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[Tutorial] How to turn ideas into music
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| kewlness |
I made this thread because I really feel that this is the best approach to producing a track. I've tried to include as much as I can think of and tried to make it applicable to most types of EDM music. Of course, some genres have more emphasis on the melody and others are more emphasizing on the percussion, etc...
How to produce a track
Kick:
I start with the kick because in (most) trance, it uses 4/4 kick (duh). Just have one kick every beat and there you go, you have the basic kick pattern. Now work on getting a clean crisp kick read up on compression and various other threads on TA such as these ones:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=171477
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=158342
Bass
Determine a good arrangement of bassline notes. This is just a temporary arrangement which may or may not change later. Play the kick and the bass only. Make sure they fit like a glove.
Also read up on these links
http://www.fuktstereo.com/music-pro...wn/mixdown.html
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=127430
Percussion
Hi hats, claps, snares, bongos, etc... The more layers you have, the thicker fuller percussion you will have. Be sure to make use of panning, delay, shuffle, gating to get a interesting full sounding percussion. I'll leave it at that since there are so many different types of percussion you could do.
Pads, Strings, Arpegitated synths, etc...
Determine what your chords for your track are gonna be. The pads, strings, arepegitated synth are the elements of your tracks that will draw out the chords for your track. Make sure they sound full while not taking up too much space in the whole mix. Also note that depending on your style, these may or may not be important at all.
Melody
Now you may be thinking why am I ignoring the melody until now. When I compose a track, I tend to leave the melody until the end. Why? Because this tends to make the producer focus more on the sound and structure of the track instead of some one-line riff that repeats itself over and over again. If you take a listen to the classic tunes such as suburbain train and cafe del mar, the melodies in those tracks are simple yet effective. Why?? Because the way it fit the rest of the track, not how the rest of the track fit the melody.
Arrange the track
Arrange the track now. Make the intro, breakdown, build-up, whatever ;)... Try to find an interesting and unique arrangement.
Preliminary mixing
Fix the stuff that just doesn't work. You may think to yourself "Hmm... That clap i added... It just isn't as good as I thought". DO NOT BE HESITANT TO TAKE ANYTHING OUT THAT DOES NOT SOUND GOOD!! That is one of the greatest obstacles i have had to overcome as a producer and has took me very very long to accept but once I learned how to do that, I feel my overall track quality has jumped by a lot. Be ready to add extra synths/perc, remove synths, fix anything that does not work, listen to the overall mix and tweak it to get a good sounding mix. Also, I find that most really great tracks often incorporate several "background synths" which you don't really notice when you listen to track. But when you really listen carefully, you hear these instruments and they really really add more interest and harmony to your track. Now is the perfect time to add these things especially if your mix doesn't sound "full")
FX
This adds atmosphere and makes the track a into a helluva more interesting one ;)
Final mixing + mastering
Stop everything first. Take several of your favourite tracks of a similar sound/genre with your own track. What makes those track BETTER than your own track? Listen for the mixdown. Try to get a good feel of what they did to make it sound so good. Now open up your project again and listen to your own track. Anything just doesn't sound too good? Take it out! Don't be hesitant. Keep refining your work until you have a good sound to your mix. Now is where you get down to business with the mixdown. Again, listen to your favourite tracks over and over.
A couple things to watch for here:
1) Does the bass and kick fit together like a glove?
2) Strings and pads and midrange synths are often the culprit to a muddy mix. Try to decrease some of the frequencies from 200-800hz by no more than -5 dB.
3) Percussion... How are the dynamics on them?
Do they sound like:
DaDaDaDaDaDaDa
Or more like:
daralalalallallalalalal
Make sure they sound like the former. You want a jumpy rhythm, not one that makes you go to sleep unless you are doing a more chillout type track and even then, the percussion has to have dynamics as well. If your percussion feels jumpy but your overall track still feels a bit empty, feel free to add small amounts of reverbs to your mid-high frequency percussion elements.
Now you have to look at the overall volume of the track. Chances are, it is clipping if you haven't added a limiter/compressor already. Now, the tricky part here is you want to add some compression to your track so that the loud points are not too much louder than the soft points. By compressing your track, you can lower the difference between these 2 points and also raise up the overall volume of the track making it sound much louder. If possible, try to use a multi-band compressor. This allows you to treat different frequencies of your track seperately and lets you have a much better mixdown. One thing you have to watch out while compressing is that you DO NOT OVERCOMPRESS. Too many people make the mistake that if a track sounds louder, it will sound better and more exciting and people will play it more. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Overcompressing makes your track lose its life and bounce.
Read these 2 phrases:
| quote: | OVERCOMPRESSING IS WRONG AND MAKES YOUR TRACK LOSE ALL ITS EFFECTIVENESS AND YOU CAN COMPARE IT TO A BABY CRYING BECAUSE IT IS JUST NOISE AND NO ONE REALLY CAN REALLY LISTEN TO IT FOR LONG BEFORE THE SOUND ANNOYS THEM JUST LIKE READING THIS SENTENCE GETS ANNOYING BECAUSE I AM USING CAPSLOCKS AND NO SENTENCE STRUCTURE AT ALL.
By properly arranging a sentence, you can make it more interesting. This is similar to proper compression. Because I am typing in sentences without using capslock, this phrase is much easier to read. This is just like proper compression which makes your track much more pleasing to the ear. |
Finally, take a final look at the frequencies. Use a spectral analyzer. You know there is something wrong if you see very little treble and all bass or the other way around. Using something like a 32-band EQ or a parametric EQ, tweak the overall mix slightly; do not adjust anything more than 1 dB. Also, remember that it is better to reduce than boost. Adjust your compressor settings again to accomodate your EQ changes.
FINAL WORD
You may wonder why I say this following order. Well, the main reason I do it in this order is because it is the most logical and most flexible way to work on a track. The bass depends on the kick. You need to get the bass sorted out before you can sort out the higher frequencies. The percussion needs to work with the kick. The pads/strings/arppegitated synths need to follow with the bass. The melody follows a certain chordal structure which is defined by the pads/strings/arppegitated synths.
The kick and the bass are the most fundamental parts of the track... it is like the foundation of a building. Without a good solid kick and solid bass, the rest of the following are just going to sound like crap. You HAVE to sort this out first. Also, contrary to what many people do, I tend to work on the melody at the end. Good memorable tracks aren't focused too much on the melody but rather the overall arrangements, the kick, the bass, the pads, the fx, and all the little details that don't really stand out but are heard.(unless you are talking about the tracks in ULTRA DANCE ANTHEMS 2004 or something) Arrangement is far more important than melody. If the melody is good, it does not mean the arrangement will sound good. But if the arrangement is good, the melody WILL sound good.
Well I hope this has helped in some ways. This thread took me quite a while to type out so you better benefit from it :whip: !!! Also, feel free to agree/disagree and whatnot. Also, if you are newb, check out the READ HERE BEFORE YOU POST thread!
best of luck |
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| Tranc3 |
Wow nice stuff man, looks very complete
Edit: Even though it's stickied, a link to the mastering thread in the mastering section of your post wouldn't hurt =) |
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| snotbubbl1 |
i somewhat disagree on having to start off with melody first, or going in that order in general, artists such as Midway, for example, he says he starts off with the melody first and then the rest, some people like to do it this way, or the other way. but in general i believe its a matter of preference, ur creativity, how ur brain works, and how u hear things. depending on the track, i may start off with the kick and bass and other percussion, and other times, i may start off with just an ambient version, and build a breakbeat or other track around it. but all a matter of preference. as long as the job gets done to ur satisfaction
good topic and post though |
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| MrCowski |
The order depends a lot on what style it is though. In a techno/tech-trance track, obviously the kick and bass are going to be mucccch more important than melody. But, if you make something along the lines of flutlicht or airbase, or even generic armin style uplifting (depending on the track), the melody is THE single most important part of the track (that and the general atmosphere), so it's better IMO to make the pads first (just to get chords), write a melody from that, and then use the melody to see what the bass and kick sound like.
Other people may do things differently though.
And you say a good arangement makes a good melody? I've heard countless songs where I've loved everything about the track other than the melody (great arangement), and never listened to it much. |
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| kewlness |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrCowski
And you say a good arangement makes a good melody? I've heard countless songs where I've loved everything about the track other than the melody (great arangement), and never listened to it much. |
i guess what i wanted to say more was that if you have a good arrangement, it will enhance the melody... a lot of the great tracks out there i notice are mostly based on a well arranged and put together track with a decent melody going along with it that fits very well.. tracks that are coming into mind are DJ tiesto - Suburban train, Lost Tribe - Gamemaster... Relatively simple melody... awesome choonage :toothless
I guess what i'm trying to say is, focus on the elements of the track more on the melody itself... granted, the melody is still important, but it is not the only important element of the track...
thx for the replies ;) |
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| Psy-T |
| allthough producing with a 'system' can make you work faster and stuff, it can be bad for you, coz it limits your creativity to doing things in the same way over and over again. |
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| BIKKEL |
| Some people saied on this topic that you first should make the pad and then the melodie but is this a must of can it also sounds good if you first make a melodie and after this a pad? |
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| Tomas_P |
A very nice tutorial :)
It depends on the genre of the track how i start , if it's a drum 'n bass track i start off with the bests and go from there , if i'm working on a hiphop track i start with a simple bassloop or some other loop i really should be using becouse of sample clearing :D
Same with bigbeat or any other genre that is based up on beats.
But when i'm doing trance i start off with the melodie and then i work on the bassline and make it fit the melodie , since in my oppinion trance is more about the melodie than the beats , the beats are the easy part :D |
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| Vizay |
great post, more stuff like this is really needed to answer the questions people are asking here over and over again :)
I would also like to add one thing about final mixing + mastering, DON'T mix them up, they are two complete different things!
Saying that parts of the final mixdown is mastering (that I know some people here have done) is totally wrong and theese two elements should not be mixed up with eachother :) |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vizay
I would also like to add one thing about final mixing + mastering, DON'T mix them up, they are two complete different things!
Saying that parts of the final mixdown is mastering (that I know some people here have done) is totally wrong and theese two elements should not be mixed up with eachother :) |
Now that's just nitpicking. |
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| MoonMan |
| Info like this goes a long way.. Superb :toothless |
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