting to sound like X”, are the easiest to guide. If you have a target and goal, you can always try to push what you do and technically study how it is done with music you have on hand.  With my help, we can reverse engineer some songs and try different things. Once that target is mostly reached, what’s interesting is how it leads them elsewhere. The fact that they know how something is done allows them to discover other artists or songs that are itching their curiosity. But working with targets, is always a clear indication of improvement.
  • They showed consistency: Anyone who works on a regular basis, over a constant time, has shown great improvement. More than people who started really strong but couldn’t keep up the pace. Working hard isn’t always smart. It’s more about knowing what you can do and try to consistently learn something new, practice it and then putting it into context of a song.
  • They asked a lot of questions: Often creative success and inquisitivity go hand in hand. Asking for advice and technical guidance is a must if you wish to go far. You can do everything yourself but you’re not giving yourself the chance to grow adequately. Even if someone thinks otherwise than you, there’s some part of his view that can be useful.
  • They stayed humble and always wanted to learn. If you come with the idea that you’ll learn something everyday, you won’t be stagnant in whatever you do and will always be looking forward.
  • They were not afraid of rejection and criticism. Because each song is an experiment in itself and anyone’s point of view is arbitrary.

electronic music coaching photo

Struggling points

These are individuals who have been facing a number of problems in the learning and while have learned a lot and improved much, they unfortunately haven’t rolled out as much as they wished. These are what commonly hinder them.

  • The student focuses on the success of a specific song.
  • They work in a linear fashion and won’t change.
  • Insisting on doing everything themselves.
  • The musician is often convinced they know more than they do.
  • Their expectations are set really high.
  • The belief that hard work brings success is deeply ingrained in them.
  • They see music in a hierarchical way.

 

What I’ve Learned In Electronic Music Coaching

The Latin proverb docendo discimus translates to “by teaching, we learn.” These are some of the lessons I’ve learned by teaching others.

Free isn’t always a good thing

If you give something for free, it doesn’t always have value. Free advice is cheap advice. Unless people pay for it, there is less of a chance that they will anchor said advice. Not saying that giving free advice is bad; that’s what these blog posts and the group flourishes on. It’s just that they can be easily dismissed. However, if you paid for advice, there is a greater chance that you implement it.

Consistency is key to development

Think of it like training for a sport. If you are training for a marathon, and decide to take a month off, you’re going to have to spend time ramping back up to that level. Additionally, the longer you put something off, the more chance you have to disregard it.  

Not be afraid of making mistakes

The comic strip artist Scott Adams has a really poignant quote about mistakes in the creative journey. He says, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” I find this statement to be very true. Many of my favorite parts of my works have come unintentionally, or are a result of seriously messing something up. 

Bob Ross would have been great at electronic music coaching.

Being part of the community

No man is an island. Civilization was built by teams, and communities, not individuals. Teaching has allowed me to be part of a vibrant community, and for that I am extremely grateful. It has taught me at least as much, and provided me as many resources, as I have provided others.

Other Benefits of Electronic Music Coaching

Since my music is pretty esoteric, I learned over decades of performing that the people who attended my shows were cut from a similar cloth. They were musicians, and sound designers, eager to absorb some of the essence of the performance in order to translate it into their own creations. 

This gave me the realization that in order to grow and keep my fan base engaged, I had to give the people what they wanted. Therefore, electronic coaching became not only empowering creatively, it became a solid marketing channel. 

If you’re interested in becoming part of our community and getting some free coaching, join our electronic music collective, Pheek’s Coaching Corner. We also have a bunch of tutorials on YouTube as well. If you want more personalized coaching, I offer that as well.

Producing Music With Minimal Gear

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In this pandemic, it’s especially easy to get apathetic, and start looking for excuses not to create. “The clubs aren’t open,” “nobody is dancing,” “DJs can’t even play my stuff,” “I’m stuck with my current gear, and I can’t afford to get new gear, because the economy is bad.” 

All of these things are just excuses. 

The clubs aren’t open and nobody is dancing? Well, make the music now and release it when they are open. Spend the extra time to work on getting the marketing set up, or consider what labels you want to send it to. 

DJs not playing music? Well, that doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to it, and stashing away music that they like. If anything, they are more responsive than ever because they aren’t on a plane, going on four hours of sleep in two days. Spend some time building relationships with them, so they actually care about you when you send them your stuff.

You can’t afford to get new gear, because the economy is bad? Well, don’t fear, there is tons of free, or low cost gear out there that can accomplish exactly what you need, and even provide some constraints that allow for true originality to shine. Producing music with minimal gear is a great way to make music.

What Are Some Free, Or Inexpensive Tools?

There are dozens of different tools that you can use to produce music with minimal gear.Moog, Korg, Image-Line, and predictably, Apple, have all thrown their hat into this creative ring. Here are some of the better ones for producing music with minimal gear.

 

Android Tools For Producing Music With Minimal Gear

GStomper Studio

A great way to produce music with minimal gear is the GStomper Studio app. GStomper Studio is an app that installs on any Android device, downloadable from the app store. Built for performance, it contains a full featured sampler/sequencer, microphone recording, a multi OSC and PCM enabled synth, piano roll, drum pads, mixer, master channels, timing and measure functions, and multiple effects. You can upload your own samples, or buy some inexpensive ones in the store. Feeling especially creative? Plug in your favorite MIDI keyboard with a simple USB converter. It’s only $12.99 in the Google Play Store.

image of gstomer. This is a great tool for producing music with minimal gear

FL Studio Mobile

Coming in at a cool $15.99, FL Studio Mobile is the little brother to the full fledged desktop version. While it lacks the VST support, and dynamics of the desktop version, this app is a powerhouse. It has a sequencer, mixer, low latency audio engine, audio recording, built in synths, effects, and samplers. 

If you use the desktop version, FL Studio Mobile comes with the FL Studio Mobile plugin that allows you to swap between desktop and mobile functionality. Also works for iOS. 

This is an excellent way to produce music with minimal gear.  

iPhone Tools For Producing Music With Minimal Gear
GarageBand iOS

Free with all iOS apps, this cultural icon has been responsible for tons of hits, and is the undisputed champion of producing music with minimal gear. While it wasn’t the best when it first debuted on iOS in 2011, now it is a full functioning miniature DAW, with virtual pianos, percussion, microphone recording, loops, MIDI functionality, and way, way more. With the right adapter, you can even plug your guitar into it, and record in the park.


Korg iElectribe

The Korg iElectribe is the mobile version of the renowned Electribe hardware. Think this piece of gear isn’t capable of creating a full album? Think again. Daman Albaran created an entire Gorillaz album using an iPad, a guitar, and this piece of software. It’s only $9.99 in the App Store. If Daman Albaran is capable of producing music with minimal gear, then microhouse can certainly be done on it.

Image of Korg iElectribe. A perfect tool for producing music with minimal gear

DAWs For Producing Music With Minimal Gear

 

Ardour

Ardour is a full functioning, open source DAW that has been maintained by a dedicated team of decentralized developers. It has full VST support, and uses audio engines that are just as good as any other major DAW, allowing for 32-bit, floating point playback and rendering.

It has recording capabilities only limited to the hardware you use, and has full mixing, mastering, and editing capabilities. It’s totally free, and is available on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and FreeBSD. The only caveat is that if you use the free version, you have to code all of it together, which takes skill.

However, for a small donation, or a monthly subscription, you can get its full functionality. How much you pay determines what you get, naturally. According to them, “If you choose to pay less than US$45, you will get the current version and updates (e.g. buy version 6.0, get access to 6.1, 6.2, etc. but not 7.0). If you choose to pay US$45 or more: get the current version, updates and the next major version, plus access to nightly (development) builds”.

This is a very inexpensive way of producing music with minimal gear.

a picture of the Ardour DAW. A great app for producing music with minimal gear.

Cakewalk by BandLab

Cakewalk by BandLab is a full functioning, free DAW, with analog console-style virtual mixer, VST plugin support, multi-touch support, Bluetooth MIDI, a suite of in the box plugins, and more.

The only cons are that it’s only available for Windows, and that you have to sign up for a free BandLab account. However, there are no annoying ads that come up with this registration, so that’s cool. Cakewalk by BandLab is a great way for producing music with minimal gear.

 

Chasing The Dragon Of Perfection

One thing that many artists have in common is the strive for perfection. A tweak here, a tweak there, all to get that sound, color, or note to fit in exactly how you imagine it in your head. This can lead to endless hours of analyzing one aspect over and over again, when chances are that the other listener is never going to notice, and it’s just getting in the way of actually finishing and moving onto the next stage. It’s this need for perfection that starts the musical journey for a  lot of people – they hear a style of music, and think, “I can add something to this to make it perfect,” and thus from that, comes many’s signature. 

This strive for perfection doesn’t only extend to the composition; it extends to the medium that artists use to create. Currently using Ableton 10, and feel stuck? Well, maybe when you finally get Ableton 11, it will reinspire you to make music again, by giving you access to all these new features. 

So you wait until you have the money saved up to get Ableton 11, and decide that you’re not going to do anything music wise until it comes out, lest you start something in Ableton 10 that you can’t fix in 11. Then, like many before you, you drop hundreds of dollars on that new version, and lo-and-behold, you’re still not making music. That’s because often it’s not about the equipment that you have, it’s about using it as an excuse to not do anything. Many times its more fruitful to be producing music with minimal gear, rather than upgrading your fancy DAW.

 

Where To Find Help

However, sometimes you really can’t do something that you want done, like a vocal, guitar riff, or live percussion. Luckily, there are a lot of places you can go to get reasonably priced studio musicians. 

Before we into what the resources are, a quick note on individuality in music, especially electronic music. Most likely due to the 90’s DIY attitude towards dance music, there is a permeating attitude that somehow if you don’t do everything in the track, it’s somehow cheating. 

No other genre of music thinks like this. Michael Jackson isn’t less brilliant because he had Quincy Jones. The Beatles aren’t any less enigmatic and sonically revolutionary because they had Phil Spector and George Martin. The Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds isn’t any less game changing of an album, because it’s made primarily by session musicians. However, in dance music, if there is outside help, somehow it’s cheating. This is kind of ridiculous. Electronic musicians are not more legitimate musicians than The Beatles, sorry. Many of these albums were created with antiquated gear, that equates to producing music with minimal gear nowadays. If they could do it then, you can certainly do it now.

SoundBetter

Soundbetter is a platform where musicians can hire people to do things that they don’t want to do, or aren’t capable of doing. Need someone to play bass on your new house track? SoundBetter has that covered. Mixing or mastering? There are engineers that work with most conceivable genres, for a reasonable price.

Fiverr

Lots of people know Fiverr, and for good reason. It’s an excellent repository of services, from graphic design, to session musicians. Many critically acclaimed musicians sell their services on Fiverr for a reasonable rate.

Pheek’s Mixing And Mastering

Shameless plug. Here you can get mixing and mastering services, as well as track finalization. If you specialize in underground electronic music, and want your track to sound pristine, or need someone to help put finishing touches on the composition, then this is a sure bet, for a good price.

 

Examples Of Music Made On Minimal Gear

If you’re just getting started, or are looking to change up your medium to find new inspiration, don’t let brand names, and expense, get in the way of creating something great. Some truly great works of art have been made on stock, dated, repurposed, or even free software.

Here are a few:

Burial – Untrue

burial's untrue is a perfect example of producing music with minimal gear. This is the cover of the album.

If you’re not a stranger to Pitchfork’s social media feed, you have probably noticed how they absolutely gush over this album, reposting their article, Why Burial’s Untrue Is The Most Important Electronic Album Of The Century So Far ad nauseum. What’s most fascinating about this article, is that it is made on SoundForge, which is not a traditional DAW by any means.

The version he used didn’t have VST support or even multitracks. It didn’t have neat timing, or BPM features, or anything that modern DAWs use. It was simply a medium for designing sound. Yet, he used it to create an impeccably modern, important album, using old YouTube, and video game samples.

It’s this constraint that made such a unique, airy sounding album that still receives near daily praise the world over.

Justice – Cross

Pretty much the flag bearers of the post-Daft Punk “French Touch” revolution, Justice exploded onto the airwaves with their 2008 album, Cross. A distorted amalgamation of punk rock, disco, soul, and stuttering samples that were modern, and loud. Even to this day, the production value of Cross, while bordering on EDM, doesn’t feel plastic, or overproduced. By any stretch of the imagination, this album was made in an excellent studio, on well tuned gear, and warm, analogue synths. 

Well, that would be wrong. While there is definitely some post production magic, the majority of Cross was made by two French dudes with GarageBand, and clever sampling.   

Justice’s  Xavier de Rosnay says, “A lot of people think it’s bullshit when we say we use GarageBand, but it’s actually an amazing tool.”

Jon Hopkins – Immunity

An image of Jon Hopkin's Immunity, which is an example of producing music with minimal gear.One of the most revered electronic albums of the last decade is Jon Hopkins’ blistering techno/neo-classical masterpiece, Immunity. While he now uses Ableton, at the time, he built this album in a Frankenstein combination of his MacBook running Logic for arrangement, with a parallel processed version of Windows 98 running a 1999 version of SoundForge to do his sound design. 

This album was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and is #37 on Pitchfork’s Greatest IDM Albums of All Time.

Steve Lacy (Kendrick Lamar / The INternet / GoldLink, etc)

Steve Lacy is known for making beats on an iPhone and iPod. He has his beats on Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN with the song PRIDE, co-executive produced The Internet’s Ego Death, and has done collaborations with many other well known artists. 

Yes, it may not be the type of music that many people who read this blog care for, but you can’t deny its impact. If you can make hip hop on an iPhone, you can make ambient techno on one too.

There are many, many more examples of this, in pretty much every genre imaginable. If anything it’s the constraints that give these pieces of art their depth. Never underestimate the power of limitations.

 

Hopefully this article provides you with some resources, and inspiration for making music with minimal resources. Whether that is using an antiquated, or repurposed piece of software, an Open Source DAW, or even your phone, there is no shortage of brilliant pieces of art that have been made by minimal, and unconventional methods. 

Just remember, in the information age, there is a litany of resources available to help you get from A to B. And even if you have all the gear in the world, sometimes it’s good to try something new, and restrictive. You never know what will come out of it. Plus, making things in unconventional ways is a great story to pitch to media outlets to promote your music, so there is that too.

How To Make An EP

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In my coaching group, someone asked:

So, how do you make an EP ( I ask this thing regarding the atmosphere, like all the tracks should be in the same way let’s say, or create a story)? I find it really hard, if I count my last 10 projects, all of them are really different. How can I approach this kind of vibe for more tracks? Can you tell me how to make an EP?

I replied a quick answer but I thought it would make sense to expand on this because the real answer of how to make an EP is a bit longer and covers multiple things. Why? Because as a producer, a music lover and label owner, there’s nothing that frustrates me more than having an EP that has no soul, no concept and no direction. It feels bland and empty. There are different kind of EPs you can find out there and all of them will find an ear but I get picky. Let’s see some successful EP types:

The utility:

This type of EP is more for DJs and has a collection of tracks with the function to be played in sets.

The compilation:

Either various or 1, this one is simply a collection of random tracks picked from unsigned material.

The conceptual:

Sometimes an artist has a patch, a system or a way of working that will make a series of songs sound the same, which a few songs will united because of the direction.

The last one is the preferred type of EP I want. If I listen to it on Spotify, I sometimes like the non-linearity experience of shuffling it. To me, it is successful if I can listen to this EP that way in repeat and not get bored or even better, wanting to dig for more music from the artist. As there are multiple people who enjoy an EP just as much as an album, there is value to make one. People were saying that streaming services killed these types of releases but I really think otherwise. As a label owner, if I see someone who put enough energy to do an album, it certainly shows a lot of maturity that makes it special to my eyes. These, whether instinctual, or planned, are perfect examples of how to make an EP.

 

Chicken Or The Egg: How to Make An EP from What I Have Vs Starting From Scratch

Many people make music on a regular basis with the idea to eventually publish it. If you think about it, if you go from one project to another, you certainly will explore different moods, techniques, softwares and ideas. If you work on hardware gear, your music will mostly have some sort of common aesthetic though but with the computer, it gets pretty much all over the place since you have access to so many tools and samples.

It’s a bit more difficult to keep something coherent and you can easily start making music that is completely different from previous song you did. If you remember some past posts I did about my approach of working in a non-linear way, you’ll be working here and there and you may borrow some ideas from a song that is not working to another one that needs something specific.

The idea of how to make an EP is, to my understanding, is to try and propose 3-4 songs that have the same direction and aesthetic. This is one of the idea behind my approach to always try to work on multiple songs, bring them to about 90% and export them to a folder as a reference.

Later on, when working on an EP or album, I’ll go in that folder, listen to the tracks. Then I’ll know which ones have relatives and similar ideas, so I can work on the last 10% that is lacking to call it done. Whenever clients come to me that they can’t finish songs, there’s need to clarify that it is not necessary a bad thing. You can practice wrapping them but it is not essential. Same thing for all the fuss about what if I do this or that. I believe those questions can be answered once you have let the song ripe for a few weeks.

 

How To Make An EP – Purpose And Direction

photo of how to make an EP record

Credit: Blocks

One of the things we talked about a lot on this blog is how there’s not many secrets to music making if you can analyze a reference song. When it comes down to it, how to make an EP is sometimes as simple as referring to previous artist’s formulas. Many people I work with are concerned that a reference track will taint their art direction in a way that will make them not sound like themselves.

The thing that is making smile is how those people are more likely to come to me and share they’re lost. You can use reference EP/LP as a way to pick your songs that are going to be part of the same project. For instance, perhaps a very important EP for you had 5 tracks, where 2 songs were ambient and the others had a different take. Perhaps that is something that you can consider.

The way I see the use of a reference project in this condition is that you get your framework around it and then discard it. How many tracks on an EP is a matter of preference, based on whatever your goal is for the EP.

A thing that boggles people a lot are when they start thinking about what the listener expects. There’s equally a balance between people who want the same type of music from an artist from release to release, and another who wants the artist to keep a core but evolve, change, and not repeat formulas. This can also be the same kind of balance of how people want an album or an EP – All tracks slightly the same or all the tracks very different from to another.

Where do you situate yourself in this?

Wherever you feel like. You don’t have to worry too much because no matter what, some people will like and some will dislike anyway. One approach I have is to imagine the project for a friend in particular. How would they like it? Or a DJ… what is it that they like?

Sometimes I find that a good exercise to compile some tracks all together for an EP is to think of my current purpose. How do these tracks answer my own need, today, when recording an EP?

 

Mindset

How to make an EP starts and ends with mindset. There are different moments where you will have time to make music. I like to approach my session with an intention otherwise I quickly lose my session either troubleshooting issues or getting lost in details that aren’t useful at the end of the day. The different intentions could be listed as:

What I Do

The mistake a rookie producer will do is to approach the use of his time without an intention and deal with whatever comes up. It works most of the time but you’re not using your time wisely. If you start a session with one thing in mind, you won’t get distracted by chasing something else that is taking you away from what you’re trying to achieve. Your mind can do something really well if you put all your energy to it. In that sense, I have developed a natural self-confidence that whatever happens, a future-me is going to fix it or recover it at some point.

photo of how to make an EP

Credit: Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

Having this approach is an open call to work on multiple projects and songs all at once, and makes the process of how to make an EP easier. You’ll create a huge pool of sounds and ideas that is ready for the moments where you want to feel creative and make loops, core to a song.

It’s important to capture the song mood and try to finalize it quickly so you don’t overwork it but you can also create a bunch of skeleton ideas that you’ll wrap later. Keep in mind that if you make music on a regular basis, you’re improving yourself and the future-you will be more skilled that your current-you.

That mindset has been my best approach in the last year when thinking about how to make an EP, allowing me to create a lot of music. To grind my skills to a point where I can, in full inspiration, make a song from scratch, gets easy. The other mindset I find useful is to record little live moments as often as possible.

The reason behind this is to know how it feels to jam, to play, to live the song instead of mouse-cliking it away. This is particularly important so you can perhaps imagine your music fitting an artist’s podcasts and sets. You want to have that fun factor as well as being essential for an artist to have your music in his arsenal.

Another benefit from having a focused mindset is that when it comes to working on an EP or LP, the 2 mindsets that will really benefit that will be the optimizing part as well as the finalization. I’d rather have 10 unfinished songs and then pick 4, wrap them based on a single aesthetic to unify them than have 10 finished songs that are not really coherent all together. If you shop for music often and look for EP, what grabs your attention and what kind of EP makes you go wow on it?

 

Aesthetics

Now that you know that you can have a bunch of songs almost done and that the last 10% of polishing can bring your entire project in a direction, I hear you asking how that last detail can be achieved. There are different things you can do but usually what unifies a project, if we refer to techniques, we can classify that into different clusters:

Sound design related

A good example is how the use of a same set of sounds can create unity. For instance, a 808 drum kit for all the songs gives a sense that all songs are the same for its core but you can add different ideas around it. Same for a synth in particular, where Mathew Jonson is a good example. In that sense, building a percussion kit is really useful.

There are multiple ways to build one but my favourite way is to use XO by XLN because it creates a map of all the sounds I have and also put them in a way that similar ones are closer on that map. So you can not only create a kit based on another but you always have the flexibility to search a huge selection and not go to far off. It’s the kind of tool that I’d be dreaming about but not only they made it happen but they made it better than what I would I have done it.

how to make an EP effects photo

Effect driven

The main effects that can bring a project together, from subtle to drastic, are the ones that are coloured. Think of reverb for Dub and distortion for breakbeats or lofi effects for some old school house. They are the key the the key signature of the genre, and help define how to make an EP that’s similar. Sometimes it’s interesting to grab all tracks part of the EP and use the same effect rack that you can create. It’s easy to import into each of them and you can save a few presets that are easily set.

There are multiple aesthetic related plugins you can use and try. I would also not hesitate to simply drop it ON the master bus (yes, I’m serious) which will give you a very coloured version that you can dial back after. But like I often say, you need to push things exaggerated to see how far you can otherwise, if you go with 2-3% of wet signal at a time, you’ll never really see the full picture. I find that a multi-effect like RC-20 by XLN can give you a really good idea of your song in a new space. It adds saturation and noisefloor. It makes your song sound as if it was taken from a dubplate. Pretty impressive.

Tone

One thing I see when I master an EP from an artist is a coherence with the tone. When there’s not, I usually emphasis it so it feels better. It’s weird to have a super bright song amidst a few dark ones. If it’s artistic, ok it can work but it makes the listening experience a bit bumpy. If you use Fabfilter Pro-Q3, You can apply one EQ curve from a song to another. Sometimes you can have a curve for an EP that you apply on all songs. That can provide some interesting results.

Complementary stories

In a past post I was saying how you can layer all your tracks and see how they would be mixed from a DJ’s point of view. Have you tried layering them to see if some nice combinations are possible?

Templates

As explained before, I like to save the arrangements of a song to keep them as templates for future ones. Really handy to speed up the process from a loop to a song.