Explain your workflow!

deckme(N)tal · Post by **deckme(N)tal** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:33 am

I would like to know how all of you start to build a song....
Drums, melodies, ukulele samples???

thanks!

Lo-Fi Massahkah · Post by **Lo-Fi Massahkah** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:17 am

In an ideal world (this has only happened a few times) - I start with making a chord structure, melody and lyrics on guitar or piano. Then I make a beat and/or a bassline and bring the song more into an electronic context.

More often than not I just sit by the computer and my synths playing (as in toying around), maybe a song structure will grow - most likely not, though...

Cheers,
Mikael

deckme(N)tal · Post by **deckme(N)tal** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:22 am

i often start from drums and after i layer bass/synths/samples/scratches over...i get loops but i have troubles too to build some not boring song structure....

anyway i find easier to build melodies over drums and not the other way around...
I have a lot of free/commercial vst-synths.... (more free ones..

) but i am trying to narrow to the best 4-5...i am using Albino and Korg Legacy a lot...in these times...

andrew_ · Post by **andrew_** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 8:36 pm

1. messing around
2. organizing the messes forever and ever

kennerb · Post by **kennerb** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:24 pm

For a good portion of what I do I record my framework sounds in session view. Most of the time I start with drums and bass. I make many variations of scenes. When I like a combo I grab the scene and move it to arrange view. From here I figure out the song structure. I usually start moving the clips from the scene and make them either 8 or 16 measures long (depending on what "genre" I am working on. I copy these to be moved into the next instance of that scene, again depending on the structure. Once I get that hammered out I add vocals if I am using them. I then add elements. Then I go to the very beginning and work through the overall sound measure by measure until I like the fit. I then listen to the whole thing and readjust the master eqs, volume, and compression.

Other times I just jam and weed out snippets of what I think sounds good.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:27 pm

Operator, then phatmatik, then reaktor, then a bunch of effects, then turning things on/off at random while tweaking everything, slap on a limiter, render.

funk313 · Post by **funk313** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:10 pm

i always start with a beat and try to make it sing or sound inspirational (god i hate that word) then i pour myself a nice cup of battery acid and imagine myself being Bernie Worrel in a middle of a ParliaFunkadelic jam..chord progressions is also a good startin point, but often i think its more difficult to make a nice bassline to it than vice versa..after that i adjust the beat (kix and hats) to the bassline..make the lead or whatever..and then i start arranging..some times i mail a sketch to my dj friend to hear his opinion before i start going further..after that i try to get it played in a club to see peoples reaction and to check out the over all mix...then i pour myself a nice cup of battery acid and imagine myself being Rick James with jerry curls n shit..

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:07 pm

i used to start a track using a drumbeat first but doing that i realised that i never really knew how the track was going to sound at the end .it s was a bit of time wasting as you just end up tweaking with parameters until you get something good .

now i do the complete oposite , the drums are my least concern when i start a song .i start by creating a structure on paper then get pop some liric if it s a pop track ,then the chords , doing that you end up knowing what it's going to sound like when it's done & you basicly know what you are doing .

when it come to record & mix the track ,i end up doing the drums first but only when i have a finished track .

ICLigt · Post by **ICLigt** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:41 pm

It all depends on what may have transpired. Sometimes I might've dropped a spoon or fork on the floor and liked a particular rhythm in the way it sounded and would sit on the PC in LIVE and try to replicate that and I would go on from there. Mostly, I would cycle through my sample library of sounds and find something that I like and work around it from there. THere is no set pattern for the way I work, otherwise I think life and the music one would make would be boring. Mostly whether I'm inspired or not I just play around with the things I have. From serious play comes serious work.

charles-l · Post by **charles-l** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 6:25 pm

hi

most dance music seems to be made from the beats then bass and upwards - that can create a great groove. However i take a different route firstly i start with the chords structure then melody, then start layering it with pads etc. finaly i add bass and beats lastly. I think it makes a more inspirational track.

check out my website www.silver-kyoto.com
it sounds a bit rusty as its prior to my ableton days

cheers charlie

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 6:39 pm

Starts with a trip to Tower, Easy Street or a used CD / Vinyl store
Find hard to get classic funk jams - maybe some 80's new wave
Import song into Pro-Tools
Cut out the funkiest loops and breaks
Export to .wav
Arrange and reaarange funky loops in Ableton
add drum loops and fx
edit
bounce

start over again

I've just decided a name for a studio (spare bed room w/ a computer)

"Liesure Time Studios"

a

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:05 pm

This is actually something I've been rethinking in the last week or so...

Lately I've been working on tracks by starting from a blank Live and building everything from the ground up, but it always takes waaay too long to finish a track this way, and I usually lose the inspirational idea that started it all off.

So I'm going back to my old ways, which seem to work much better...

Basically I work on creating individual loops....work out a really good drum track loop, say 64 measures. I can spend a day or two on the drum loop and end up with a finished product I am happy with. So I go along creating whatever loops I feel inspired to create, trying to loosely keep things in mind such as tempo and key. Basically I am creating stems at this point.

Periodically I will have a jam session in session view, where I jam on all these loops I've created...I'm recording the jam into arrange view while it's happening.

Next I take the arrange view jam I've recorded and cut out the fat, tighten up the good parts, and generally work on details (cut-n-paste stuttering, automation, levels, etc...)

Booyaa!! A nice track is complete!! The best part is that even after the track is done I have all the stems so I can remix it all in realtime live for even more fun.

After trying lots of different approaches I have found this to be the best workflow for me. If I can't complete an idea in a day or two, I usually lose it. With this method I can create complete thoughts in a day or two, and still use them to create a tight arrangement, without the cerebral quality my arrange view creations typically have.

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:01 pm

I do instrumentals and songs. Sometimes the instrumentals will get vocals on top, then they are songs.

For instrumentals:
sometimes just dropping in the beat first. I like to put together multiple drumkits, and add effects particularly with latin beats, I call this "psy-latin". Then a bassline, then melody.

Other times I will create a more or less random sequence of notes, usually 16ths because I just like that. Then beats go underneath, effected vocals and other stuff on top.

For songs, these are more structured:
Sometimes I have some lyrics that come to mind, and then put those to a molody.

Other times I have a melody, and I mumble syllables to it until they remind me of words, and then string the words together.

The songs I play more or less as pre-determined Live sets, and sing over them Live, with some MIDI controller embellishments.

I think the hardest part for me is not sure when the repetition is too much.

A couple of times I have done an instrumental then played it back, and started to improvise melody and lyrics over this, but I have not done this live. I see this as the pinnacle of achievement, to be able to do that live with Live, where a complete song just appears, sprung fully formed like Pegasus from the severed head of Medusa. I can do this with nonsense syllables, but with real words thus far it seems only to happen on the kitchen table late at night.

Winterpark · Post by **Winterpark** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:39 am

one way is...

find a sound i like, and a chord progression that goes well with it.

get a weird glitchy groove that helps me stay in time, so i don't have to have the click going.

play lots melodies on keys, or guitar, or singing, or glock, or whatever is lying around... record them all.

make a new chord progression which acts as a counterpoint to some of those melodic lines...

work on a drum line to go above the glitchy drum line, that fits with melodies...

play bass.

play different parts in session view, recording into arrange view...

mix, fix and edit.

:)m

scifish · Post by **scifish** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 1:12 am

i start with a plain liveset - just wanting to make music. so i try to make a good and kicking techhouse drumgroove.

i always use simpler for the bassdrum (so that i can adjust it more precisely than just using impulse; and also can loop regions of the basssinewaves to make it longer sometimes), add 2 impulses and my typical fx-chains for filtered percussions and hihats. then i seek samples....just throw them into impulse when i found something good (the bassdrum is the hardest thing, because i change my mind very often, even when the drumgroove is in a nearly ready stage), make some grooves, adjust my fx chains...

usually i have a little low erosion (sine) on hihats/percs to tear them more together, and a very slight chorus to spread it a little more, works great! if you don't overdo this it will be very dense and pushing.

when i have a good rocking beat with bass, i am trying to find a good main theme. sometimes i don't, and just save the cool drumgroove and start at a later point with that, sometimes i even don't manage to make a cool groove, i am sure everyone knows these frustrating days

when i found some good tonal elements and made some variations of them, i hear it very often in the loop, to see if i have got enough material to arrange (i am always trying to keep tracks above 6 minutes). the decision "now i will arrange this crap" is sometimes very hard, because in my head the track is completly done, but the dirty part just lies in front of one

when i coped with those starting difficulties, the arranging process is done pretty fast. in 2 hours i have a good draft of everything and in another 2 hours the track should be nearly ready. the most important thing is to like the track the next day. in general i have to make some little changes in the builtup or sounddesign, but nothing big in general.

and when i finished the track, i listen to it all day and feel very proud and happy

but...i think everyone does.

this is my usual process on dancemusic, can be very different with ambient.

martin