The hardship of solo producing..

[Aufnahmewindwuschel]

please stop talking about tony hawk as a example for skateboarding its like saying skrillex is signed to deep medi and 900 would be the famous skrillex bass btw a quite not so cool little piece of made a 1080 lately

[Smiles]

You have all the software and stuff you need. And you have produced music before. So i would say maybe make chiptune and then take it apart piece by piece by piece and add new stuff to get some chipstep? I'v been learning this stuff on and off for a year now and barley produced anything, but It is all finally sinking in to me and I'm starting to have a lot more fun with this stuff. Just keep trying, and try new things.
Oh and were you using for chiptune? Cause I own nanoloop on my ithouch and renoise. I havn't gotten around to learning nanoloop yet, but i know renoise because it is what i started to learn on cause its only like $70 and i recently found it that its kind of popular for chiptune.

[Huts]

I think people need to put music production and their progress into a different perspective. After 10 months of skateboarding would you expect to be even remotely close to the level of the guys you see in videos and magazines? You say your style is very minimal, but then mention KTN, noisia, and feed me as people whose sounds you after recreating which has me a little confused. Insane sound design doesn't equal a good piece of music, worry about the components that actually make songs danceable (drums, groove, bass(i dont dance to midrange)) before worrying about how KTN makes his bass.

I agree with this for the most part, but on the same note I wouldn't give myself too much time. 10 months isn't an extraordinary amount of time, but for anyone who's seriously focused, a year should be enough time to release a batch of solid tracks and start gigging relatively regularly. Setting deadlines for yourself is absolutely vital.

Someone just starting skateboarding might not be able to expect to do a 900 within their first year, but even Tony Hawk was on top of the scene after a few.

First why wouldn't you give yourself more time to develop? what's the rush? 10 months is a lot of time, but for a new producer giving them a year to make enough quality tunes to get you gigging and staying consistent is far beyond optimistic. It's not impossible sure, Killawatt hadn't been producing that long and he had tracks out on blackbox, wheel and deal, and support from some big names in the scene, but that isn't the norm.

I didn't intend to start a huge correlation between skateboarding and producing lol, but I guess that was expected. As a sidenote, tony hawk was skating for 5 years before he became pro. props to whoever mentioned antwaun dixon, he's a beast

[Attila]

I think people need to put music production and their progress into a different perspective. After 10 months of skateboarding would you expect to be even remotely close to the level of the guys you see in videos and magazines? You say your style is very minimal, but then mention KTN, noisia, and feed me as people whose sounds you after recreating which has me a little confused. Insane sound design doesn't equal a good piece of music, worry about the components that actually make songs danceable (drums, groove, bass(i dont dance to midrange)) before worrying about how KTN makes his bass.

I agree with this for the most part, but on the same note I wouldn't give myself too much time. 10 months isn't an extraordinary amount of time, but for anyone who's seriously focused, a year should be enough time to release a batch of solid tracks and start gigging relatively regularly. Setting deadlines for yourself is absolutely vital.

Someone just starting skateboarding might not be able to expect to do a 900 within their first year, but even Tony Hawk was on top of the scene after a few.

First why wouldn't you give yourself more time to develop? what's the rush? 10 months is a lot of time, but for a new producer giving them a year to make enough quality tunes to get you gigging and staying consistent is far beyond optimistic. It's not impossible sure, Killawatt hadn't been producing that long and he had tracks out on blackbox, wheel and deal, and support from some big names in the scene, but that isn't the norm.

But why would anyone aim to develop at a normal rate? If we're all banking on being average producers then we can bank on achieving nothing in our careers. Sure we have the rest of our lives to become amazing producers, but unfortunately I don't have the rest of my life to start supporting myself. Being overly optimistic has nothing to do with any of this, optimism's what makes people feel good when they're not working.

Actually I think measuring experience in vague time frames ("I've been producing 5 years"/"A year's not enough") doesn't really give enough context to accurately describe the true amount of experience someone has. For example, I've seen producers on here say they've been producing for 4 years, and that they usually work a few hours a day, a couple times a week when inspiration hits. Over a 4 year period, that'll average out to roughly 1500 hours. Now if someone just starting hammers down producing-lets say 8 hours a day-he'll hit 1500 hours 6 months in. Who would you consider to be more experienced? Hell, if you found someone completely obsessed with production turning in 12 hours days, after a year they'd be halfway to mastery (assuming the 10,000 hour rule).

I don't mean to sound like I'm simplifying this whole thing into hours in=overall career progression, but there's 8700 hours in a year man! When virtually no one utilizes them with anything near efficiency, that's a lot of damn time to make things happen.

[BYTEME]

I'm homeschooled. I don't have any other life other than making music. I've been practicing from 9 AM to 2 AM or even more sometimes. I'm not joking either. I played an electric guitar (Gibson Les Paul) for 8 years, accoustic guitar for 2 years, keyboard/piano for 4 years, bass for 1 year (too big for me), and Chiptune for a very long time. I have a whole bunch of my own custom synth presets. At least over 200. My laptop overheats and shuts off like crazy during the worst times, destroying saved files and important synths and songs made. I wouldn't say I clarify for Dubstep because nowadays it's just crazy and VERY WELL mastered, with a bunch of amazing fast sounds all put together. I'm in the prehistoric age compared to modern Dubstep. :/

But I don't want to produce Dubstep realtly. Sure it's quite fun and 'wibbly wobbly' but it's not my type of music I want ro make. I don't really know what I want to make. But definitely something involving Chiptune, Moombahton, Minimal, 4x4 drum patterns and sub bass. Because all the big mumbo jumbo is too difficult for me to learn with my learning disorder. (It's an integration disorder.)

[ehbes]

deep house?

[BYTEME]

My order of producing a track goes like this:

Kick: 6db.
Snare/clap: 5.8db.
Hat: 10-8db.
Simple 4x4 drum pattern with the added kicks every 2nd and 4th whole bar.
Get a synth I made.
Make a melody.
Alter it with effects or pitch automation to make it more fun sounding.
Set the volume between 16-8 db.
That's the intro usually.
Add rising white noise sweeps at the end bar of every other measure.
Stop the drums for 2-4 measures.
Make it JUST the melody synth or a different synth.
Make the drums progess faster and daster leading to a 'drop' or breakdown.
Then lay the 4x4 patterns again, different synth, and a bass with a sub bass under it. (Usually a simple sine with a lowpass rolling off around 90-130hz)
See where it goes from there, changig certain sounds on the synths.

Then I get stuck. Lazy. And add random shit that doesn't sound good.
Then I usually give up and repeat everything again for a new track.

I depress myself. :/

[BYTEME]

I'll upload some of my unfinished tunes to give you an example.. :/

[hudson]

Man you're getting stuck because that's not how music should be made. You can't break it down into a concrete formula and expect it to work every time, let it flow dude, start a pad, start with a vocal, shit, start with the white noise, of course you'll start getting stuck if you do everything the same way every time. Mix it up, feel it out, experiment! Fuck the formula and do whatever the hell you want.

[Hircine]

deep house?

just joking, it's not that easy to produce.

fuck numbers man, fuck melodies. kick kickclap kick kickclap, make a hi hat line. then, make a nice saw wave bass that plays in the spaces between kicks, find a nice chord, make a stab out of it and a nice grooving pattern. send it all to a shit ton of different sends with reverbs, delays, grain delays, phasers, sidechain it, whatever, automate every filter and parameter you can, assign it to a midi controller and record the song, changing stuff in and out when you feel like. I do that whenever I'm messing around with 4x4 and works just fine.

[ehbes]

deep house?

just joking, it's not that easy to produce.

i know, heard minimal and 4x4 its the first thing i thought of

fuck numbers man, fuck melodies. kick kickclap kick kickclap, make a hi hat line. then, make a nice saw wave bass that plays in the spaces between kicks, find a nice chord, make a stab out of it and a nice grooving pattern. send it all to a shit ton of different sends with reverbs, delays, grain delays, phasers, sidechain it, whatever, automate every filter and parameter you can, assign it to a midi controller and record the song, changing stuff in and out when you feel like. I do that whenever I'm messing around with 4x4 and works just fine.

this, gotta stop producing like you do your math homework.

[hasezwei]

my laptop overheats and crashes too. so what.
the fact that you're homeschooled or whatever doesnt prevent you from making music, its the fact that you keep telling yourself you cant do it because of X

[hudson]

lol today I was working on a track and Reaper crashed when I went to delete a section of shakers, been doing it everytime I try I just use volume automation to take them out

[ill mindset]

My order of producing a track goes like this:

Kick: 6db.
Snare/clap: 5.8db.
Hat: 10-8db.
Simple 4x4 drum pattern with the added kicks every 2nd and 4th whole bar.
Get a synth I made.
Make a melody.
Alter it with effects or pitch automation to make it more fun sounding.
Set the volume between 16-8 db.
That's the intro usually.
Add rising white noise sweeps at the end bar of every other measure.
Stop the drums for 2-4 measures.
Make it JUST the melody synth or a different synth.
Make the drums progess faster and daster leading to a 'drop' or breakdown.
Then lay the 4x4 patterns again, different synth, and a bass with a sub bass under it. (Usually a simple sine with a lowpass rolling off around 90-130hz)
See where it goes from there, changig certain sounds on the synths.

Then I get stuck. Lazy. And add random shit that doesn't sound good.
Then I usually give up and repeat everything again for a new track.

I depress myself. :/

At the risk of sounding insensitive, boo hoo. 10 months? 10 months and your read to quit. Try playing the guitar or another instrument at a professional level. It takes YEARS to get to that cliber. The best producers usually have AT LEAST 5 years under their belt.

People like you do this music a disservice by assuming that owning the software instantly grants you the ability to create monster tunes. Get back to the batting cages rookie.

[Electric_Head]

I've been producing for close on 12 years now.

10 months??

[BYTEME]

At the risk of sounding insensitive, boo hoo. 10 months? 10 months and your read to quit. Try playing the guitar or another instrument at a professional level. It takes YEARS to get to that cliber. The best producers usually have AT LEAST 5 years under their belt.

People like you do this music a disservice by assuming that owning the software instantly grants you the ability to create monster tunes. Get back to the batting cages rookie.

If you didn't read my previous posts I mentioned having over 8 years experience with electric guitar, accoustic guitar, keyboard, and other instruments. So don't go calling me rookie, Count. Fagula.

And I didn't say I was thinking of quiting. Shits just getting difficult with writers block, and the fact that I'm still a little new to producing Electronic music other than Chiptune.

[Electric_Head]

It sounds to me like you're overdoing it.
Take a break and return when you're more motivated.
I play games too much and watch series.
Eventually I become annoyed that I'm not producing.
I sti down after 2 weeks of not touching my daw and wamo, inspiration flows.

[Augment]

Don't follow a formula when making tunes, man, worst mistake EVER. Really hard to get creative when you force it. Just mess about until you have an idea, and build around it.
And 10 months... That's not that long, man. Not that I've been producing for long (ca 1,5 years), but making songs that sound as well made as the pros will take a long time to learn.

[OfficialDAPT]

Dude I've been producing 9 months and I don't have any releases or anything. I'm going to start DJing soon so hopefully at the one year mark I will have regular gigs... It's all about setting goals and achieving them... shoot for the stars.

[Aufnahmewindwuschel]

antwaun dixon, he's a beast