How do you think does our heroes produce their tracks ?

reax · Post by **reax** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:11 pm

sgriesedieck wrote:I think that can also be helpful, though - you are less distracted by things. It's easy to get caught up in sample or VST collection and be distracted from making music, or to procrastinate until your next paycheck so you can buy the piece of gear you think you "need" to be creative.

Amen brother. After making my switch from PC/FL to Mac/Live, I sold all my VSTis, and picked up Sampler, Operator and EIC. And I've decided to restrict myself to 100% Ableton. No VST effects or instruments. And no 3rd party samples.

For pretty much the reasons you cited. It's just way too easy to get caught up in endless gear lust, and completely loose sight of just making music. Time and time again, I've found my creativity is inversely proportional to the amount of gear I have. If I don't set down some strict rules for myself, it'll be just a matter of time until I spend more time shopping for plugins instead of actually making tunes.

(That said, I'm having a real tough time getting by without a real limiter.

Try as I might, I can't seem to find a compressor/saturator combo to replace Vintage Warmer.)

But back to the original point, its fun to think about what our heros use to make their tracks. But ultimately it's irrelevant. As other posters have pointed out, you can get solid professional results in just about any modern music software package. It's 100% about taking the time to actually learn how to use the software you have. And, well, learning how to write a good tune.

ciw · Post by **ciw** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:35 pm

reax wrote: (That said, I'm having a real tough time getting by without a real limiter. Try as I might, I can't seem to find a compressor/saturator combo to replace Vintage Warmer.)

Dude, that's just silly. If you already know and love vintage warmer, then ffs use it. It's the gear you're not familiar with that slows you down imo.

I on the other hand, don't really know how to use vintage warmer, my ears aren't really tuned to its sound, so I feel I do just as well with compressor2/saturator. Doubtless my sound isn't as 'phat' as that of the masters of vintage warmer. But it's probably best if I concentrate on what I know instead, for the time being at least.

hat · Post by **hat** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:48 pm

fo' real y'all.
I went to a friend's house yesterday, to jam, make some noise, etc., and was amazed to see and discover how other people work. He doesn't have much but churned out some amazing beats and bits of music which left me speechless and re-affirmed that the gear/amount of it means nothing. He had a couple of cheap casio keybards and a kaoss pad 2, which he would sometimes throw samples from vinyl, then he records everything into garage band on the mac. I kid you not they were some of the most interesting beats I've ever heard, little rhtyhms coming from the casios which sounded nice and dirty and glitchy, just in the way he just manipulated the kaoss pad in real-time, he just went with it, then adding voices on top, cheap Casios that sounded like Air or even M83 because of the processing, simple and amazing.

And then there's some of us with GB upon GB's of loops and samples, with powerful tool like Live, Reason, ProTools, etc., and we often sit there and stare at the screen like a painter without oils and brushes, like a deer in headlights, sigh...

Use what you have, impose limitations, just go for it, create, create, create, it's a beautiful thing...

Spiralgroove · Post by **Spiralgroove** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:52 pm

im sure theres more than a fair amount of "ghost writing" going on too...

formatk · Post by **formatk** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:06 pm

sgriesedieck wrote:For real. Breakage (a pretty well known DnB producer in the UK) produces everything on an older desktop computer using trackers. I think that can also be helpful, though - you are less distracted by things. It's easy to get caught up in sample or VST collection and be distracted from making music, or to procrastinate until your next paycheck so you can buy the piece of gear you think you "need" to be creative.

Dabrye uses Tracker software running on DOS...his sound and arrangement is dope...them swings and pace... Limitation leads to Experimentation. Keep it simple.

reax · Post by **reax** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:30 pm

ciw wrote:
reax wrote: (That said, I'm having a real tough time getting by without a real limiter. Try as I might, I can't seem to find a compressor/saturator combo to replace Vintage Warmer.)
Dude, that's just silly. If you already know and love vintage warmer, then ffs use it. It's the gear you're not familiar with that slows you down imo.

I know it's silly, but VW isn't UB anyways (or at least last time I checked). Plus, its a slippery slope. I'll allow myself to use VW, then I'll allow myself to use z3ta, then I'll decide I really can't do without a 3rd party reverb.... then before I know it I'm spending all day on KVR instead of making tracks, and when I am making tracks I'm spending all my time preset surfing through a dozen synths instead of just tweaking a few synths I know really well.

I know, silly and arbitrary. But I do think if I get to know Compressor II and Saturator well enough I can get pretty close to VW.

The other upside to limiting your plugins is that there's a better chance that song you were working on 5 years ago will open up today and play like it did then. I'm speaking from experience, since I just spent a month going through hundreds of my old FL tracks and rendering out their parts as loops I can use in Live. I spent half my time tracking down and installing old plugins that were long lost. And some I just couldn't track down, so who knows what that 5 year old song sounded like back then.

john gordon · Post by **john gordon** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:55 pm

i bet they start by staying off forums all the time.

Al Twisted · Post by **Al Twisted** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:08 am

wilxon wrote:Speedy J just creates loads of loops whenever he gets time to, uses programms like photoshop to mess the sound up and stuff like that,

Photoshop????

MacBookDJ · Post by **MacBookDJ** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:13 am

Spiralgroove wrote:im sure theres more than a fair amount of "ghost writing" going on too...

Yeah, but how do the ghost writers do it?

Spiralgroove · Post by **Spiralgroove** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:15 am

MacBookDJ wrote:
Spiralgroove wrote:im sure theres more than a fair amount of "ghost writing" going on too...
Yeah, but how do the ghost writers do it?

im sure the money helps.

ploy · Post by **ploy** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 4:16 am

SubFunk wrote:i think it depends from artist to artist, but some would be nothing without theyre engineers, vaeth uses ralf hildenbeutel, timo maas uses martin butrich, to name but a few... and without those guys they would not be able to make one decent track. martin butrich being a real studio wizard, check out his finally appearing solo stuff, amazing production skills.

that said, it is a matter of time as well, if you have such a hectic DJ-shedule, then you sometimes only go for a very short time into the studio and build a rough structure / ideas for a track and let the work do others.

i do alot of engineering work for others, and some use loops others not, but i try to work as less as possible with people who use loops, cause i make also my own music and i don't like loops [to me they are uncreative people, no matter how 'creative' they use a loop].

it all depends, in the end of the day it's about selling a track to kids.

so who actually cares?

please think a bit before writing so much shit again. sure nearly all musicians do work together with friends and stuff, but saying it in the mean of "use" or state those people couldn´t even shit alone is the old jealous yellow engineers preaching. but your highlight is the grand logic inside "looping thieves are not creative!". HARHAR! yeah boy, mommy is fuckin proud of you.

Contra · Post by **Contra** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 4:44 am

rahlo wrote:
Contra wrote:hey what about my hero??? Pete Rock!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co__eHlCFJs

classic pat benatar!
ain't too many cats can touch petey!

he's got the smooth vibes been in this shit longer than most the names mentioned(but not all)

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:03 pm

ploy wrote:
SubFunk wrote:i think it depends from artist to artist, but some would be nothing without theyre engineers, vaeth uses ralf hildenbeutel, timo maas uses martin butrich, to name but a few... and without those guys they would not be able to make one decent track. martin butrich being a real studio wizard, check out his finally appearing solo stuff, amazing production skills.

that said, it is a matter of time as well, if you have such a hectic DJ-shedule, then you sometimes only go for a very short time into the studio and build a rough structure / ideas for a track and let the work do others.

i do alot of engineering work for others, and some use loops others not, but i try to work as less as possible with people who use loops, cause i make also my own music and i don't like loops [to me they are uncreative people, no matter how 'creative' they use a loop].

it all depends, in the end of the day it's about selling a track to kids.

so who actually cares?

please think a bit before writing so much shit again. sure nearly all musicians do work together with friends and stuff, but saying it in the mean of "use" or state those people couldn´t even shit alone is the old jealous yellow engineers preaching. but your highlight is the grand logic inside "looping thieves are not creative!". HARHAR! yeah boy, mommy is fuckin proud of you.

i just got the inside [knowing most of the people in person i am talking about and the rest over close mutual friends otherwise i keep my mouth shut, cause i don't know shit in that case] and an opinion, leave it or take it.

simpleton · Post by **simpleton** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:19 pm

I have no "heroes"

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:28 pm

simpleton wrote:I have no "heroes"

respect!