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Starting from scratch
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| Stephen Wiley |
This thread does not pertain to me, as I have learned a little over the past year, but what are your recommendations for starting from scratch?
reading the ableton manual, getting good vsts, midi controller - all that aside.
what I have been doing is writing down things I want to do. quick examples: snare/kick rolls and builds with automation, understanding reverb to its fullest potential, etc. Rather than writing loops (I do save some of what I do, but not for specific loop purposes in a track down the road) or trying to layer a track, I have practiced emulating sounds that I want to eventually all throw together. I'm working with drums and bass and the lower frequencies at the moment and trying to master side chaining and isolation of all the lower frequencies for perfect harmony. I believe music is 90% composition and 10% engineering but I can't compose if I can't get to sound proper, lol. I actually know quite a bit about engineering as it relates to Trance and am trying to learn and apply it to Trance composition.
But back to the question - In your opinion what is the best way for somebody to learn? I've been told by 2 different well respected producers to learn to layer with others loops first, just for practice. I adamantly disagree with this because it didn't teach me anything. I literally have a list of things that I want to learn and I just check them off as I go. What do you guys think? |
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stephen Wiley
learn to layer with other loops first |
I think that is a great place to start because you can't get away from the fact that this music is loop based. listen to any song any genre and there are distinct loops of sounds. doesn't matter if it's percs, melody, pads whatever, it all is fundamentally loops of varying length. I think as soon as I accepted that and changed my approach accordingly my work moved forward. |
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| Anarkey |
Read.
Learn a little music theory.
Read.
Practice a little with the hardware you got.
Read. |
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| owien |
well for me at the current time of answering this question has or will lead me to give you a slightly odd answer.
because we can delve into pages and pages of countless methods and technicality's as to the process of how i go about making tracks.
but if the truth be told i haven't got foggiest idea.
its like this:i open fl lay down the kick drum make a bass line add some good basic looping and wait until i hear something, allowing the track to come alive.
so basically what ever i hear i make.(i think i am lucky in doing this), because simply put I can! |
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| Stephen Wiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Floorfiller
I think that is a great place to start because you can't get away from the fact that this music is loop based. listen to any song any genre and there are distinct loops of sounds. doesn't matter if it's percs, melody, pads whatever, it all is fundamentally loops of varying length. I think as soon as I accepted that and changed my approach accordingly my work moved forward. |
Right, I understand that. I still don't understand how making a track with others loops is going to help me in the long run. Everybody knows loops are used to make tracks. I don't disagree with that and find it odd that somebody could. What I don't understand is how does using somebody elses loops help me in the long run. It just seems to me that learning to do things that are important (depending on which genre you want to produce) would be the place to start. It is measurable progress and I've found it to be very gratifying. Before I started doing this production was so discouraging - I would sit in Ableton for hours and close it out feeling I learned nothing. Now I sit down with a specific list of things to learn and practice and I have a direction and way to measure things. The goal of this thread was to get others ideas on learning. I, and I'm sure many others (veterans included), are always looking for new ways to learn. |
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| Stephen Wiley |
We should develop a general check list of things people need to learn to do for Trance composition. No bull! Let's get started....I'll compile them all as we go LOL. (I will sort them, with everybodies help, in easiest to most difficult order once we have a nice list)
Drum/Snare roll build up with automation
Creating tension using low pass filters and volume reduction
General Automation, how and when to use it
Side chaining with a compressor and a gate
Understanding how to isolate frequencies and the importance of it
Understanding Reverb & Delay - How and when to apply them
Understanding Compression - How and when to apply it
Creating "wooshing" and "sweeping" sounds
The use of vocals
Time stretching vocals
General EQing
.....that's all for now off the top of my head. |
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| Subtle |
Thats a good idea.
But i dont think it works like that, you have to develop the ear to hear when and why to all these things.
When you are able to hear when and why to use these techniques, THEN you can start learning how. And after that practicing the use of the technique.
The more music you make, the more your ear will start to open up and you`ll be able hear what a track needs and to improve your outcome.
For example, before starting to learn sidechain, you have to be in a situation where you actually hear that this bass, pad or whatever could be improved by sidechain.
The same applies to everything you have posted in the checklist.
So my advice is, learn the techniques when you can hear that you might need them in your track, not just because you know they exist. |
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| Dreamtea |
Using loops will help you develop a ear for how the loops are built,
and in the long run it will make it easier for u to construct your own. |
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| Stephen Wiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Dreamtea
Using loops will help you develop a ear for how the loops are built,
and in the long run it will make it easier for u to construct your own. |
See, I just disagree. It's been a while and I don't feel that it has helped me at all. Listening to other loops, yes, but building an entire track with them, no. |
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| Subtle |
If using loops or presets will make your music better, use them.
If ur using drumloops you will get better results faster because then you can move on to doing something different in the track as arranging and composing. And when the drum loops no longer satisfy your needs, you can start learning stuff from scratch. |
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| Storyteller |
There are a couple of things which I consider to be important.
- Get a circle of (online) friends with some experience around you which can support you with constructive criticism/feedback. This enables you to grow into music production at a fast pace.
- Make sure you have a proper samples as a resource. Having proper sounding samples drastically improves the sound of your productions.
- Find good VST's. Instruments as well as effects. Good free ones would include Synth1, TLsmaximizer, Flux bittersweet. These are 3 plugins I use (and like) a lot.
- Don't get bogged down. Time+effort(+talent) equals the result. You'll get better over time.
Important things to understand about music would be the following imo:
- Understand which sounds/elements a track should/needs to have. The ability to identify these things comes as you spend more time on music production+listening. Try writing down a visual lay-out of a song and it's layers of sound. Se what things happen in the track. You'll notice some tracks are amazingly simple and others are incredible complicated by small changes every few seconds.
- Understand the interaction between elements. What does element#1 add to #2 and vice versa. How do they work separate and/or together.
- Understand what makes certain tracks more exciting than others. This is a very subjective field so you're allowed to have a different opinion than anyone else. If you're able to identify what makes a track exciting you should be able to make exciting music yourself :)
Then there are the technical aspects such as compression, eq, reverb and delay. Some people don't know what they do but know how to get proper results out of the above mentioned effects. It's not so much about what they do, you just need to know when to apply them in order to improve the results. That should be enough. Of course it is recommended that you do some reading so you know what these effects do and how they work :).
With some dedication and hard work you'll most likely learn about all stuff I mentioned. |
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| Stephen Wiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subtle
Thats a good idea.
But i dont think it works like that, you have to develop the ear to hear when and why to all these things.
When you are able to hear when and why to use these techniques, THEN you can start learning how. And after that practicing the use of the technique.
The more music you make, the more your ear will start to open up and you`ll be able hear what a track needs and to improve your outcome.
For example, before starting to learn sidechain, you have to be in a situation where you actually hear that this bass, pad or whatever could be improved by sidechain.
The same applies to everything you have posted in the checklist.
So my advice is, learn the techniques when you can hear that you might need them in your track, not just because you know they exist. |
The whole point of the check list would be to make the learner aware of these things so they could recognize them when producing. We could go into detail on the checklist, teaching the user many common ways to learn this technique. We'll take your sidechain for an example. Many wouldn't know how helpful this is for muddled low frequencies. In the check list, we could explain all this, and even provide a before & after example. Do you have any idea how much time and effort this would save new learners? Many who start havn't a clue as to what these terms mean or that they even existed, much less how to apply them. Putting a "picture with a face" or a sound/write up with the check list would be great as well. Think of it as a composition tutorial that focuses on the majority of what is important.
When I first began, I knew the compressor was more important than other audio effects, but I had no idea just how much more important it was. Creating an essential checklist tutorial would be so helpful in my opinion. |
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