Trouble Finishing Songs? - Live's Song-Building Process

[nebulae]

A friend who is relatively new to Live asked the question:

When I sit in front of Live, I am not focused to put down tracks first, edit, mix, master. I find myself doing all of these things at the same time. In the process I get frustrated. But I guess part of the problem is that I am writing as I produce. Do i restrain myself from tweaking anything and just put down raw tracks until all the elements are there ?

This lead to a nice discussion of Live's song-building process. I thought it might be nice to expand that discussion here. What I wrote him was as follows:

You're now in the middle of the Live dilemma - Live is all about releasing creativity, but it's just like the dilemma of infinite possiblities: the more possibilities you have, the less you get done because there is so much more to explore, and human nature states that the grass is always greener.

Don't restrain yourself, ever... learn to be outside the box but draw the box early. Do here are my suggested steps:

1. Time to create: Be super creative, play, no rules. Once you have a basic idea,

2. Create the shell: Meaning piece together the song in Arrange - verse, chorus, bridge. Thus, you have the box, the shell, the structure...then

3. Go back to session and play more. Question yourself, break the structure, or go back to it ...no rules - then when you feel good about your experimentation,

4. Go back to Arrange and put it down. Repeat 3 and 4 enough times till the song feels done. Then,

5. Mixdown

So basically, you don't look at Live as one drawing board...you look at it as two distinct drawing boards which are linked together. One is your master painting, while the other is your idea sketchboard, where you do you play with ideas...another metaphor - one is the sandbox, and once the pieces come together, you build your actual building

So pushing forward past step 2, is where you'll make some real milestones. The key is to realize that Step 1 is good and necessary, but doesn't get you far; Step 2 is important, but must be broken for real progress; Steps 3 and 4 are where you get your real growth in yourself and the song - that's where you stretch; Step 5 is where you finish, never before. And doing it this way will let you be an engineer and an artist and a producer.

Discuss.

[aqua_tek]

that's all great info.

but how do I Daft Punk?

[KainProject]

that's all great info.

but how do I Daft Punk?

+1

[aisling]

how do I make tarnce?

[beats me]

I think session view is both the blessing and curse of Live. If you spend a lot of time there you tend to write more in blocks than a flowing piece of music. It's also not great for fills and random variances unless you have some elaborate setup of follow action clips. When you switch to arrange, the traditional DAW view, it's less appealing compared to other DAWs IMO. This is even more noticeable when you start and write in arrange view. I realize this is a matter of taste but I sometimes feel too "boxed" in session view and uninspired in arrange view.

Perhaps Ableton could add an OT view because that seems to be where all my inspiration is lately.

[nebulae]

You Daft Punk in Step 2, you make tarnce in Step 3, and you Wang Chung in Step 4.

Geez, I thought I was very clear in my OP. You lot are fairly thick.

[aisling]

[nebulae]

Perhaps Ableton could add an OT view because that seems to be where all my inspiration is lately.

Ableton Live v.8.5 (Beats Me Version)
-New features include Follow Actions that get you into angry-chick parties without shrinkage while still maintaining low latencies.


I agree that Session boxes you in, but Arrange is better for me than most other DAWs. I like how the handles work and how you work with clips. And now with crossfades, I can get most anything done better in Arrange. I wish they incorporated the Mouse Scroll Wheel zooming that is standard in every other DAW, but on PCs, there's a workaround. And that helps me get things done quickly as well.

[polyslax]

I like Live's workflow. I don't ever bounce back and forth between Session and Arrange. I do all my recording in Session, then it's over to Arrange to, well, arrange.

[nebulae]

I like Live's workflow. I don't ever bounce back and forth between Session and Arrange. I do all my recording in Session, then it's over to Arrange to, well, arrange.

In any given song, how much time (%) would you say you spend on Session, and then Arrange?

[ethios4]

I was just going to post on this sort of thing....

In the past I've often gotten stuck on a 4-bar loop in session. After hearing it a million times I get so burned out I just can't work on it anymore. Here's what I do once I have the basic loop :

1. Take the main MIDI drum loop and Duplicate it within itself so the 4-bar loop is turned into a 16-bar loop.

2. Go into this 16-bar loop and add a turnaround (fill) in bar 16. Depending on the genre this could be anything....tom fill...stutter...silence...drop elements...whatever it takes to make the 16-bars into a full cycle.

3. Add a mini-fill at bar 8.

4. Do the same with other elements, as appropriate for each. This could be a 16-bar filter tweak on a synth, bassline fills, reverse cymbals, whatever.

I find that this gives me a much more musical loop that builds and falls and is much more inspiring for further creation. It's a simple idea but it always takes me to the next level in session view.

[nebulae]

^ Nice tip! Thx!

BTW, how's that new machine treating you?

[ethios4]

It's fabulous! I've hardly gone about 50%, and I don't freeze tracks at all anymore. It's making me much more productive in the same amount of time. It's really pretty quiet too....the ceiling fan easily drowns out the fan noise.

[Tone Deft]

that's all great info.

but how do I Daft Punk?

how do I do funky shit's mom?

I think session view is both the blessing and curse of Live. If you spend a lot of time there you tend to write more in blocks than a flowing piece of music. It's also not great for fills and random variances unless you have some elaborate setup of follow action clips. When you switch to arrange, the traditional DAW view, it's less appealing compared to other DAWs IMO. This is even more noticeable when you start and write in arrange view. I realize this is a matter of taste but I sometimes feel too "boxed" in session view and uninspired in arrange view.

well put.

[nebulae]

It's fabulous! I've hardly gone about 50%, and I don't freeze tracks at all anymore. It's making me much more productive in the same amount of time. It's really pretty quiet too....the ceiling fan easily drowns out the fan noise.

Cool! Looking forward to hearing your new tracks!