I think we can all agree that music production can sometimes be a pain, even with the help of modern technology, such as computers and software. For that reason, I thought I’d start a series of posts, in which I’ll explain some tips & tricks that I’ve gathered throughout the years, from magazines, books, manuals and friends. I’ll cover topics ranging from general stuff, such as the post below (General Stuff), to arranging tips and techniques and also mixing and mastering tricks.
Watch the blog closly (subscribe to our feed to stay updated, or follow us on Twitter), and I’m sure you’ll learn things that you previously didn’t know, or didn’t experienced. So, here’s the first post:
While the technology provides us with professional tools, the results are sometimes let’s say… not so professional. And when talking about electronic music, my guess is that no one can argue about the importance of computers.
A lot of time has passed since the old days, when you had to use a room full of instruments and effects racks to produce a track. And when I say produce, I mean the whole 9 yards (yeah, I think that’s how they say this)… recording the instruments individually, recording the vocals, arranging them all in a genre specific fashion, mixing every little part separately, and finally mastering the song.
I’m sure all of us use the undo command (ctrl+z for PC, cmd+z for Mac) at least once a day. More than once actually. I’ll bet that most of us (including me, for quite a long time) have never realized the importance of such a simple command. I’ll bet that only a handful of people said “Thank God someone invented this!”
Well, just so you know, (in my opinion) this is an amazing tool, and again, in my opinion (and you can argue with me on that!), is one of the main advantages of the modern music-production process. And that’s because it saves you time, and gives you more time to actually focus on making music.
I’m not going to go in much detail about this, but I’ve got to tell you guys that are not familiar with Tapes about it, so you can get a clear picture of what I’m talking about. Back in the day, tapes were used to record vocals, and instruments (hence the term mixtape). And that was a pain for most of us. And I mean you needed to record things just right, so you won’t have to cut the tape and do it all again. That’s called distructive editing. Now, ever since the computers got involed in music-making process, things changed radically. Non-distructive editing was introduced, meaning that you can just undo things very easily.
With that being said, I’d just like to say 2 more things before we get down and dirty with the geeky side of things.
1) Successful music production is all about knowing those little tips & tricks, shortcuts if you want, that will make your tracks stand out of the crowd, and take your creativity to the next level.
2) Please, please! don’t just blindly follow these tips without thinking about them. Don’t read this whole guide and apply the techniques mechanically. Try to understand the principles behind them. That’s the key to success!
With that out of the way, I think it’s time we get started.
GENERAL TIPS
1) Before starting a new project, choose a refrence track from that particular genre, and use it as the guide (template) for your track. Try to follow the arrangement, observe what the key elements are, what the relationship between them is, and how various elements are introduced and faded out of the arrangement.
2) Limit the time you spend working on different elements. 30 minutes should be more than enaugh for you to see if that element adds a wow factor to your track or not. And if you’re not happy with it, ditch it! No second thoughts! Most of the time, less is more.
3) Keep everything ncie and clean. Label things as you move along, and color-code different parts (if your DAW allows you). This will help you at a later time when you’ll reopen the project, or share it with someone else. And it looks cool too (haha!)
4) Today’s sequencers allow you to create your own channel-strips. Make use of that to creat your own start-up presets. This will help you start making music right away, rather than wasting your time scrolling through pages of usless presets.
5) Read the manuals! I cannot stress how important this is! Manuals are your gateway to knowledge and experience. Take them with you wherever you go if possible. On the bus, the subway, your bathroom, etc. There’s no better way to understand how things work other than reading the manuals.
6) Don’t get caught up in the ocean of software that’s available on the market. Try to pick a few soft-synths and effects that you like, and get personal with them. Twist and move all the knobs and faders to see how everything is affecting the sound. Most soft-synths can produce the same results, so in my opinion, it’s better to learn how to program 1 synth to create your own unique sound, rather than waste your time with countless presets, which we all know, are crap!
7) Keep your system as clean as possible. Don’t load your computer with sofware and samples that you don’t use. And if you’re not using a previously installed programs, uninstall them. This will save you a lot of disk space (you can never have too much disk space!), and give you back some lost processing power.
8 ) Pick a good spot for your studio. Ideally, it should be a place where you can focus on music, without any distractions, and no complaining neighbours. Oh, and no girfriends around… from my experience, they’ll only slow you down haha!
9) Choose the right platform for your purpose. Think about the different advantages and disadvantages both Macs and PCs have to offer. Nowadays, prices are similar for Macs and PCs with the same specs, so it’s down to you to decide what’s best. Are you going to use the computer only to produce music? Are you going to play games on it? Will other people use it aswell? Think about what you’ll be using it for most of the time, so you won’t get any incompatibilities or other problems.
10) You need decent monitors! You can’t expect to get polished and hi-quality mixes without a decent set of speakers. If you don’t have the money to get some decent ones (they can get damn pricy!), save your money, and save them again! You’ll thank me later, it’s money well spent, trust me!
11) Don’t blow all your money straight ahead on buying software and hardware. For almost every piece of software for example, there’s a free alternative that will roughly get you the same results (with a bit of more work). You should always try to find THE free alternative whenever possible. That goes for hardware aswell… some soft-samplers for example use samples from real hardware units, are sampled with different velocities to get that “special” feel, and so on. That’s the same with most effect units. Using hardware is great, but why spend a huge amount of money when you can get the same thing straight on the computer? And you also save space by doing that.
12) Read the forums! They are a great resource for finding answers. If you’ve got a problem (plugis not working correctly, etc), it’s more than likely that someone else has had that problem before you, and it solved it. And it’s always great to get a second opinion when you feel something in your tracks is not working as it should, or you want to make a new purchase. And if you’re lucky, you can stumble across some famous producers in some message boards. How cool is that?
This concludes today’s article. I hope you’ve had the patience to read it all the way, and I hope you won’t mind the messy way in which this article was written, as I’ve wrote it on the train, and I was distracted by all sorts of people. I’m not giving away any big secrets but I hope you’ll get to learn some new stuff from this.
Next week, I’ll continue this series of articles, and the topic will be either Mixing / Mastering or Arranging.
What are your thoughts about these tips and tricks? Do you have anything else that you’d add on this topic?
Feel free to comment below, and express yourself. Also, feel free to suggest any topics that you’d like me to cover in future posts.
