Hey peeps, I'm new here (hailing from down under) and getting my hands dirty in production moving on from mixing.
What I'm trying to figure out, is where do you guys start when producing a track; I have a few questions:
How do you select key, scale etc, why do you choose a particular key / scale, and how does this dictate the other elements of your track (say I select D, should the melody, bassline, pads etc be situated around this key?).
What do you start with? Kick + bass? just the bassline? melody / lead? Too many times have I started crushing ideas together, then stop and start a new track.
I'm fairly good with getting sounds I want but still have much much to learn. Mostly song structure and music theory.
If anyone has any tips/tricks/pointers on things like writing a melody or bassline, I'd love to hear them
Peace and respect.
knocz
Moderator
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Posted : Jul 27, 2012 06:19
Welcome to the forum!
Quote:
On 2012-07-27 05:14:19, tryptonal wrote:
I'm fairly good with getting sounds I want but still have much much to learn. Mostly song structure and music theory.
Well, that's your next step! Grab an instrument and use it to explore the venues of musical theory, and listen to lost of different styles to expand your mind about structure. Try even not listening to trance, so you can bring something new to the scene
Quote:
On 2012-07-27 05:14:19, tryptonal wrote:
What do you start with? Kick + bass? just the bassline? melody / lead? Too many times have I started crushing ideas together, then stop and start a new track.
That's your biggest mistake (from what you've told us). Try not going to the next song before you finish the one you are at, or you'll be stuck with a ton of incomplete potential songs. If you are good at making new stuff, try learning how to sculpt sound and imagine where you want your track to go.. then build it and make it do what you thought of!
You can start a track on just about anything, and start it anywhere, it really doesn't matter. But at the end you (or someone else) will always have to focus on all the elements and phases of the song and song making. I say start doing what you have the most struggle doing, so if it's percussion start with that, so you can spend more time with that, get it out of the way quicker, not tend to do a bunch of half tracks without any perc because you don't like to do it.
We've got plenty of tips/trick/pointers and there are a lot of big name artists that hang around here, and so much has already been said in past posts. I say study those first, the threads mother of writing melodies and mother of making basslines are just full of great info.
Super Banana Sauce http://www.soundcloud.com/knocz
Thanks for the advice I played the saxaphone many many moons ago but am contemplating learning piano / keyboard to strengthen my grip on theory and more importantly to "touch the music"
I've messed around and spent hours with just a piano roll and it doesnt feel quite right. It lacks flow, doesnt feel organic or human simply far too perfect. Ideally I'd love to let my creativity flow directly into a keyboard, especially at a live event, the 'connection' to the listeners is something that drives me.
Sadly though, the 'start things but never finish them' trait is a bit of a hinderance, but I'm well aware of it so I try hard to overcome it, you can't solve a problem if you don't know it exists right?
I had a look at the "mother of" threads and found some good links under music theory. Thanks for giving me some direction, I appreciate all the help I can get.
well, the 'start things and never finish them' trait is one of those things you can accept and turn into - let's say - beautiful melodies, subtle progressions or FX never heard before. the trick is when you start to feel tired of your track's current state, just sit back and ask yourself "what is it again I am trying to achieve?"
I've asked this from myself several times. the most prevalent answer would be "trying to mess with sounds until they feel 'right'". there we have it. hinderance overcame by an increasing sense of self-integrity (sorry for my english, but perhaps that's the best way to put what I mean). the thing is you are surrounded with a gazilion artists (thanks internet), most of them in completely other phases than you in terms of musical progress - just don't try that hard to be like them right now. you may still be way better than anyone in your own league. don't rush it, don't rush anything, perhaps you're not frank zappa spitting out albums and singles like a madman but i'm pretty sure it's more rewarding to be a slow artist than not to be one.
On 2012-07-27 15:01, tryptonal wrote:
It certainly has made sense =D thanks!
oh, i'm happy then
Quote:
I guess finding the "rightness" in sounds is finding yourself in the music, which to me makes good music.
and not just that - it brings satisfaction, true satisfaction I mean. if you're happy from what you're doing, it also shines through your art. some mild esoterism here, but def not the nonsense one
vipal
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jul 27, 2012 17:10
i am starting to doubt my usual approach where i start with kick and bass. it worked for some time kind of ok but now i am getting bored with it, limiting. but i need some kind of metronome to hear what leads do and also need a scale, which i see, is determined by the bass (i normally adjust kick to bass).
i think every sound creates an expectation for later in the track and good music makes you feel the connection. even in tracks with virtually unexpected moves of sounds. music theory describes the laws of these moves. not talking abt the whole genre of non musical music like some weird dark stuff, respect for it but have no idea abt that.
http://soundcloud.com/vipal
to stay on topic, i do these things almost entirely differently each time. it all depends on what you're track's aim is. if I find myself in the mood to write some groovy but not twisted music, I find it smart to lay down the main groove first. the rest are "details" (in which still a lot lies as we all know )
this given, let's observe the contrary - when I really want to do something twisted and fluid and intense with a lot of layers, I often find myself starting off from the very first seconds of the music - writing music more linerarly, I suppose. in this case, I never lose the "story" in it and thus I can constantly push my music to the appropriate dimensions without worrying about consistency and stuff.
the key (at least for me) is listening to what the music needs, what's in the center of it (if there is such) and what elements need your most urgent attention before the core idea begins to fall apart.
I sometimes take the approach of targeting the centre of the track first, that way as I progress i'll write the track to meet the centre, then stray away from it in the second half.
What you need first are the sounds.
So get down with a synth and experiment. Make your own patches. Make leads, bass, pad and fx stuff. Think about what you may need in a song. Many ideas for your songs may crystallize. If you need inspiration you can try to copy sounds you like from your favorite artist. And remember the context of those sounds. Also note bpm and keys of your chosen music style.
Then you can start laying down bass lines. Adding drums and fx. Making an arrangement from your sounds and thinking about harmonic structure. Build your arrangement around musical ideas, determine their length and overall impact.
Take your time with music theory, learn about scales and how they interact with chord progressions. You need not have only one scale in your songs.
Melody is optional these days, but make sure to try out your lead sounds. 8)
Some melodies just appear in your head and you start humming them. record them, then transcribe them.
Other times you just sit with the sequencer and work towards a melody, one note at a time.
Some people use random phrase generators, where you chose a scale and randomly generate a sequence of chosen length and keep hitting randomize button till you hear something you like.
Try to play ideas that develop through longer periods on top of shorter, looping ideas.
Listen and analyse tracks you like. You will learn much and also get a ball park of how well produced your music has to be to compete with current standards.
Above all experiment!
Equilizyme
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jul 28, 2012 23:30
All the above is good advice, yes i usually start with a kick and then a bassline, then I modulate the bass line to make it a bit more interesting, then add hats and snare, then get to work on some lead noises, or melodies or whatever
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http://soundcloud.com/equilizyme --
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