Ableton Forum

So, production-wise what is your biggest weakness?

Myself,
Creating interesting pads and soundscapes - Its easy to give some waveforms a slow attack ramp, dash it in reverb and delay and call it done, but it make it interesting is where I struggle.
and
Snares - I usually end up sampling them from breaks as when I try to make myown the end up sounding like farts


shoot.........

Bass lines with soul and groove, getting away from always having to quantize....

Mastering.

Remembering to strip a song to it's basics, as most of the time less is more.

re.mark wrote: Myself,
Creating interesting pads and soundscapes

Absynth and a bit of understanding of how it works and you're golden.
Seriously besides hardware analog synths, I rarely use anything else for pads,
the thing was made for them IMO:
As many attack etc. envelopes as you want,
complicated, but fairly easy to use delay/comb filter,
Good filters in general < also assignable to multiple envelopes.

my weakness is too much processing.

reverbs especially, your ears crave it and there is a habit of adding more and more, especially mixing in phones.

Advice #1 - whenever you think you're done, go and make a cup of tea, talk the dog for a walk etc, give yourself a 15-20 minutes break and then listen back with fresh ears. 8/10 you will realize that you have overdone the reverb (or chorus/delay/mod fx).

Also, when you think it's perfect, back off it a notch or two - things pushed into the background with delays and reverbs will come more forward in the mix with mastering. The more echoey in your draft mix, the more this will be brought forward in mastering.

Mine is mastering. I break so many rules when it comes to making things sit well. Bad use of limiters and additive EQing etc, something I am trying very hard to work on improving.

my cock

partying to much and to long, oh hang on this was about production right?

SubFunk wrote:partying to much and to long

one must venture to berlin to party with thon self.

production wise, short melodies which are totally non cheesy and have sexiness/funk.
that always is a challenge.

Sometimes I'm too good and it hurts other people's feelings.

ethios4 wrote:Sometimes I'm too good and it hurts other people's feelings.

Creating interesting arrangements. It gets me every time.

Machinesworking wrote:Mastering.

Remembering to strip a song to it's basics, as most of the time less is more.

Still a huge thing for me. I have not yet achieved this to my satisfaction.

Also, and more importantly, I have still not yet been able to physically express the voices and sounds in my head.