How do you make your songs? // Workflow discussion

[wub]

Good post

[Debaser1]

9/10 then I don't really know what I'm gonna make, so I open up Reason and a Redrum and loop a bar or 2 to whack in a drum pattern. Usually, this inspires me to move onto something else and add in parts. But other times a chord sequence will come first, maybe even a bass sound or whatever. The key bit is how this initial 'eureka' develops. Often I'll be walking home or something and an idea comes into my head, like, a full structure with bass sounds, drum patters, synths etc. The only issue now is getting home and getting it to sound as it did in my head - which rarely happens. The problem with an idea is that as soon as it leaves your head it becomes more anodyne and compromises are made - based on a lot of factors of course. This is why I like to work quickly. Work quick, get stuff sounding good early on. I have quite a backwards mixing technique of mixing everything as I go; not a final mix, but so it's sounding good. 9/10 if I finish a track creatively it's already mixed pretty well and just needs a master done.
But yes, if I could offer any advice whatsoever, I'd say this: Try to minimise compromises as much as possible in your work, by working fast, and working hard to get the sound that you envisaged.

[arktrix45hz]

Drums drums and more drums. spend loads of time getting percussion spot on then I build around that.
Just sort of flows, I like to go into a track with no real idea what it will sound like and let the sound find itself as I work through it.

Won't the flow always be dictated by the drum programming that you've already laid down though?

Yeah, but you can always change it anyways?

[wub]

Drums drums and more drums. spend loads of time getting percussion spot on then I build around that.
Just sort of flows, I like to go into a track with no real idea what it will sound like and let the sound find itself as I work through it.

Won't the flow always be dictated by the drum programming that you've already laid down though?

Yeah, but you can always change it anyways?

I think you've missed the point of my original post.

[marktplatz]

...Often I'll be walking home or something and an idea comes into my head, like, a full structure with bass sounds, drum patters, synths etc. The only issue now is getting home and getting it to sound as it did in my head - which rarely happens. The problem with an idea is that as soon as it leaves your head it becomes more anodyne and compromises are made - based on a lot of factors of course. This is why I like to work quickly. Work quick, get stuff sounding good early on ... Try to minimise compromises as much as possible in your work, by working fast, and working hard to get the sound that you envisaged.

^That (the remote eureka/inspiration) is often how it works for me, at least when the drum rhythm is the genesis of the tune. I often find myself beatboxing at random times and sometimes come up quite naturally with a rhythm that seems tuneworthy, usually when it's inconvenient/impossible for me to open up Reason, so instead I make a simple notation of it in a small notebook that I keep in my pocket. (Protip: that's turned out to be super-useful for all sorts of everyday things too, like shopping lists, taking down info from a phone call, etc.) The setup that's turned out best for my workflow once in Reason is to give each percussion sound its own instrument (sampler or synthesizer) because that allows maximum flexibility for effects and for manipulation of the samples - that's important to me because I want to use the minimum of instruments possible to get my sonic ideas across, which means that I generally want each sound to have a great deal of character. The main disadvantage I can see of this separate-instruments method (as opposed to using Kong or Redrum for the drums) is that it disallows recording a beat in all at once; but I've always programmed my rhythms manually for the most part, so it doesn't really present a problem for me.

It's not always a beatboxed beat that gets a tune started though; sometimes it's getting ideas from listening to other music, sometimes it's a more abstract idea of a mood or scene I want to evoke, like a storm gathering on the sea. It can easily be a combination of all of these, simultaneously or in a sequence. In the latter cases I'll often have timbral ideas and start by setting up synth patches (always from scratch) or messing around with samples, particularly playing them pitched up and down on the keyboard to see how that changes their character. This is of course influenced by Burial-style vocal science, although I haven't experimented with any vocal samples, just self-recorded household sounds and (begrudgingly, because I prefer total self-authorship, but I haven't yet recorded metallic percussion samples that work well enough) Reason's sound banks. From there I'll try recording parts in on the keyboard and think about how the song can ebb and flow structure-wise via automation, and try to keep myself from making things too busy. This is an important point, as also alluded to earlier: I am a huge believer in economy of means for my own music, because the most sparsely-arranged music I hear tends to be what stays closest to my heart. But I've had plenty of trouble with this because it's so easy to add rather than subtract in order to try to improve a tune. So far I have found great satisfaction in instead using parameter automation on a small number of parts to animate the tune. I've also found it useful to contrast some very slow, through-composed elements with the faster, loopier rhythmic base - this is a simple way to help keep the tune interesting over a long stretch of time. The contrast of fast and slow movement is something that first hit me when listening to MBV's Loveless, where the slow sung melodies contrast with the fast drums (where they're present) and the fastish guitar strumming.

I frequently bounce tunes in progress and listen to them pitched up and down (and sometimes reversed) in Audacity to see what that reveals about the character of the sounds, just like I do with individual samples within Reason; sometimes this will make clear that the tune "wants" to be slower/deeper or faster/higher. I listen to the bounces and write notes to myself for ideas on modifications, incorporating those ideas the next time I'm working in Reason. I have enormous text files full of musical ideas written down since about two years ago, reacting both to my own works in progress and to others' music, and sometimes writing about mood/scene ideas as mentioned earlier. I think it's useful to be able to write one's musical ideas down or describe them to someone because it can help to keep them in better focus while actually working on the music.

Of course periodic complete breaks from listening to my own or any music are invaluable for resetting my ears. So is listening to music I haven't rinsed in a long time (e.g. I'm listening to Loveless for the first time in like a year, since before my total hardcore continuum immersion, and it's blowing my mind all over again).

I really prefer to work fast when possible, and the tunes I consider best (and I've only "completed" a handful, over the past half-year) I've done in three or four days, although not quite from scratch in these particular cases - rather, starting from short fragments that have been lying around for a while (the main bass arpeggio existed for 2.5 years in the case of House Squares before I finally made the full tune out of it). I find that trying to get a tune done quickly - as long as you are confident that it is sufficiently developed - helps keep its initial spark of inspiration, its soul if you will, intact. Other tunes have taken months to complete, so it is also by contrast a wonderful light feeling to be able to complete a tune quickly. The one I've been working on most recently is not going as quickly as I'd like (partly due to travel interrupting work on it) and I rather hope that at some point, at a moment of re-inspiration, I'll just be able to get a near-wrap on it in like one more work session. It also helps that my current taste is not particularly hi-fi, so I haven't been spending much time on careful EQ separation and etc. - although that is also aided by trying to keep instrumentation, especially inherently frequency-conflicting instruments, to a minimum, going back to the economy of means thing.

Note: I don't think that making quick work of a tune is necessarily mutually exclusive with the feedback-writing cycle I talked about, but of course it can become so.

That was an enormous ramble (haha, is it any wonder my music text files are huge), but I always really enjoy reading about other people's workflow and ideas on here, so maybe others feel the same, and maybe there's something helpful here.

[Debaser1]

The setup that's turned out best for my workflow once in Reason is to give each percussion sound its own instrument (sampler or synthesizer) because that allows maximum flexibility for effects and for manipulation of the samples - that's important to me because I want to use the minimum of instruments possible to get my sonic ideas across, which means that I generally want each sound to have a great deal of character. The main disadvantage I can see of this separate-instruments method (as opposed to using Kong or Redrum for the drums) is that it disallows recording a beat in all at once; but I've always programmed my rhythms manually for the most part, so it doesn't really present a problem for me.

Only issue here is it takes a lot more effort to compress/EQ together all the percs right? I quite like keeping percussion simple, maybe 2/3/4 max redrums, all compressed separately. I think overall compression over your entire drums can ruin them - since that will happen in the master anyway, you tend to lose your kicks and snares in the mix then.

[lyons238]

I usually make a decent drum pattern then I add some pads and start the intro to get the feel of how I want my song to be. Then that usually gives me inspiration to write my bass line and melody. I mix and eq along the way. And add little details as I go...

[marktplatz]

The setup that's turned out best for my workflow once in Reason is to give each percussion sound its own instrument (sampler or synthesizer) because that allows maximum flexibility for effects and for manipulation of the samples - that's important to me because I want to use the minimum of instruments possible to get my sonic ideas across, which means that I generally want each sound to have a great deal of character. The main disadvantage I can see of this separate-instruments method (as opposed to using Kong or Redrum for the drums) is that it disallows recording a beat in all at once; but I've always programmed my rhythms manually for the most part, so it doesn't really present a problem for me.

Only issue here is it takes a lot more effort to compress/EQ together all the percs right? I quite like keeping percussion simple, maybe 2/3/4 max redrums, all compressed separately. I think overall compression over your entire drums can ruin them - since that will happen in the master anyway, you tend to lose your kicks and snares in the mix then.

That could become an issue eventually, I suppose. I actually haven't been compressing any of the percussion for the last few songs though (as far as I can remember) or doing any attempts at master-level compression, so I haven't run into mix problems due to compression for a while - at the moment I'm just trying to get good at pre-master mixes. I'm also currently more in the mindset of percussion that acts as a subtle pulse/wash than as really discrete hits, taking a cue from stuff like Mincemeat or Tenspeed where it's all basically noise but still rhythmic enough to get you moving, so that it doesn't matter if the perc sounds quite low in the mix. I feel like there's a huge space to explore there. Also I haven't used headroom-chomping sub-bass for the tunes I was primarily discussing the workflow of (my sig tune partly contradicts what I was just saying about discrete perc hits but the lack of sub keeps the headroom well open), but those compression issues could well crop up next time I do so.

[Filthzilla]

I always do the bass/drop first. I make the intro afterwards.

[zerbaman]

I always do the bass/drop first. I make the intro afterwards.

Yeah, run a 16 or 32, building up the main hook, and just roll it from there

[WereWolf]

interesting video...

I like this video, but it definitely should not be followed as strictly as it is here... If it works for him, thats great, but I would definitely have to add some effects while arranging the song.

[ChadDub]

Well, the tracks I actually finish start with an idea that really hooks me. Whether it's me wanting to be ridiculously stupid (as in my song I'mma Go Hard), or me wanting to make a song that experiments with volume envelopes on sub bass, etc.

It might be due to my "fuck around, never serious" personality, but I only seem to finish tracks when I'm doing them for jokes. Like I just finished a beat for my new song "I ♥ Illuminati", and I started on that track because me and my friends have been making fun of them and it's just funny. I started the beat with some violins and I just messed around with stuff until I found a lead for the intro and there you go. I did that because when I think of Illuminati or all seeing overlords I usually thing of big orchestra intense shit, so that's what I went for. And I finished the beat in about 5 days, because I was really into it. It wasn't just me trying to make a track, it was me trying to be crazy stupid/funny.

As for workflow, well by the time I was about half way done with the beat there were a lot of patterns and shit that had wrong names because I always change shit's usage and everything was all routed to random mixer channels and it all gets pretty messy and cluttered. But whateva, as long as I can find shit it's good.