Hey guys, I need your advice and tips on getting a more efficient work flow. Right now what I'm doing is starting in at least a 4 bar loop or at most, a phrase, and then I spread it out. While thinking of making a faster work flow, I thought about saving my own self made loops from scrapped ideas into the HD . Will that help for the work flow? I usually start from a blank template, I don't make drum kits or anything as I just like flipping through my sample collection.

Do you also dedicate days to sampling and making patches on your synths or do you just go with the flow?

Feel free to share thoughts of how you generally work.

I created a template that has my basic percussions/kicks already loaded and ready to go (Not that I always use it). Also when I am working on a track and I come up with a patch that I really like and can see using it in future tracks, I make sure to save the preset and my mixer settings to it. I've just been getting in the habit to doing this recently because I started finding how much time I wasted tweaking away at individual sounds. Plus starting up with a blank template and having to sort through and find all your kicks/drums/hats/etc. at the beginning, just wastes a lot of time for me as well. In most cases I wind up using the same percussion's/kicks anyhow as my other tracks with minor adjustments.

Another thing I do when I am coming up with my chord sequence; A lot of times I will load a simple piano preset and come up with a basic structure with that. Then from there you can surf through your files and find the perfect sounds to replace it with (Same thing with pads/leads/etc). Get your generic ideas down first because I have found that I spend too much time searching for the "right sound" and tweaking sounds instead of actually progressing the track.

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Originally posted by -FSP- Hey guys, I need your advice and tips on getting a more efficient work flow. Right now what I'm doing is starting in at least a 4 bar loop or at most, a phrase, and then I spread it out. While thinking of making a faster work flow, I thought about saving my own self made loops from scrapped ideas into the HD . Will that help for the work flow? I usually start from a blank template, I don't make drum kits or anything as I just like flipping through my sample collection. Do you also dedicate days to sampling and making patches on your synths or do you just go with the flow? Feel free to share thoughts of how you generally work.

What DAW?

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

I spend lots of time on youtube listening to various genres of music that I find are simply well composed/produced.

When I have that spark of inspiration, I get to work.

There was a thread a few months ago that had some really helpful posts in it regarding structure/arrangement and workflow. This is not what I was talking about but I have THIS thread bookmarked

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quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux What DAW?

I'm making the switch to Ableton Live.

Good stuff in here guys!

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Originally posted by -FSP- I'm making the switch to Ableton Live. Good stuff in here guys!

One of the things that slowed me down was having to go to the browser to add instruments and FX, so I figured out a work around of sorts.

I made "Storage" channel at the bottom of the project. I made an instrument rack with all of my commonly used VSTi. Then I put all of my most used FX on the channel as well. I used the keyboard bind command to bind the number on top of the keyboard(1-9,0) to the FX and VSTi. So whenever I want someone I press the number, Cntrl + C, select the channel I want it in and Cntrl + V.

Since whatever you copy gets saved to the clipboard, you can paste an FX multiple times without having to recopy it again.

The really nice thing is that with some FX, like Pro-Q you can't save its default state with the built in analyze on, but since I have to ready to go in my storage channel its exactly the way I want it when I copy and paste it into a new track. Same thing with Sylenth1: I have my favorite bank loaded up so I do not have to go through that tedious task. I also have a configured compressor already set up for side chaining.

Save this as part of your template so you do not have to do this over and over again.

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

I can see that if your signed and under serious pressure to produce a vast amount of tracks you should be worried about how fast you can put said tracks together. But, its at this point when the "fun" is turning into "work".

If you have you samples arranged by category(kicks/perc/claps...etc) and your vst's arranged in a way that it is easy for you to find what your looking for then you will become fast by habit.

If you have you program open with the same samples every time your going to be looking for other samples every other track anyway so there is no point in doing that.

VP

keyboard shortcuts

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quote:

Originally posted by meriter Your primary focus should be making good music. That's all. No one gives a shit how you do it. And the people that do are fags.

Been thinking about getting that Stylus RMX, but do you guys think it's worth the $s? Why not just chop loops up?

my 2cts here:

- what tasks do you consider repetitive? think about them, write them down, Automate them
- face your demons and become friends with them by spending more time with them (what holds u up producing and do u really need to get better on, train yourself in that area, rather than postponing with workarounds)
- what are your current distractions? solve them (i.e. that driver that crashes, the same old rifs / loops you try but you don't really like etc.....
- learn to command your daw by keyboard, shortcuts rule! (for a reason)

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