Your Workflow...
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Pitch Black
- Posts: 6722
- Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2002 2:18 am
- Location: New Zealand
- Contact:
Tjwett, I know exactly how you feel. Doing music for a job - while often the-best-thing-in-the-world gets me down sometimes. I think "Oh my god this is supposed to be my passion, If I don't have the passion for THIS what am I gonna do?" This morphs into "Listening to music for pleasure - absurd!" Then after a while I come around to "Recreational music - what a novel idea!" And finally I hear something inspiring and its "Oh yeah baby!"
The double edged sword about doing music for a living, and especially dare I say it electronic music, is that its hard sometimes to switch off and hear it as MUSIC. Unless the music "takes me away" I find I'm kinda still working when I listen: "Oh yeah, I can hear what they did there, thats probably such-and-such a synth with a blah blah style drum pattern and a sound influenced by blah blah". I'm always de-coding it as I listen.
There's so much derivative music in our field, and as you listen to more stuff, you get to know the tricks used. In electronic music I think its so much about the quality of IDEAS, because once somebody comes up with new sound, its easy for people to recreate it on their gear without too much trouble. And so it is harder to create something original and you have to dig deeper to find new inspiring things.
That said, I LOVE IT when I hear something fresh that blows me away, and I connect with music again. I love the feeling of "Oh yeah this is JUST WHAT I WANNA HEAR RIGHT NOW!" I go to a metal gig (hey, it happens sometimes!) and get-into-it "OH YEAH THIS IS GREAT! ALL OTHER MUSIC IS WOOSY AND WEAK! RRRAAAAAGGGGHHHH" or someone introduces me to a CD by Sigar Ros and i think "Oh what beautiful desolation - I didn't know music could do this".
Hang in there, fang out on your bass - go those big-ass SAT.IS.FY.ING frequencies! - listen to music for pleasure away from the studio - We're all looking for that "yeah baby" feeling. We are musical creatures instincively, our physics defines it - our brains and minds have no choice.
[quote "The Abyss"]
"Your body WILL remember."
cheers
p
The double edged sword about doing music for a living, and especially dare I say it electronic music, is that its hard sometimes to switch off and hear it as MUSIC. Unless the music "takes me away" I find I'm kinda still working when I listen: "Oh yeah, I can hear what they did there, thats probably such-and-such a synth with a blah blah style drum pattern and a sound influenced by blah blah". I'm always de-coding it as I listen.
There's so much derivative music in our field, and as you listen to more stuff, you get to know the tricks used. In electronic music I think its so much about the quality of IDEAS, because once somebody comes up with new sound, its easy for people to recreate it on their gear without too much trouble. And so it is harder to create something original and you have to dig deeper to find new inspiring things.
That said, I LOVE IT when I hear something fresh that blows me away, and I connect with music again. I love the feeling of "Oh yeah this is JUST WHAT I WANNA HEAR RIGHT NOW!" I go to a metal gig (hey, it happens sometimes!) and get-into-it "OH YEAH THIS IS GREAT! ALL OTHER MUSIC IS WOOSY AND WEAK! RRRAAAAAGGGGHHHH" or someone introduces me to a CD by Sigar Ros and i think "Oh what beautiful desolation - I didn't know music could do this".
Hang in there, fang out on your bass - go those big-ass SAT.IS.FY.ING frequencies! - listen to music for pleasure away from the studio - We're all looking for that "yeah baby" feeling. We are musical creatures instincively, our physics defines it - our brains and minds have no choice.
[quote "The Abyss"]
"Your body WILL remember."
cheers
p
I go through periods like now where I have almost no actual creative output but when I am getting totally engrossed in and learning/internalizing/customizing a piece of software or other tool. While it is amazingly frustrating going through it, I always find the time and effort worth it, because it completely streamlines my workflow and makes the tools utterly useful--I wrestle with them long enough that they obey my bidding, and I know which quirks to avoid or work around. The end result is that when I do get that inspiration, I can bring it to realization with almost no conscious effort--the tools become an extension of my hands, and I'm not futzing around in frustration. Practicing software is a lot like playing scales and arpeggios in that regard.
You just have to relax and let yourself not focus on the very short term. By learning the tools you have inside and out (especially the stuff you'll actually use in practice), you set yourself up for fewer frustrations and better inspiration down the road. You may also stumble upon some great new directions while experiementing and stress-testing your rig.
You just have to relax and let yourself not focus on the very short term. By learning the tools you have inside and out (especially the stuff you'll actually use in practice), you set yourself up for fewer frustrations and better inspiration down the road. You may also stumble upon some great new directions while experiementing and stress-testing your rig.
There's no substitute for working with other people too, just to be able to bounce ideas off someone else is sometimes all that's needed. I see less of it happening these days, around where I live anyway. Everyone has their own little home studio and is working away mostly on their own. I sometimes crave the old "forming a band" ethic that I usd to enjoy so much, I don't miss the arguments though. I wish it were more possible to interact musically on forums like this, less emphasis on software and platform and more talk on music and musical ideas.
i agree with Martyn. collaboration is such a great thing. just "jamming" with someone every now and then feels great. in the past it saved me from trashing many ideas and songs too. working with electronic/sample-based music you're bound to be working with some kind of loops at some point while working on a track. often i'll hear that thing loop SOO many times that i'll start to hate it and think it sucks. in reality it's often pretty damn good and letting someone hear it with fresh ears can save you from wanting to kill it. i'm a total victim of this. my little "Projects" folder has close to 200 Live Sets in it, most of which are nothing more than an 8 bar loop that started so strong but i got quickly got sick of. every so often i try get someone over to dig through them with me and jam on the ideas. sometimes a real good track is born. for the rest of them i try to cut them into 10 and 30 second tracks, maybe they'll get used on a radio or t.v. spot down the road someday. computer-based music traditionally doesn't lend itself to "jamming" very well, at least it didn't in the past. Live definitely opened up that door a lot.
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6ela
i know this is probably about the fifth time i've gone on about it, and sorry if i'm boring but i you really should also take a look at Antares Kantos, it's about the best other really good electronic jamming tool I've found because you basically play mad spun-out synth sounds - with quite alot of flexibility with a guitar or other monophonic instument(you cant do chords with it, but yo wouldn't want to)tjwett wrote: computer-based music traditionally doesn't lend itself to "jamming" very well, at least it didn't in the past. Live definitely opened up that door a lot.
I've found with my firewire410 I can get the latency down to 64samples (about 4ms) and very comfortably play it in live with other stuff going on - including reaktor fx after it for that AMP sim type thing - blew me away but playing a synth with a guitar is something i've always wanted to do....if you play real instruments definitely check it out. I use it now to make bass lines - it picks up higher notes more reliably, so i transpose kantos down an octave and play up the fretboard and have made some wicked sounds!!!
http://ww.antarestech.com
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subbasshead
- Posts: 451
- Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2002 8:30 am
- Location: wellington, new zealand
The Listening Book
someone else recomended a book so heres my suggestion
The Listening Book by W.A.Mathieu
i cannot recomend it highly enough
irrespective of your background or aspirations
it will open your ears!
The Listening Book by W.A.Mathieu
i cannot recomend it highly enough
irrespective of your background or aspirations
it will open your ears!
minimal
I agree with Mbazzy.
I think the problem is caused by owing too much stuff... samples, software, plugins etc. For creativity this is killing.
I am trying to play guitar for 22 years now... 22 years, 6 six strings nothing more. The instrument is so 'deep' I am still learning it
The guitar never really let me down. I need to put it away for a couple of weeks now and then and 'rediscover' it.
What also might help is to stop wondering about the end result. I think this is a very tricky aspect of working with software. Since we are able to make everything sound so good, you might try to achieve it as soon as you start recording. Just try to compose and record quickly. Try the punk way of doing: forget about how it sounds, just record it quickly. bang, bang! And you can always change some of the sounds later on.
Think about the composition!!! So much stuff is only interesting soundwise. Compose a nice melody with nice chords. Something that moves people.
Compose and record a lot of things quickly and stop listening to them for a couple of days. Then after a week or so, quickly finish them.
Commit yourself! I am so happy that with Live I am able to record everything straight to audio-files instead of the MIDI way of doing things where you can always change a thing later on. So commit yourself by thinking NOW and play like it's the last thing you did
Some people say you shouldn't record with effects on. I have to say, I do it all the time! Commitment.
Let it flow. Try to become a better player. It really feels good when you THINK about chords and basslines and practice those before you start recording.
I am working on a remix. It is a brazillian song with a very nice vocal and very nice arrangement. I LOVE the original... so it's hard to do a remix. Anyway... here's what I am trying to do:
- at first I imported some of the tracks in Live
- I loved the tracks very, very much.
- I analysed the chords. Complex harmonies so it took me about 2 hours to find out what was going on. Maybe even 3 hours. I used my guitar for this and I have to say I have a lot of experience with brazillian music.
- The next 2 weeks I kept play the track in Live. I soloed only the vocal and I played my acoustic guitar at the same time. It was a little hard to really learn how to play the song. Took me a couple of days to really play it well.
- Yesterday I started recording by using some Native Instruments plugins (Reaktor, Absynth etc.) with Bidule into Live. Since I really knew how the harmonics worked, I could make a couple of cool sounding weird and new fresh changes.
- I haven't finished it... it needs a lot of work still. But I am very happy about it. I am in control since I really 'know' the song.
... good luck!
I think the problem is caused by owing too much stuff... samples, software, plugins etc. For creativity this is killing.
I am trying to play guitar for 22 years now... 22 years, 6 six strings nothing more. The instrument is so 'deep' I am still learning it
The guitar never really let me down. I need to put it away for a couple of weeks now and then and 'rediscover' it.
What also might help is to stop wondering about the end result. I think this is a very tricky aspect of working with software. Since we are able to make everything sound so good, you might try to achieve it as soon as you start recording. Just try to compose and record quickly. Try the punk way of doing: forget about how it sounds, just record it quickly. bang, bang! And you can always change some of the sounds later on.
Think about the composition!!! So much stuff is only interesting soundwise. Compose a nice melody with nice chords. Something that moves people.
Compose and record a lot of things quickly and stop listening to them for a couple of days. Then after a week or so, quickly finish them.
Commit yourself! I am so happy that with Live I am able to record everything straight to audio-files instead of the MIDI way of doing things where you can always change a thing later on. So commit yourself by thinking NOW and play like it's the last thing you did
Some people say you shouldn't record with effects on. I have to say, I do it all the time! Commitment.
Let it flow. Try to become a better player. It really feels good when you THINK about chords and basslines and practice those before you start recording.
I am working on a remix. It is a brazillian song with a very nice vocal and very nice arrangement. I LOVE the original... so it's hard to do a remix. Anyway... here's what I am trying to do:
- at first I imported some of the tracks in Live
- I loved the tracks very, very much.
- I analysed the chords. Complex harmonies so it took me about 2 hours to find out what was going on. Maybe even 3 hours. I used my guitar for this and I have to say I have a lot of experience with brazillian music.
- The next 2 weeks I kept play the track in Live. I soloed only the vocal and I played my acoustic guitar at the same time. It was a little hard to really learn how to play the song. Took me a couple of days to really play it well.
- Yesterday I started recording by using some Native Instruments plugins (Reaktor, Absynth etc.) with Bidule into Live. Since I really knew how the harmonics worked, I could make a couple of cool sounding weird and new fresh changes.
- I haven't finished it... it needs a lot of work still. But I am very happy about it. I am in control since I really 'know' the song.
... good luck!
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mthomashow
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:16 am
- Location: Dublin, New Hampshire
Another plug for W.A. Mathieu's The Listening Book. He has two other fine books, The Musical Life, a collection of essays, and The Harmonic Experience, which is in my view the holy grail of musical awareness. In The Harmonic Experience, a deep and beautiful book, which would take you several lifetimes to fully explore, he teaches you how to appreciate the depth and beauty of resonance and single notes, by introducing and explaining dronal singing. This is just the beginning. There are zillions of interesting musical corners and concepts to explore based on how you cultivate your "harmonic experience." Mathieu has you go back to basics to see the simplicity and complexity, the resonance and depth of musical vibration. There is no better way to get to the core of your musical experience and to reinvgorate your musical awareness than to work with any of these books.
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Nick Maxwell
yep...
Discovering the beauty of single notes is part of the reason I all but left dance music behind a few months ago. Ever since then I feel like I have found my calling musically, and I FINALLY got picked up by a label a couple days ago (sorry if that sounds like pretentious showing off, I am just really proud that it finally happened and I wanted to share with you people), which tells me that perhaps this is the music I am meant to write As the previous poster said, single notes with complex morphing harmonics can be just as beautiful as lush arrangements of multiple notes in more traditional pieces. And although I am not trying to insult your intelligence by pretending you don't understand that less can be more, it some times helps to have other people reiterate the point for it to really sink in. I totally respect what all of you do in the rhythmic music world, but check this out. Maybe all this writer's block could be at least parly remedied by writing music that is radically different, which is a viewpoint I have heard expressed by a few other people in the past on this board. When I used to sit down and write a dance or jazzy type of track, I would spend a long time fiddling with parameters to lock the beat in and such, which can be fun in its own right. However, this kind of thing can sap the creativity right out of you. Try just designing sounds for the sake of the sounds, without so much attention to a definite final product. Nowadays I sit down and just go crazy linking together synths in Reason/Tassman/Reaktor and creating insane atmospheres using the little knowledge of harmonics that I do have. When you have something that sounds cool, do what one of the previous posters said, and just leave it alone. Do this multiple times simply for the goal of creating lots of neat sounds quickly. THEN you can come back and arrange and tweak, and you will have plenty of inspiring material to do with it. It's like one of those "I wrote that??? Awesome!" situations. Your listeners can tell immediately (albeit subconsciously) whether you actually enjoyed writing your music or not.
Well, I hope my pseudo-stream-of-consciousness advice can somewhat be deciphered and used to give you a fresh perspective. Good luck with your writer's block, tjwett, many of us understand what it's like (it's HELL) and you must find a way that works for you to get around it! When nothing else works, I find just walking the fuck away from music (sans the kind you write for work) for a while works wonders. I have a habit of taking month long breaks to watch movies and focus on school more.
- Nick Maxwell
As the previous poster said, single notes with complex morphing harmonics can be just as beautiful as lush arrangements of multiple notes in more traditional pieces. And although I am not trying to insult your intelligence by pretending you don't understand that less can be more, it some times helps to have other people reiterate the point for it to really sink in. I totally respect what all of you do in the rhythmic music world, but check this out. Maybe all this writer's block could be at least parly remedied by writing music that is radically different, which is a viewpoint I have heard expressed by a few other people in the past on this board. When I used to sit down and write a dance or jazzy type of track, I would spend a long time fiddling with parameters to lock the beat in and such, which can be fun in its own right. However, this kind of thing can sap the creativity right out of you. Try just designing sounds for the sake of the sounds, without so much attention to a definite final product. Nowadays I sit down and just go crazy linking together synths in Reason/Tassman/Reaktor and creating insane atmospheres using the little knowledge of harmonics that I do have. When you have something that sounds cool, do what one of the previous posters said, and just leave it alone. Do this multiple times simply for the goal of creating lots of neat sounds quickly. THEN you can come back and arrange and tweak, and you will have plenty of inspiring material to do with it. It's like one of those "I wrote that??? Awesome!" situations. Your listeners can tell immediately (albeit subconsciously) whether you actually enjoyed writing your music or not.Well, I hope my pseudo-stream-of-consciousness advice can somewhat be deciphered and used to give you a fresh perspective. Good luck with your writer's block, tjwett, many of us understand what it's like (it's HELL) and you must find a way that works for you to get around it! When nothing else works, I find just walking the fuck away from music (sans the kind you write for work) for a while works wonders. I have a habit of taking month long breaks to watch movies and focus on school more.
- Nick Maxwell
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Guest
Nick, Congrats on being picked up by the label. Which one? And when will your music be released? (and where to find it?). Also do you have any samples online of your music? I've been a long time fan of dark ambient, drone, atmospheric industrial, noise, etc, etc and always enjoy hearing others' creations...
Thanks everyone for the great insight into your workflow and methodology! To those that recommended the books by Mathieu... could someone with no musical training and very little knowledge of music theory understand and enjoy the books?
As for my own workflow... I get bogged down by the infinite possibilities of all the software & hardware out there so I tend to try to limit myself. Most of my "music" is made up of field recordings and found sounds... First I record the sounds into my computer and then set about exploring, tweaking and looping each sample until something interesting pops out. Then when it comes time to start working different sounds together I set a rule or guideline like choosing to only use sounds I recorded while visiting a particular place or sounds that relate to a certain concept. After that making the music is a bit easier for me... sort of a design challenge or an exercise in portraiture.
Inspiration wise I seem to favor visual stuff. Like if I walk through a parking lot I might observe the rhythm of the lines painted for the parking stalls... and when new elements pop up they suggest additions or variations to the "mix"... parking blocks could represent low end percussion... a chain link fence next to the lot might be a fast clicking rhythm... a line of weeds running along a crack in the pavement might be some sort of synthline. So yeah... soundtracks for things I see. Same goes for what I "see" when I read... I'd love to make an album of tracks inspired by short stories.
Anyway, that's my gimmick or trick... hey when you have zero musical skill you gotta use what you can.
-scotty
Thanks everyone for the great insight into your workflow and methodology! To those that recommended the books by Mathieu... could someone with no musical training and very little knowledge of music theory understand and enjoy the books?
As for my own workflow... I get bogged down by the infinite possibilities of all the software & hardware out there so I tend to try to limit myself. Most of my "music" is made up of field recordings and found sounds... First I record the sounds into my computer and then set about exploring, tweaking and looping each sample until something interesting pops out. Then when it comes time to start working different sounds together I set a rule or guideline like choosing to only use sounds I recorded while visiting a particular place or sounds that relate to a certain concept. After that making the music is a bit easier for me... sort of a design challenge or an exercise in portraiture.
Inspiration wise I seem to favor visual stuff. Like if I walk through a parking lot I might observe the rhythm of the lines painted for the parking stalls... and when new elements pop up they suggest additions or variations to the "mix"... parking blocks could represent low end percussion... a chain link fence next to the lot might be a fast clicking rhythm... a line of weeds running along a crack in the pavement might be some sort of synthline. So yeah... soundtracks for things I see. Same goes for what I "see" when I read... I'd love to make an album of tracks inspired by short stories.
Anyway, that's my gimmick or trick... hey when you have zero musical skill you gotta use what you can.
-scotty
Re: yep...
hey thanks, and congrats on the label deal be sure to let us now when the record drops. the writer's block is much better lately. been doing exactly what you suggest. no metronome, no drums, no quantising. just creating some nice pads and sounds and processing, tweaking, experimenting on the fly. that's the great thing about Live, it records EVERYTHING you do without being told to. as i said i've been getting back into ambient music, that's what i call it at least. some say drone, space, soundscapes, or even gasp, New Age. i basically just try to create music that i can put on when i got to sleep at night. this whole process is super relaxing for me. when i don't have any of my own stuff to sleep to i tune into some streaming radio like Drone Zone or Sleepbot Environmental. Any others you guys suggest?Nick Maxwell wrote:...Good luck with your writer's block, tjwett...