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Most of my tune ideas come to me while smoking in the garage.. I hear ambient sounds (e.g. wind blowing while hearing bass from a few blocks away... clicking my teeth for kicks.. etc) and it gives me inspiration.

What I hate first and foremost is the fact that none of my tunes end up being what I originally heard in my head. The hard part seems to be getting the exact shit I hear in my head out of my head.. where everyone else can hear it.

Rarely does shit come out as expected. And by the time I have a partial tune, what I heard in my head is gone lol.

I know im not the only one hehe. Hopefully we will be able to install firewire ports into our wrists and get shit directly within the next few years.... right lol.

DJ_Distinct wrote:Most of my tune ideas come to me while smoking in the garage.. I hear ambient sounds (e.g. wind blowing while hearing bass from a few blocks away... clicking my teeth for kicks.. etc) and it gives me inspiration.

What I hate first and foremost is the fact that none of my tunes end up being what I originally heard in my head. The hard part seems to be getting the exact shit I hear in my head out of my head.. where everyone else can hear it.

Rarely does shit come out as expected. And by the time I have a partial tune, what I heard in my head is gone lol.

I know im not the only one hehe. Hopefully we will be able to install firewire ports into our wrists and get shit directly within the next few years.... right lol.

I always thought that would be great to have some kind of mind scan device that could take exactly whats in my head into real sound, doing a live performance would be a bit nuts.

i think firewire ports in your wrists would be a badass idea

eat some acid and throw some RCAs in your ears. i'm tellin you magic will happen.

If you just have a hard time recreating it by writing it in your DAW or whatever you use to write tunes...just sample yourself. Record yourself beatboxing the patterns in your head, then lay the sample out in your editor or whatever and rewrite the kicks, snares, etc. over top of it. You probably still won't be able to get the exact sounds you want, but this method should at least help for drums. The rest of it's just getting to know your DAW and the synths you use.

jackquinox wrote:

DJ_Distinct wrote:Most of my tune ideas come to me while smoking in the garage.. I hear ambient sounds (e.g. wind blowing while hearing bass from a few blocks away... clicking my teeth for kicks.. etc) and it gives me inspiration.

What I hate first and foremost is the fact that none of my tunes end up being what I originally heard in my head. The hard part seems to be getting the exact shit I hear in my head out of my head.. where everyone else can hear it.

Rarely does shit come out as expected. And by the time I have a partial tune, what I heard in my head is gone lol.

I know im not the only one hehe. Hopefully we will be able to install firewire ports into our wrists and get shit directly within the next few years.... right lol.

I always thought that would be great to have some kind of mind scan device that could take exactly whats in my head into real sound, doing a live performance would be a bit nuts.

I've thought about this too and found half of being a musician is knowing how to use your instruments/equipment/software. If everyone could just think up a song and be done, suddenly everyone would be a musician.

You put shit in, you get shit out! haha!

I used to have the same trouble though mate, there is no answer, but the good thing to take from it, is that you get inspired to make music in the first place. Sometimes what can be in your head is a synth riff, but then you can't work out the chords or notes, so sit and learn some music theory, it may be a drum groove, but you can't recreate it because your not a good drummer, so practise! Basically it can be many things, you just have to go with what you can do and try and develop!

I'm not too sure about firewire though, I'd go with bluetooth!

vahn roi wrote:half of being a musician is knowing how to use your instruments/equipment/software.

Spot on.

Know your software intimately, and you can come closer to how it sounds in your head. Sometimes it even comes out sounding better.

relik wrote:If you just have a hard time recreating it by writing it in your DAW or whatever you use to write tunes...just sample yourself. Record yourself beatboxing the patterns in your head, then lay the sample out in your editor or whatever and rewrite the kicks, snares, etc. over top of it.

Its interesting that you say that... I have tried this and it does indeed work. Sometimes its a little hard because I get lost between my bow chigga wows and the boom taps hehe. I want a mindscan device... or im going to need some dentures pretty soon from clicking my teeth.

vahn roi wrote:I've thought about this too and found half of being a musician is knowing how to use your instruments/equipment/software.

Playing a sax sucks without a reed. Drums are great too.. but not if you don't have sticks. I guess what im saying is you need to have access to these resources prior to being able to fully utilize and thus "know" them.

In my mind I have access to everything and anything... not the case outside my mind (not yet at least lol). Thats pretty much sums up why I want a wrist mounted firewire/bluetoof compatible cerebral data extraction/storage unit.. Im tired of compromising during production.

Good point tho!

P.S. Do know that I am dead serious about a wrist mounted firewire/bluetoof compatible cerebral data extraction/storage unit.. I think I saw one on ebay

this is what distinguishes the likes of squarepusher/future sound of london/juno reactor from the average joe. all producers have lots of experience with the soft/hardware, and that what allows them to recreate those sounds digitally.

but there's also the type who can tell you the exact settings all your oscillators have to be at etc. when you play them a sound from a tune, but couldnt make a damn thing musical out of it.

recreating a specific idea you made in your head directly is pretty much impossible unless you're a genius. jamming out is much more fun.

If it's more beats and melodies, I'd recommend setting up a simple kit and a basic synth and maybe a sub to start with. This way you can get that part of the idea down and work on the sounds later. If it's more sound based, try and read up on synth construction and have an idea of what amp and filter envelopes, lfo's, etc can do to the sound and you should be able to get these down quicker. If there's a basic sound you use and then most basses are a variation on that then try and recreate that and save it for use in future projects

i don't know if you know any music theory or can play any instruments, but if you have a good melody in your head, play it on a piano or a guitar to memorise it.

trying to go straight from your brain to the piano roll in cubase often results in the wrong melody being made.

brain>instrument>computer makes it easier to get right and remember imo

Shonky wrote:If it's more beats and melodies, I'd recommend setting up a simple kit and a basic synth and maybe a sub to start with. This way you can get that part of the idea down and work on the sounds later.

^^ What he said



I've got a basic template saved in Cubase ("wub_1") with a copy of Battery with a few basic kits saved (808, 909 etc), then a couple of synths with bass patches, and a sampler channel.

Once I've got an idea in my head, usually from listening to online radio or scouring YouTube for stuff, I fire it up and drop the basic pattern of what I've got in my head down into the editor. Saves me time from having to set all the shit up as I did before, by which point the drum beat I had in my head is usually replaced by the thought of what I'm having for dinner.

Getting it out of your head and into the world is the art. Whether or not you are happy with the translation is another thing. I've written stuff that others love, but I can't stand, because I know how much more bad ass it should have been.

2 words

FIELD RECORDER

I always thought that would be great to have some kind of mind scan device that could take exactly whats in my head into real sound, doing a live performance would be a bit nuts.

as soon as you can extract things from your head with a "mind scan device" so can they

keep them outta your brain

lol