Random production tip.

[polybius]

Hey guys, here I leave you a random tip that has really helped me with my productions.

LIMIT YOUR OPTIONS

What I mean by this is the following. By having almost infinite options in terms of synths, sounds, effects etc sometimes your creativity diverges from the music to trying to find that ultra heavy bass, perfect pad or whatever.

Take the time to select 10 sounds that you like how they sound, and save them in a custom template, so each time you need youll have them right at your fingertips.

So, start working melodies, beats, etc with this 10 sounds you selected and only when you feel you got something you like, if you want start adding more sounds.

Hope this works for you, it really helped for me.

And for all of you ableton geeks, go to arrengement view.

Cheers

[seitz]

Keep it simple

[RockingClub]

Hey guys, here I leave you a random tip that has really helped me with my productions.

LIMIT YOUR OPTIONS

Here's my tip going into the same direction:
MAKE YOUR DECISIONS RIGHT AWAY!

Don't always keep things unfinished and open thinking "well I might fix it later". This is going nowhere. Take your time to sort out properly and then stay with what you got!
If it helps you even bounce things to audio directly so that you don't have the option to e.g. choose another lead sound any more.
Think of people like Hendrix: They took their guitar adjusted their equipment and then it was recorded. Almost no option to tweak it later left. And they were succesful. This is how music has been made for decades.

[seitz]

bounce midi to audio

#commitment

[ksandvik]

... and Komplete 8 upgrade just arrived to my studio... Anyway,

Do a song in two hours. If not ready, delete the project. EDM is not complicated.

[RockingClub]

Do a song in two hours. If not ready, delete the project. EDM is not complicated.

Wouldn't totally agree with that.

I mean, the fundamental work (=the melody, the components of the song and roughly the arrangement) should be finished within that amount of time for sure. In my case, it normally takes me about 30-60 min. to build the rough idea.

But after that arranging, spicing up and finetuning starts and this takes a lot of time. Maybe this is because I've not yet finished tons of projects yet so that I'm still on my finding the most efficient workflow but normally it takes me 4-7 days to finish a song so that it's super sweet.

Maybe this also depends on the genre. I'm mostly in progressive-house where you don't want to here every element over and over again and where you often have got a lot going on at the same time.
Plus, I never make use of any pre-canned loops. Every groove and melody has been made by myself. My "signature-"kick and clap are selfmade and I always adjust synth patches (but starting from presets, not from scratch with init) and play every MIDI-note myself on the keyboard. Also EQ-ing, adding compression and adjusting reverb, ping-pong-delay, HP-filter, LP-filter and the sidechain-bus plus some other effects and tweakings takes some time.

[AllDay]

I always adjust synth patches (but starting from presets, not from scratch with init).

Hmmm.. You should be making your synths yourself.. not adjusting someone elses.

[diezdiazgiant]

drink heavily while you write, get so drunk you forget how you made the song, store it on a cd stow it away and forget about it, when you stumble on it a few monthes its the closest thing to having a genuine opinion on its quality. if youre still feeling it - you might have yourself something worth sharing with others... :P

[polybius]

drink heavily while you write, get so drunk you forget how you made the song, store it on a cd stow it away and forget about it, when you stumble on it a few monthes its the closest thing to having a genuine opinion on its quality. if youre still feeling it - you might have yourself something worth sharing with others... :P

awesome haha

[seitz]

Hmmm.. You should be making your synths yourself.. not adjusting someone elses.

you should record your own claps/snares/kicks/etc with a microphone then...not adjusting someone elses