What is your method? or... procedure... ?

[verine]

Hello all,

I'm new to the forums, but I've been using ableton on and off for about 3-4 years, my biggest influence is probably Nakata Yasutaka, who does the music for jtech groups like Capsule, perfume, MEG and others...

I was wondering,

What is your method, or procedure for creating a song?

do you lay drums, then bass, then melody, etc

or do you get inspire first, and have to lay out the melody so you dont forget it...

these are crappy examples, but you get the idea...


The other thing i want to ask, is tips for a little problem i have...

The reason i've been on and off, is this... I'll get super inspired to write a song, and i'll hear it in my head, and i'll go to make it, and i can't get it to sound the way i want to. This is know is common, however, do you have any tips for not getting completely distracted while making the song?

i'll start out with an idea i love, start to lay stuff down, and then i ALWAYS kind of just.. come to a stand still with my ideas.. and start to tool around on my Midi controller with the beat/chorus playing in the background... eventually i just give up and then get all discouraged..


THANK YOU for giving me any feedback you can!


-Wolfe

p.s. if the solution to the second problem is to just "stop getting distracted" then just tell me that, i was looking to see if any of you run into this problem, and what you do to get around it. thank you again.

[abletony84]

for what it's worth -

do you lay drums, then bass, then melody, etc

you should imagine the music before u try something.. and not waste your energy on ideas that won't work (thanks to Dilla and Cooley for that piece of advice..). also it sounds like u get stuck trying to master your track / mould your sounds while composing?? i believe u should save that goodie for the end also whether drums, bass or melody is first, speaking for myself - doesn't matter, it always comes out sounding the same anyway..

[...] and have to lay out the melody so you dont forget it...

i smoke too much weed i don't have any memory left so i always hum the melody onto a tape recorder first so i don't forget..

eventually i just give up and then get all discouraged..

this is exactly what happens to me too when i get too much of something. maybe start listening to some different records.. different genres.. different eras..

peace

[verine]

also it sounds like u get stuck trying to master your track / mould your sounds while composing?? i believe u should save that goodie for the end also whether drums, bass or melody is first, speaking for myself - doesn't matter, it always comes out sounding the same anyway..

holy shit, thats EXACTLY what i do... wow haha, i was writing this thread thinking to myself, "i'm going to get flamed for not being specific enough or something" haha,

... but yeah! thanks for summing up my problem...

Basically i'll be playing with the song and before i even get through the first verse i'm like messing around with all the sounds and everything... So you would say, get the actually like SONG down before messing with the shape and style of the sounds?... if that makes sense?


thanks for replying

[Alextronica]

Somebody on this forum posted about the difference between Sound Design and Song structure. There is also the aspect of figuring out how to set it up to be played Live.

I'm sorry who ever you are I wish I could quote you exactly but it really helped me alot.

I've been spending a lot of time organizing my samples into Drum kits and making presets for my synths. I think writing will come a lot easier after I make the tools I need to make the song.

For me its all about making tiny pieces and building a library of those piece so they become bigger pieces and so on. While at the same time knowing what made those pieces so you can go back and make more similar ones with slight variations.

Its a lot of organization, So its been a slow road of renaming things when I start to see the bigger picture.Its just my theory and I'm only half through implementing it.

Hope that helps