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Does the kind of gear you use affect how you make tracks?
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
From the "John O' Callaghan" thread:
| quote: | Originally posted by richg101
there were tracks being made in 1999 that were made entirely on pentium 2's with 64megs of ram. and they sound just as full and as what producers are doing now. they just had to make do back then. |
| quote: | Originally posted by derail
I used to work like this - leave the whole project open, don't commit to any sounds, always leave sounds open to "just one more little tweak, or maybe I'll work out in a month that the sound won't cut it and try something totally different". It can drag out the process heaps.
These days, almost all my sounds come from hardware. And the sounds that come from software, I treat like hardware - find the right sound, work out what I want it to do and commit to it - lock it down, turn it into audio. Sure, I still have the MIDI sequences and brief notes telling me the synth/ patch used, if I want to re-record it. But it's much easier to work it out beforehand, then record it and lock it down. It's like that quote - "measure twice, cut once" - I think it relates to carpentry, housebuilding, something like that. But it's equally applicable in music. Get a clear idea of what you want to do, then do it and move on to the next task.
I finish tracks much, much more quickly than I used to and they sound much better as well. After a while one learns that there are better, more fundamental ways to spend one's production time than to tweak a little sound for hours only to decide it doesn't really work and scrap it. (But that's probably a necessary and valuable part of the learning process) |
Interesting thoughts. I've been wondering about how the tools that producers use affect their working process and maybe even the final result, the finished track.
It seems like we're spoiled these days, because software and computers make it a lot easier to just diddle around with VSTs and leave tracks in an unfinished state. I'm guilty of that most of the time.
It's also really easy to get distracted with software, since if you get frustrated with one synth you can just open another right up and start fooling around with it. I think that working the way that derail was talking about, leaving every part of the project open-ended, might make it harder to be "goal-directed" in your production process, and might end up dragging things on. All the options can tempt you to fool around, because simply playing around with your synths is fun and it's also a lot easier than actually working toward a finished track.
;)
So I think about it this way: What if I had just a couple analog synths, a drum machine, and a computer with a memory big enough for only a couple tracks? I think that it would force me to be a lot more focused in my production process and get things done more quickly; it would force me to *commit* to sounds and tracks rather than just letting them sit inert on my hard drive.
Or maybe I would just get frustrated and give up altogether. :p
I dunno, what do you think? How do your production tools influence your production process? |
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| celestial thug |
not much to be honest. I have been producing since 92-93, starting out with trackers, moving on to hardware centered around the Roland w30 and we were a couple of guys adding hardware untill we had our first pc capable of running cubase, and when vst's started to appear i pretty much made a full switch to software. I know that "puritans" insist that there is difference in sound from hardware to software, but in the production of a track i much prefer the mobility the new way of producing offers, as opposed to being glued to a studio that altso costs rent money, all to gain an advantage that NOBODY but a little inbred crowd of producers would even notice.
electronic music was a lot simpler when i started out, even in the hardware phaze. It is as you say, you were pretty much limited to what the hardware would let you do, and it shaped the sound of the day. Today is another ball of wax entirely, and one of my favorite takes on it comes from Bill from Cosmosis who is an good sound engineer.
i dig this view:
http://www.cosmosis.co.uk/cms/index...id=44&Itemid=40
Atm. im on a as simple a setup as it gets, but it means that i can take it with me if i so wish. And the bonus is that i can do more with my lap or desktop running software, than i ever could in a whole studio filled up with crap in the 90's
tracking music will make you understand what youre made of, especially 4chn 8bit tracking because such a harsh limitation really puts up a challenge if you want it to sound just tolerable. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by celestial thug
I know that "puritans" insist that there is difference in sound from hardware to software, but in the production of a track i much prefer the mobility the new way of producing offers, as opposed to being glued to a studio that altso costs rent money, all to gain an advantage that NOBODY but a little inbred crowd of producers would even notice. |
Yeah, I agree with you there.
I guess I was wondering more about the effects on workflow than the difference in sound. |
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| celestial thug |
It was really simple in regard to workflow. With the w30 you can only sample so much, and even with other synths it was often a friggin nightmare just to sync the setup, back then i used a whole lot more time on being a nerd, reading boring endless manuals, spend countless hours on trying to work our sysex so the w30 would be less unpredictable etc.
Vst's and the advent of pure software based production made my life a whole lot easyer leaving more room for creativity, and as you say yourself, this altso contains the clap trap of being completely overwhelmed by the practically endless posabilities the platform provides.
My main reason for hardware is as Bill states, its nice to have a dedicated set of controls for a machine, but even that is questionable these day with the broad choice we have in midicontrollers or motherkeyboards. I got one because i liked its look, took it home for 100$ plugged it in my usb, and it instantly recognised all the synths that are written as they should be, i didnt have to tweak anything but with the most obscure freeware synths i have in my collection. |
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| 3F05Q |
| Derail's comments about doing something then 'locking it down' are in line with some recent ideas of mine. I've done quite a few remixes lately, and realized that when I had a synth part or a vocal part to start out with, I became much more creative with it. So, starting in the next month or so I'm going to try something different... I'm going to pick a key and record a TON of different parts in that key. Arps, pads, leads, basslines... you name it. Not all in the same day either. Just over a week, keep recording things. After that week start cutting and assembling. I think it would be fun, challenging, and could bring out a different kind of creativity. |
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| Kevy Kev |
| quote: | Originally posted by 3F05Q
Derail's comments about doing something then 'locking it down' are in line with some recent ideas of mine. I've done quite a few remixes lately, and realized that when I had a synth part or a vocal part to start out with, I became much more creative with it. So, starting in the next month or so I'm going to try something different... I'm going to pick a key and record a TON of different parts in that key. Arps, pads, leads, basslines... you name it. Not all in the same day either. Just over a week, keep recording things. After that week start cutting and assembling. I think it would be fun, challenging, and could bring out a different kind of creativity. |
Sounds like what I need to do. I browse various synths for numerous hours never to settle on something that I like and always.....always say i will come back to the track later only to start a new track the next day and repeating the same browsing process. If I had just sound libraries on my computer of pads, leads, etc I feel that I could knock out things much faster. I just have a short attention span I suppose.
Too many choices! |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by 3F05Q
Derail's comments about doing something then 'locking it down' are in line with some recent ideas of mine. I've done quite a few remixes lately, and realized that when I had a synth part or a vocal part to start out with, I became much more creative with it. So, starting in the next month or so I'm going to try something different... I'm going to pick a key and record a TON of different parts in that key. Arps, pads, leads, basslines... you name it. Not all in the same day either. Just over a week, keep recording things. After that week start cutting and assembling. I think it would be fun, challenging, and could bring out a different kind of creativity. |
That's a cool idea. Maybe I'll try something like that.
I'm glad I made this thread. :)
Now that I think of it, sometimes I'll come back to old project files or sounds I've made and they'll inspire me. That's actually how the track in my sig finally got going: I was working on some percussion and synths and not really going that quickly, but then I opened up an old project file and found a nice riff I had made, and it ended up fitting the track well, so I made it the centerpiece. |
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| B_man |
I suppose one trap that I fall into, personally, is the right-brain/left-brain musicianship. If I start fleshing out tones on a synth, bang away at a rythm and tweak its timbre I get stuck in the left side of my brain where I need order, appropriate levels, contained FX. Then when I start loading up a synth and playing around with melodies I find myself in a bind trying to remember the inspiration behind the actual track. Technical detail becomes the focus, and I cannot multitask.
The opposite can happen at the piano -- whether it is a piano soundfont or a synth patch: I can gain a whole load of inspiration creating "tunes" and hummable leads but get stuck in the "right brain" artisty of expression and emotion. For me, this causes production to take a back seat once I start "forcing it" to come about.
Relating this to the original post, I have attempted to make things work by seperating the sessions -- with poor results. I think if I work at it harder, I can get my setup somewhere. Basically it works like this: I spend a little bit of time a day working only with drum-loops or synthesizers; tweaking them and creating new presets or loops. One day, I hope to have such a huge stockpile of my own crap that my inspiration clicks better when I start banging away on either a rythm or a lead.
The point is that with software based instruments, you have to organize yourself. I have little organization. At one time, I liked Native Instrument's idea of KORE, where you could organize patch presets in a library-like program. However, I can try to exhibit mastery at what I already have before spending money I don't have.
I love working with soundfonts and sound-libraries. My left brain effectively leaves my right brain alone. However, synths and rythmic mashups becon my left-side-mofo back the center stage in due time for another wave of competing frustration -- back to the drawing board.
By then, I might have enough experience to create necessary patches on the fly. Creating presets based on "theme" is another jingle of mine: my folders are too cluttered with random garbage. If I could simply organize all my samples, synth presets into appropriate moods or genre stabs I just might be more successful at fleshing out the right-brain-left-brain jumble.
Sometimes I feel like a blind man in the middle of a mega-keyboard store. |
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| celestial thug |
| i uploaded THIS, for this conversation, as a showcase of 'locking it down' |
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| richg101 |
nice thread. i used to use full hardware ( stuff like wavetable workstations linked to cubase) and then have to bounce each layer one after the other so i could work in pure audio.
i then moved to vst's. and instantly, my sound impoved but got anal at the same time. i couldnt settle for certain sounds and would sit for hours tweeking. then id go back to the original project where i just had the melody playing on the original random modified preset i had before i spent hours trying to make it fit. i have hundreds of projects now that are unused variants of the final outcomes of tracks i have made. and loads of them have 20 times more soul than the finished outcomes that were tweeked, tweeked and then tweeked some more.
i recently moved back to hardware because i missed the real touchable items. now i make a sound i like on it before even touching any drum sounds. then i build from there. i make a sound i love and then stick to it after the bounce. it means the origianl thought stays true. its hard to get used to but i think ill end up for the better. |
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| derail |
A massive part of choosing the right sounds quickly is to become aware of your own production style/ preferences, and which synths fit your style.
Most synths are capable of producing a wide range of sounds - basses, pads, leads, whatever.
But just because a synth is capable of producing a bass sound which a) sounds fantastic on it's own, and b) has been used by other producers in fantastic sounding tracks, doesn't mean it'll be right for you in your productions.
For me personally, I know Virus C basses (or other earlier or later Virus basses) have been used to great effect in fantastic trance tunes. But I don't use my Virus C for my main bass sound because it doesn't fit my production style.
By and large, I don't buy into the idea of "good" and "bad" sounds, per se. What matters is how these sounds fit into the individual producer's tracks. The Virus bass sound is fantastic, and there are fantastic producers using it.
What I did a while ago (I think it was the Christmas holiday?) - I dedicated the first week of the holiday to setting up sound combinations. I used the same chord progression each time - I wanted to work on my sound, free of any compositional bias. I did use arpeggiators on the bassline and lead line to break it up a bit, just to keep myself sane by introducing a quick, easy bit of variation, but that was it.
I set up 5 each day, just 4 bar loops - starting with one element (say, the kick), then adding another (say, a bass), getting those working together, then adding maybe a percussive loop, then a pad, then a lead, then hihat and snare/clap. I'm sure each producer has a preference for the order they like to build up their sounds. As long as you get to the finished result and it sounds good, it doesn't matter where you start or finish.
So I set up 5 each day, making sure I changed up the use of my synths - sometimes I'd use the NL3 for the bass, sometimes the Virus, and so on. Just finding a sound that fit well, that sounded good with everything else.
Then, at the end of each day I'd listen to the day's efforts and notice that some sounded good, some sounded bad...I just made notes, plus I ranked the songs from first to last, how they came together overall.
When the week was up I had 35 tracks done, each one focussed on trying to get a real quality sound together. (it was a big commitment, each day I was in the studio for 6-7 hours - working on the same damn chord progression! It's amazing how different a chord progression can sound, with different sounds/ arpeggiations - oh - I also varied the tempo, so each day I had a track at 132, 134, 136, 138 and 140 bpm - just to see if I had any potential preferences there).
It was interesting. Some of them sounded great, some of them sounded terrible. And very strong patterns emerged, in terms of certain synths being used for certain types of sounds, in the tracks which sounded great to my ears, as well as those that sounded terrible. This is where I noted, for my personal production style, for the sound I'm currently aiming for, which synths I should/ shouldn't use for certain elements.
I actually kept going for a few days, this time heavily leaning towards my shoulds/ shouldn'ts (but still mixing it up on one of the day's 5 tracks, just in case).
When I used the synths which suited my style better, the overall quality of all the tracks lifted immensely. (I'm using NL3 and Micro Q for my basses currently, by the way)
I learned a lot from this experience - just because a synth is supposed to be excellent for particular sounds, or not well suited to others, doesn't necessarily translate to how I will experience them. Manuel Schleis refers to the Nord Lead 3 as a "pad dream machine" on the Vengeance sound website, and I can totally understand where he's coming from - select some of those pad patches, put some reverb on them and they sound fantastic. But once again, for me personally, other pads in other synths fit better, as good as the NL3 pads sound in isolation.
This process may be valuable for others to try, if they have multiple synths (whether hardware or software, makes no difference). It may be quite enlightening to find out that maybe you own a synth which is marketed as "great for leads", but in your case another synth works better in that department and the "great for leads" synth may be perfect for your basslines.
In terms of some of the themes in this thread - I have separate sessions for composition and actually creating the mix. Sure, when composing I'll select a nice sound, add some delay, reverb etc, but in a very quick and dirty fashion. It's just to inspire me enough to get the melodic idea down. Same goes for adding a bassline, pad and other "that'll do for this purpose" sounds. Then I'll export the melodic idea and leave it in a "holding area" on my hard drive, which I listen through occasionally. Sometimes it takes a little while to recognise a good idea, as well as to recognise a bad idea (back in the day I used to spend a long time on a bad idea, trying to make it work). So the ideas stay there and I'll keep coming back to them and it becomes quite clear which ones I'll take further.
Then, when I've decided to create a track based on one of my melodic ideas, I approach it as a remix and get it done in a weekend - the sound gets built from the ground up, whatever I feel will work for that tune. After a couple of hours the main loop/ main sounds are together and I'm basically working with the final "mastered" sound the track will have, then I work out the journey of the track/ the energy flows (generally on paper, out of the studio - I just let my imagination go, come up with a rough plan, in terms of the sections, the arrangement at various points - just very general). Overall, from start to finish a track takes around 10-16 hours currently. Generally in 2 sessions over a weekend, sometimes a third session may be necessary. But it's really a case of work out what I want to do, get it done, then let the track go. As celestial thug said in another thread, it may not be good to hang on to a track for months until it's "perfect". In some cases that may be okay. But if a label approaches you for a remix and wants it in two week's time, then it's good to know you can deliver a quality remix in that time, rather than asking the label to hang on for three months while you get it perfect...maybe six months...
I could go on for ages in this thread, but I'll stop now...hopefully it'll be interesting/ helpful to some of you. I started off making some of the world's worst trance tunes ever (my poor friends who had to listen to them....), finishing a tune maybe every 6 months, spending maybe 100, 200 hours on a single tune, tweaking little sounds for hours, then throwing them out...it was all part of my learning experience. I just keep focussing on what I still need to improve...keeps me humble and keeps me improving... |
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| celestial thug |
| Once again i can only declare myself in full agreement with you derail. I have tried the same approach, but found it a better method to just work out a track from the first kick. But i keep all my failures and often bits and pieces find their way into new tracks. |
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