• Music

  • the production thread

Yeah good luck with release, 303. İ like the samples.

    Henry no worries. if you have something half finished or part of an idea you don’t know what to do with, send the stems my way. i finish almost everything i start these days, but i’m happy to do the same vs. trying to grind out an idea. and if it’s dub sounding, i have a couple of release connections now too, plus i can get it mastered.

        303abuser I can’t even finish my conversations these days, so as for unfinished tracks…. well… I have few that is fair to say! If I can find anything that I don’t think will result in embarrassment I will deffo bung you them your way. Will have a check over the weekend.

            Henry haha no worries. send me whatever you want, i’m always happy to have new ideas to work with. i actually started a groove yesterday that i think fits well with your sound. if it doesn’t immediately click for me, i’ll send you this one.

              here’s my new one out today on Slope Point’s EP “Slope Forms II”.

              here’s the bandcamp link for the ep. lots of good dub techno again on this one.

              and here’s the spotify link for Sleep Flight.

              Henry out of curiosity, what does your workflow look like from a blank project through mixing?

                So, I’m using Ableton as my main DAW, with Maschine routed through which is mainly for the drum machine (I think the engine is better than Ableton’s) and for auditioning the NI synths.
                My template for Ableton project consists of the routing of Maschine, a number of midi and audio tracks: each of which has a FabFilter Pro Q; but no EQing yet.
                Then it’s just case of throwing enough stuff around to see what sticks. I try to start with some textured sounds: quite like the grantulator synths quite a lot; various samples which I use in the granulator, Simpler or the Sampler. Beats normally come after I have a melody. Usually I know within 30 mins whether I have something or not to go with.
                Once I have something I can take further, I sketch out the structure using Push 2 and start generating the flow using Clip View. I will either record the session live, or build it in clip view.
                Once recorded, I start adding the FX, crashes, builds etc.
                Finally I do the EQing, which I do on every piece of audio and midi channel: both mid and side EQ.
                The very last stage is bunging on a multi band compressor, with some gentle EQing.

                This is how it works out in a perfect session (like with the Provia track); but 98% of the time this does not happen…

                  Henry that sounds pretty similiar to my approach from about a year ago. i still quite often start with a texture or pad for atmosphere and work from there. i’ve got something for you to try and feel free to ignore me lol, i barely know what i’m doing, but this helped me finish more tracks.

                  i start gathering sounds that fit in session view (kick/bass, basic open hat, pad, a few chords, and a couple of floating percussion sounds) until i’ve got what would amount to about 75% of what i needm basically everything but fills and random perc hits, all of the colour stuff. then i switch to arrangement view and start recording chronologically. that gives me the skeleton arrangement, then i can add more sounds based off the arrangement, add variety to the midi patterns and fx, and i mix as i go. once i’m done that, group tracks, eq, sidechain and i’m done. i’m also pretty ruthless about deleting stuff that doesn’t work. even if i like a sound, if it doesn’t fit the atmosphere and feel of the track i want, i just cut it and hit save immediately so i can’t rethink it.

                  i find it way faster to get the idea down, so i’m not sick of it before it’s arranged. i don’t know if that’ll help get you over the finishing hump, but give it a shot on two or three tracks and see if it clicks for you, it did for me. once you get used to finishing everything, it just becomes part of your process and it’s almost strange not to finish an idea.

                      303abuser Fair play for getting beyond that 75% threshold. That’s where I get stuck most of the time. I think we spoke about this before: that issue of listening to something over and over, and hating it. But if I can nail most of the elements early on then chances are I will finish it.
                      There is a really good book vey Dennis DeSantis: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers that I have used a little with some really useful tips in it. Sounds like you might not need it as much as me though. 😃

                      I was planning on rooting for some tracks this weekend and bung you some stems, but have been caught up setting up my Bandcamp and re-mastering old tracks among other things. Apols, but it is on my list!

                          it’s funny, i just know now when i have enough sounds to make a skeleton arrangement. probably just practice and muscle memory at this point. and i bought the hard cover of that book, found it really useful when i was starting out. i definitely recommend that one too.

                          no worries, send me something whenever you have time, there’s no rush. i have three tracks in progress at the moment, that helps keep things fresh for me too. by the time i go back to the first one, i don’t even remember what i sounds like.