happy production mistakes thread

[drake89]

I have always been struggling (i guess) trying to get what I call an 808 kick, but basically just a huge sub with some attack. I've tried presets and ableton racks for download etc, nothing came close. Then the other day I just used the sine oscillator in massive and put a low pass filter with a medium Q around 100hz. That annoying click 'glitch' in massive turned into the knock that I was looking for!

Feel free to share your mistakes that turned into goodness.

[bkwsk]

You low-passed a sine wave? Ah, yeah, the resonance. Could have done that by EQing too I guess.

[3za]

That annoying click 'glitch' in massive

What "annoying click glitch"?

[ehbes]

Not music related but I accidentally bought te wrong cheese today and ended up liking it more

[kundara]

Mine is playing with the size of the reverb on massive... some interesting thing.

[Maxxan]

Always slice up samples and forget them far down in the playlist, sometimes accidentally I leave it, it hits just the right spot and you get a really sweet sampling break/mash-up thing going on. Happened to me a bunch of times, really awesome haha.

[adover]

I spent years eq'ing everything to complete excess - like notching out 15db chunks out of sounds to make something which sounded good on my speakers, but shit everywhere else. Epic fail. But now my ears are sweetly trained as a result! Every cloud...

Also not reading about gain structure many years ago - only tried it out about a month ago after years of having everything running into the red - awesome!

[idontreallygiveashit]

granulising everything with reckless abandon changed my music

[Sharmaji]

weird playback issues on an overtaxed session can lead to great arrangement changes.

[Today]

yeah, that's a good one... when your playback fucks up or you dropped a loop point stupidly on the wrong bar line, or accidentally hit the solo button on the mixer, and it suddenly gives you fresh inspiration for an arrangement/switchup on your track


similarly, dropping a block of midi accidentally like a 1/8th note off to the left or right, creating a sick groove by mistake

[MKRUGGER]

yeah, that's a good one... when your playback fucks up or you dropped a loop point stupidly on the wrong bar line, or accidentally hit the solo button on the mixer, and it suddenly gives you fresh inspiration for an arrangement/switchup on your track


similarly, dropping a block of midi accidentally like a 1/8th note off to the left or right, creating a sick groove by mistake

This.

[Ada]

When your sluggish CPU makes Cubase lag like hell and the output starts gating itself... sometimes it sounds good. Most times it just sounds a tad bit bad...

[Triphosphate]

similarly, dropping a block of midi accidentally like a 1/8th note off to the left or right, creating a sick groove by mistake

So true! Or similarly, leaving my grid/snap on none and accomplishing this. I've gleaned all sorts of bizarre inspiration from miss-clicking an fx plugin... Or accidentally muting part of a multiband compressor and realizing that that particular bandwidth of that particular instrument was shite anyways.

My most memorable was my old hard drive failing on me near the end of a bounce, I ended up keeping the result as an outro. My PC totally bombed at about 4:10 on this track and I loved it:

Soundcloud

[narcissus]

once you get the technique right for 808 drums, it seems SO DAMN simple, and elegant, but these days I forget that i messed around with it for YEARS, i mean YEARS before i learned enough to make it sound exactly how i want. that goes for all 808 sounds actually

[koncide]

yeah, that's a good one... when your playback fucks up or you dropped a loop point stupidly on the wrong bar line, or accidentally hit the solo button on the mixer, and it suddenly gives you fresh inspiration for an arrangement/switchup on your track


similarly, dropping a block of midi accidentally like a 1/8th note off to the left or right, creating a sick groove by mistake

New Order famously did this for Blue Monday. One of the guys started the lead synth line a little bit too late by mistake. Made music history

[__________]

I keep starting a tune in one time signature, then it ends up getting so wonky it merges in to some next time signature. 3/4 to 4/4 and vice versa generally.

[Today]

quantizing with the wrong grid subdivision settings i.e. 1/32 or 1.8, or even 1/8T instead of 1/16
clicking quantize without realizing that
listen back, can't wrap your head around what the hells going on with the phrasing in this midi
kinda like it

realize why it happened
make minor intentional adjustments
capture the endearing parts of the unique rhythm you made accidentally
emphasize that groove with other drum sounds

[Reversed]

accidentally inserted a clip in the wrong position, leading to a weird pitchbend. Sounded kinda like some little sound excision / datsik did in deviance. stuck with it since it sounds kinda cool.
Soundcloud

[baddaBOOM]

When i first started to learn about automation i would do sidechaining with automation envelopes to my bass, it took me like a half a hour to draw in the automation for my sidechaining to the bass, then, i found out i was automating to the wrong bass LOL , later i learned a new way that was way easier