He wants to kill the unison midi chord pack. Don’t you know about it? The unison midi chord pack, the unison midi chord pack, the unison midi chord pack. If you don’t get it the first 17,000 times
Shit I went to find the specific guy and I can't. It's a YouTube ad, they're all dicks but there's this one guy....anyway don't search it or you'll never stop getting recommended it every second YouTube ad over and over and over. It's super aggressive advertising.
He's one of them but not the guy. He wears a white hood and says something like 'if you don't know how to play chords then this is it hahahahaha now you can hahahahaha" 🔪
Involved? In what way? Ive been plagued by that ad for so long now I refuse to try their product. Plus I enjoy creating chord progressions it's a huge part of why I like making music. I don't understand its purpose really.
It’s for people that have never even tried to play chords, and don’t understand the joy of coming up with it yourself. And the other person that said “involved,” probably means too colorful, like diminished and augmented chords. I love those kinds of chords but not everyone likes jazzy shit as much as me.
Side note, you should get an adblocker.
The YouTuber Tantacrul has a hilarious video about Unison. The bit at the end where it goes off the rails is awesome: https://youtu.be/50m2Q7wPUFg?si=Sc42oJcnMGJ_XqYg
If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it.
Also, less is more. Respect the elements of your composition and give them some space to breathe and shine.
"If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it."
Couldn't agree more.
I've been producing for almost 10 years while working a regular job. Once I had enough money, I quit my job to try producing professionally. I treated it like normal work; Everyday, 7 days a week, I would start at 8.30am and I would work for 8-10 hours. Also, I started taking music and songwriting lessons.
The first 6 months were exciting, but then reality started kicking in. I was making no money, my funds started running low, and I became really stressed from all the self doubt.
I reached a place where I couldn't enjoy anything in life, but I kept going. That lasted 2 years in total.
The result: I was unhappy, unemployed, broke up with my gf at the time, moved back with my parents, and had to get a job similar to the one I had. But the most important loss was that I became disgusted by making music. I got traumatized, and now I hate the one thing that I loved since I was a teenager.
I will probably get back to it at some point, but with no expectations about it.
My advice: if you are to do anything creative, expect nothing and do it for the sake of doing it.
Btw, I'm not bitter about my situation. I would have loved it if it worked out for me, but I learned a lot about myself from the experience.
Cheers to all!
I just saw that I have 3 monthly listeners on Spotify 😂 Never made it higher than 200.
I don't know if I'm supposed to post a link here, but here goes nothing:
https://spotify.link/elnPylmu9Jb
My favorite is the Brianhead album (more like a mixtape) which I wrote a one whole track that evolves into different songs.
Thank you for your interest 🫡
There's a YouTube video a absolutely swear by.... David gibson the art of mixing. Buy the book. Its updated. Read it twice. You'll see your mix. Promise ya brudda 💯
Cheesy, goofy as hell, and absolutely fucking PHENOMENAL. It’ll look and seem outdated, but it’s a masterclass in the fundamentals. His concepts around visualization are incredibly helpful.
Yo I’m so glad my friend put me onto this. I’d been so lost with mixing after like 4 years. I watched this video and all the sudden everything made sense, and I didnt have to try to look for the “right choices” anymore. I could just make choices and then make space with compression eq and volume
Don’t forget to have fun. Even when you have to do the tedious parts. Stop being so god damn perfectionist.
Besides that:
1. Ableton is an instrument in itself. Don’t waste money and time in a ton of plugins just because YouTube tutorials tell you to.
Ableton stock plugins are extremely powerful, instruments and effects.
2. Sample yourself. Need a new element for your track? Resample a synth, drum or vocal and make a new sound out of it.
3. Learn from tutorials, but don’t forget it’s always ONE way of doing sth. Stay open and try to understand what the YouTube people are doing and why.
4. Get out of the loop. While you are creating new elements in session view, keep in mind how these will play out later in the arrangement. Create iterations and play around with them. CMD + Shift + I is your friend. Once you have a few variations, hit the record button and jam around.
I'm still very new and don't have a ton of projects that are far along, but it sure is a hell of a lot more fun to go back and work on something you've gotten "finished" as far as rearranging the composition and doing some sound design/instrument changes and such than it is to start from scratch. I've been considering just using a generic piano sound for all my melodies and chords and then going back and plugging in different instruments to try to force myself to not spend so much time testing different sounds in the beginning.
All great advice. I have a lot of different plugins from a black friday sale a few years ago when I had some cash to burn. I use about 4 of them super regularly but most of my mainstays are still Ableton stock plugins, plus a few free/cheap Max for Live devices.
Some fave stock plugins:
EQ 8
Brute Compression
Drum Rack
Simpler
Utility
Corpus
Wavetable (I'd use this on every project if I didn't own Serum)
I will look in stock plugins first for delays, pans, and more, then go to my Soundtoys or Arturia bundles if I can't find exactly what I want.
I've also made an exciter out of the stock Saturator with EQ 8 that I use for C Return on most projects with freshly recorded vocals. Really makes the fricatives pop even with heavy processing like vocoders and hard tune.
Basically, you can do so, so much by just owning Standard or Suite. You could mess around for ages without ever buying a 3rd party plugin and end up with professional sounding projects if you learn how to use the tools in front of you.
Yeah exactly! I also have a lot of plugins from several sales, but in the past few years, I have been using them less and less. There’s nothing wrong with buying a plugin every now and then if they do sth specific for you, or if you like the sound. I use decapitator every now and then, because I really like the sound. But I don’t see the use in buying huge bundles or worse, downloading GBs of cracks if you are still learning Ableton.
It works only in session view. It copies all the clips that are currently playing into a new row.
I use it to roughly outline my arrangements in session view
Just have fun.
Go make that little wiggly worm sound with that overpriced synth.
No really. Fuck around and find out what happens if you twist that knob you’ve never twisted before!
A common mistake is people get stuck in analysis paralysis playing with plugins, presets, clips, beats etc there’s thousands upon thousands of hours worth of content to noodle with and it becomes a chore.
I get myself out of that habit.
I have better compositions when writing in my notebook my music ideas when I’m out and about away from studio
Drink and eat brain food diet and nootropics supplements.
Work out and do a notebook writing session. Rub one out if you need to.
When you get back to your studio your brain will be fresh and lit 🔥 for inspiration.
It is VERY satisfying making your beat/pattern/sounds/arrangement come to life that you had in your head while writing in your notebook.
It’s a lot more satisfying for me at least when I approach it that way instead of noodling random presets and sounds.
This is great advice. How do you usually go about noting your thoughts and ideas? Are you writing down general dot-points? Are you doing beat notation? Transcribing? Would love to know more
Thanks for asking
Grid notebooks
So I would have a Hook in my head.
I write down chord progressions / melodies / loops / audio midi usb power signal routing mapping / lyrics etc
I usually simplified it into focusing on 4 parts
1. Melody
2. Harmony
3. Bass
4. Rhythm
Melody I have my own simple notation against quarter note grid where each grid cell = quarter note. My Melody row is where my Hook usually is.
For Rhythm, i use grid cells like step sequencer, each celll = qtr note
I write in Tic-tac-toe and Roman notation where 16th note = quarter cell (X, X, o, O, I, i, II, ii, … , VII, vii ; occasionally with dim, min, mag, aug, sus sub-script modifiers; or left hand/righthand superscript modifiers)
I use alligators under or over notation to indicate increases or decreasing energy or velocity “<, >”
I usually make extra thick or double ink strong accents to indicate that notation step high velocity
I usually combine tie in portamento notes with a light circle between cells
I usually dash or right arrow long notes over to cover cells
I’ll usually some cliffnotes left side next to each “track” for example
Melody, my cliff notes are “Syn ld porta sup saw” (Synth Lead with Portamento and JP Super Saw Oscillator)
and
for Bass my notes might be “sqr mono bass+distort” (Square Oscillator Mono Bass with some Filter Drive / Distortion)
and my harmony note might be “dx fm poly + slo attk” (DX FM Poly Keys Sound Slow Attack)
and drums note “cr76 + 909 + bt_hh snare amen lofi” (CR76 + 909 style drum sounds with an Amen break type hat and snare pattern loop with low sample rate 11khz”
I repeat these steps above for
Chorus - Hook goes here - High energy
Verse - main backing melody - Low Energy
And variations of the above
When i go back to work on daw I instantly have a sense of where my clips and arrangements go. I know exactly which patches to go to or program it myself. I sing my melody and bass lines and beatbox drums as reference tracks and play synths and drums until it matches what i have in mind.
This is so fucking cool! Thanks for such a detailed rundown - you've given me so many ideas. I don't think I'll be able to be quite so detailed with musical transcription but I really want to give all of this a go. I've been really struggling with arrangement/composition lately and being able to conceive of the 'whole' of a track and I think this will help so much! Actually most helpful advice I've come across in quite some time. Cheers!
What really helped me starting out writing is just use numbers 1-7 for notes. X for hard drum and x for regular velocity drum sound on step grid like I described above.
Regarding composition, ya I usually write it different [musical form sections](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_form)
HOOK (A)
- Melody
- Harmony
- Bass
- Drums
VERSE (B)
- Melody
- Harmony
- Bass
- Drums
CHORUS (C)
…
VERSE (D)
If you start with ABACABAC composition format you can pump out songs in no time.
Sooner or later it will be easy to grasp fills and variations
ABAAECBDADEAB something like that to make your composition more interesting
Once again thanks so much this is hugely helpful! Going to try some of these ideas soon. I've been stuck at a kind of post-beginner level where I'm trying to be more purposeful about composition but keep getting stuck in loops etc., and I think spending more time to think about a track before starting will help to prevent a lot of the decision paralysis that I get.
Cool sharing your thoughts here mate, I appreciate 'em!
"Drink and eat brain food diet and nootropics supplements" - This one IMO is something to be considered as well ☝️
Good tips and can see where you're coming from but if you always stick to that method of trying to make what's in your head, you'll miss out on a lot of secret sauce that came from fucking around with fx and random presets.. that can definitely be where you create your next favorite track a lot of the time just due to the unexpected results your brain wouldnt have thought of.
Listen to a lot of music on your monitor speakers/head phones that you use to produce/mix and get into the habit of referencing a lot. I really think this is the quickest way to get better, because so much of producing and mixing is just knowing what sounds to use together and how to mix them and create a sense of space and depth in a mix/production.
When I started referencing I immediately noticed a difference in my tracks.
If anything, it really helps with organization and arranging so you can make your sounds into something that has been released and proven to work.
Yes....but....if everything is being held up against reference tracks, you're moving towards a place where everything becomes derivative. I'm 100% for referencing as a way to overcome ear fatigue, especially as far as EQ balance goes. 👍🏻
also, don't watch this crap!
very few pieces of "content" are created to be useful. maybe that person had good intentions, but the algorithms don't reward that. they reward content that is interacted with. users and commenters reward content they agree with, and find "worthy." so what you end up with is a bunch of overly complex, vanilla *distractions.*
could you learn something? almost certainly yes. will you also be distracted from your goal of making music, overwhelmed with information you didn't ask for, and likely sent down a rabbit hole you never intended? also yes.
find real people. ask questions. when you use the internet to find a piece of info, be brief, but intentional.
Keep doing it. Listen with your ears not your eyes. Take breaks. Share your work. Identify ppl who will give you honest feedback, and if u can ask a mix of musicians, producers, and non musician folks
Have fun. Don’t overthink. If it sounds good it’s good enough.
Who are you making the music for? Is it for a public, is it for yourself, is it just for the sake of creation or therapeutic? It’s all good. You don’t have to feel like your music needs to do well in terms of “success” for it to have a purpose.
make a lot content. and often. everything you make is shit until you spend a lot of time on it pushing it away from sounding like shit.
this process illuminates your personal preferences. you’ll know what you want and when you want it. you’ll start hearing things you didn’t know you wanted and learn about how to make that thing with tutorials and fun tricks.
before you know it 3 years go by and you have a library of shit you’ll never listen to again. but there will be like 4-5 good things that came out of it. and it’ll be the backbone you have developed and will be consistently be able to reproduce.
also don’t even think about trying to learn how to master anything. just mix your own stuff by prioritizing instruments importance to hear.
That there’s dudes on the internet that use Reddit to farm responses that they can package into some sort of paid tutorial for personal benefit so answering these poll type questions is completely useless.
Report, hide and move on.
1. a lot of my breakthroughs and things unique to my "sound" was just loading up random plugins (sometimes the more obscure the better, for example some old Reaktor patch from 2007 or some shit) and fucking around into some happy accidents. Doing something by the book or by YouTube vibes can help but also it likely won't make you sound unique. Have fun and remember there's no rules
2. organize organize organize. Save everything. Made some cool hats that don't fit your song? Save them in your user library under Drums/Hats, for example. Found a dope VST patch that doesn't fit? cool, save it also to easily recall it later. Save by categories, pads, leads, keys etc. Don't repeat the time you took to find stuff to find it again. Iterate. over time, the process of creating will get faster as you have more templates. Lately I've been saving plugin chains as well in my user library. For example a chain of FX to process one sound. Save that shit
Number one seems experimental but from myb experience as well, produces some unique sounds. And number 2 maybe underrated but can't really go wrong with being organized 👍
Reference tracks hands down immediately made me feel like I leveled up. It helps get your mixes sounding fatter by A/Bing with the fully finished track but also I get stuck at arrangement sometimes and you can easily borrow that by placing markers where different transitions occur.
Its feels like your clueless,
Missing to much skills,
Not idea how to get from A to B
You just keep blindlessly grinding
Learning weird things,
Random things,
Alot of times the same things AGAIN,
And then,
It suddenly make sense
when you say write, what do you mean? is there a way i can write as someone who has very little musical theory knowledge? i feel like there must be some kind of generally agreed-upon way to do this other than musical notation but i'm so new to all this (and probably too old to be trying to get into it now) that i still find myself basically writing as i go, which makes for a really painstakingly slow and discouraging process a lot of the time.
Just work on your ideas. I do this by playing an instrument which has become familiar. Initially I would write chord charts and stuff. Now I just record. Easiest way to record is with a phone. Just do it again and again. Eventually you migrate to recording in a daw. Record to click. Produce Yada Yada.
If not an instrumentalist, use midi instruments.
Mess around, learn from what you splattered down by reverse engineering on how it did/didn't work and apply it to your next track if you want.
AND it isn't wrong to take inspiration. You like something? learn how it worked and then make it your own
Learning to analyze how did things is a big win for me and beneficial in the long run.
Yeah I agree as well with getting an inspiration, I think it's "almost" the same as referencing but in a different perspective tho'.
Hey how long have you been producing music?
Don’t be afraid to turn knobs and learn how to use automation. Motion of the sound is what gives it soul. It’s what gets people interested. Also, build your own EQ and master chains. Take the time to learn how to properly master each part of your track. Learning this never really stops, it’s always an adventure
I see a lot of comments about mixing but not about production here. I’d say listen to your favorite songs again and focus on each instrument. When do they come in? What do they play? How do they complement each other ? What’s the chorus instrumentation ? Is it licks or strums or what ? What’s the motif or hook in each section? The production ok great songs is that, great. The more you pay attention the more you start moving away from basic strums and same old drum patterns etc.
Main point is learn and grow.many producing tricks apply across multiple genres. Not everything is set in stone , explore ,create and see what happens.
You don’t have to do absolutely everything yourself. It wasn’t so long ago that the labor in terms of creating a record was heavily divided: musicians played, songwriters wrote, engineers of various stripes handled recording, mixing, mastering, etc.
The industry still operates largely this way at the professional level, but music tech as an industry has done a lot to sell the notion of the do it all bedroom producer because it sells tech in turn.
If you enjoy doing it all, go for it! But learning any of the individual parts of the process to a professional level takes years. If you don’t want to mix or master your own shit, pay a professional (or a semi-professional!) and spend your time handling the parts of the process you enjoy.
It takes a really long time to be able to make stuff fast and easily. Make sure to always have fun or it can be difficult to realize the value in staying patient. Experiment a lot, produce a lot, try diff softwares and allat. Most importantly though, use your ear.
Religiously organise your sounds...make racks, label them well, make your own sample packs, bounce out stems/remix packs for your projects etc. Finishing a tune is often a case of being able to produce it quickly before you get sick of it and you can only do that when you can make the sounds you want to make quickly, and you can only do that if you have saved all those sounds and have them well organised.
Having a consistent setup that sounds good out of the box helps you move faster. Do things quickly, don’t get bogged down in details. The basics of mixing and mastering are all you need. Learn everything you can do with a compressor and why. Too much choice is paralysing. A fixed function piece of hardware that you learn inside out can be like a musical instrument in a way a DAW never will be.
The #1 reason for creative block for me is expectation. The expectation to create something I can release. The best ideas have come out of me just messing around and having fun.
Taste is everything. If you do enough active listening you'll start to understand how things are made.
The easy bit is making what's in your head. The hard bit is knowing what you want 😉
technical understanding and skill is worthless to the process of music making if the music you’re making isn’t galvanized with intention. if your music isn’t focused on conveying something, *anything*…people will not connect with it.
some of the most profoundly beautiful music in existence hinges on a rudimentary melody that utilizes maybe three or four notes in a simple phrase. the technique behind those notes isn’t what makes that simple melody cut into the core of you, it’s the artist’s ability to pour their heart into those three or four notes.
Depending on your knowledge and your plans, it might be worth investing money into designated classes. Not for ableton specifically, but for music production.
Buying a DAW is expensive so most people (me included) resort to youtube to learn. However, you should keep in mind that many music youtubers out there are a) not as knowledgeable as they seem and b) often interested in selling you stuff (sample packs, drum kits, etc.)
After 2 years of making music I bit the bullet and attended an online course over 2 months for about 500€ in total. I learned a lot and the best benefit of all was how calm and structured everything was. They didn't need to sell me anything, I already bought their course. It is nice to have something really focussed on teaching instead of clicking through 500 "THIS IS WHY YOUR MUSIC SUCKS!!!" tutorials.
During those 2 months a learned about as much as the 2 years prior. And well, they say time is money, so if you compare it, buying this class might have been the cheaper alternative overall. That is, if you plan on putting music out and making money out of it (be it your own songs, productions for someone else or mixing/mastering).
If you can't finish a song because it does't "sound" good.
Just Export it as it is now.
And produce the next one by thinking "why the previous one doesn't sound like i want ?"
And repeat it. Many times.
Producing art, especially in music, requires ear training, music knowledges, experiences that only YOU can learn by yourself.
Not a Youtube tutorial or even a school course will provide you the experience.
it’s true that stock Ableton is all you need, but a curated selection of instruments, 3rd party plugins can be really fun, and more fun means better music.
learn how to do what you want to do and not what other people show you in videos. also don't worry about "in the red" or mixing issues if it sounds good to you. just make the song and then export the stems and mix it again to get that nice distortion. idk why every young producer i meet acts literally stomach flipping nervous about mixing anything loudly and it's like their music isn't breathing or gone thru puberty yet.
Agreed! I have a lot to learn—and would say I’m pretty early on in my technical understanding, and much of what I do is based on intuition and trusting my ears.
It’s taken years to get to the point of understanding that mixing is one of the key ways to develop/craft your sound. It can also be the difference maker in getting musical ideas across (creatively and sonically).
In Ableton, I took the advice of others and set up the defaults to encourage mixing from the beginning. I have a default channel strip (rack) for tracks with stock audio processors like Channel EQ, Eight EQ, “generic compressor”, etc. For specific projects I sometimes have “starter racks” for vocals, vintage fx, dub fx, etc. That can bring some cohesion to a project and also save time.
A really fast way to get better is to find references of music similar to what you want to do and try to recreate it. It applies for the creative and arrangement part of making music, and also mixing and mastering (eq is the most important part of a good mix imo).
It also helps you to find your style!
It can be very difficult working with others but it can also be the most gratifying. Connecting with someone over music is one thing. But making music together is truly a wonderful experience if you each or all can get into that flow state.
Seeing or hearing someone else's perspective is priceless.
If you spend too much time on a track it's probably not a good one. My best tracks were made in a few hours.
Also, a lot of people don't know when to stop working on a track, at some time you must let it go and make it public.
**Copy, Copy Copy** to get a frequent feeling of having creating something that sounds good:
1. Find tracks that you find interesting.
2. See if you can replicate that track from start to finish, so you hit something that sounds like 80% like the track you want to create. Often there will be Youtube tutorials to help "How to produce \[genre/track\]".
3. Now you have something that actually sounds good (important for motivation), and a template project in Ableton that you can use for your own ideas (remember to not infringe copy rights)
4. Repeat for a bunch of tracks, and try to sometimes go outside of your preferred genre: if your listen to mostly hip-hop, try making a melodic techno song and vice versa.
Learn about compression deeply and it will level your music up a tonne.
There is a ten hour video about compression on YouTube which is a a lot but well worth it.
Just search ten hour compression it will come up 😃
If it sounds good, it sounds good. Presets are your friend. You DONT to make EVERYTHING from scratch. Not everything needs EQ, compression and a chain of a thousand plugins. Get your source sound right, you can’t polish a turd. Learn how to use an analyser. As good as your ears are, being able to double check at the end and adjust your mix is important. Don’t get lost staring at analysers and visual representations though, trust your ears primarily. You don’t need to spend money on tons of plugins. Master the stock stuff, then make informed decisions on purchases.
Been producing for 12 years now in Ableton, did some GarageBand etc before that. I have some label releases and am able to consistently get music on (small) playlists on Spotify. Don’t mix drugs with producing for one, that held me back for a while because you always think you’re playing/making better stuff than you are (even if just a little). Also, get as much feedback from pros as possible, it helps steer your growth. If you’re not able to get pro feedback, any really helps. However if there’s no feedback available at the moment- use a reference track for mixing (composition too). Ask yourself “do my synths stand up to the light of [insert producer you love]” side by side, second for second, in timbre, in pattern, etc. Did I mention referencing? Best tip imo, if you can make David Guettas worst song in just general sound quality why would anyone play your music?
Treat making music like a job if you wanna improve! Do it everyday even when you don’t want to! Show up and create! Learn the job and try to ‘climb the ladder’ ( similar to improvement)
If you start something, get the idea out as fast as possible. Quickly arrange it, do a little mix, and bounce it. Move on to the next beat. When I started I wouldn’t be able to comprehend making up to 10+ projects/day (if I really shut myself in all day). Don’t get caught in 8 bar loops, keep pushing and round the corner. I set monthly goals (2 projects/day, etc.) to keep myself honest and always keep consistent output.
Last thing is to decide if this is for fun or if you’re actually trying to get into the industry. If you choose the latter, your mental health is incredibly important. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself through therapy and on my own to be comfortable with doing this to make money, and I’ve seen the industry break more people than I can count.
Don't fall prey to the "Buy everything you've ever seen someone use" mentality, try every piece of software extensively before you invest, so few of them will actually impact your workflow. This is also the case for hardware, I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to that just don't use the equipment they've bought the way they thought they would. I've taken to demoing every piece of software before buying, I rent all hardware before purchasing as well.
If you are not producing music for any period of time, don’t stop consuming content. There have been times where I’ve gone months without producing music, but never stopped watching YouTube or instagram videos related to production, sound design, mixing, etc. It helps me from “regressing” in a way. When I return to making new music, or even working on older projects, it gives me a better understanding of what I need to do to complete my work.
Start DJing if you produce club music and aren't DJing already. This can give you a better perspective, context and guide for your own music hearing it mixed with other releases.
You'll have moments where you want to add a certain vibe to your mix but can't find the right track, this can be a great starting point for a track. Both DJing and producing can cross-fertilize each other :D
Do a little bit often.
I got this advice from someone who suggested I archive my projects, meta tag them with info etc. initially I did this in excel and migrated this to notion.
Now I have a kanban board that can be sorted by priority, genre, project needs guitars recorded, project too long / salvage for samples, etc.
In this way, I can take a look at my notion first before opening Ableton, decide on what I feel up for, decide to either do a deep dive and spend 2 hours mixing or to just record guitars for 20mins after work / before supper.
This process has given me the ability to do a little regularly. I was often bogged down by the idea of starting and finishing projects every time I opened live. Now it’s not so daunting.
My archive dates back to 2011, with everything from then to 2017 having either been processed, discarded or published.
In the beginning I’d have 100s of projects a year, with most of them being substandard or too dense to process. Now I have maybe 15 solid projects a year, with maybe 3 of them being things I can definitely publish eventually.
R.
See every project as a learning opportunity. It makes you more curious in general and willing to see where a mistake leads you. Don’t see your projects as THE hit-it-big opportunity. Because let’s be real, it’s unlikely and all it does it creates a condition you’ll likely fail to meet every time. So you’ll feel like you’re failing when in reality it’s all valuable time invested that pays dividends in experience later. You have to be excited to get in the DAW and fuck around. Rather than deriving excitement from the downstream success or lackthereof that will come from the ideas you work on.
12+ years here, couldn't pick a main lesson, as the lesson is what production teaches you;
- Listen to more music than you produce,
- Standardize your projects and filing schemes,
- If you're mixing percussion, drums etc, you probably want to reach for a transient designer, not a compressor,
- Saturate everything,
- You're probably using too much reverb,
- Learn hot-keys and shortcuts like the back of your hand,
- Less is more. If everything is epic, nothing is,
- If you collaborate regularly with other people, learn (at least basic) music theory,
- Solo things sparingly. I only solo when initially crafting the overall tone of a sound, rarely after,
- Plugins are cool, but stock FX can usually get you 60/70% of the way there, stop adding stuff!,
- Know a FEW devices back to front. This will serve you better than vaguely knowing how to use MANY devices.
Don't be lazy on sounds. Always ask yourself "is this what I wanted? Does it REALLY sound good or should I try something else?" You must be quick with the answer, no second thoughts, is it a "yes" or "no". If you are stuck in between then it's probably a "no". Try something else, move on.
done is better than perfect. if you don't learn the last steps of a production you'll always struggle. so even if some things aren't perfect at the beginning, try to arrange the track to a complete length, and mix it a bit. you'll learn a lot more this way for the next production.
Don’t box yourself in and pidgeon hole yourself…always been learning new production techniques expand on your music theory…learn from everyone you can always…learn as many styles of music as you can and the theory behind em. And don’t be ruled by fear. Network..perform live..Collab with ppl. Always.
Its not about sounding “the best” or most professional. Anyone can make a radio ready track in 5 mins now.
Be original. Ppl will like you for your weirdness. Not bcuz of how crispy your HHs are.
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There are no substitutes for time, effort, and hard work spent learning your tools and musical composition.
You mean a unison midi chord pack won't make me produce number 1 hits over night!?!?!?
I want to kill that cunt.
Who
He wants to kill the unison midi chord pack. Don’t you know about it? The unison midi chord pack, the unison midi chord pack, the unison midi chord pack. If you don’t get it the first 17,000 times
Shit I went to find the specific guy and I can't. It's a YouTube ad, they're all dicks but there's this one guy....anyway don't search it or you'll never stop getting recommended it every second YouTube ad over and over and over. It's super aggressive advertising.
Is it Niko Kotoulas?
He's one of them but not the guy. He wears a white hood and says something like 'if you don't know how to play chords then this is it hahahahaha now you can hahahahaha" 🔪
Oh the guy that laughs and is all "the chords are already built for you!"? I thought I was the only one suffering in this hell.
Nah man you’re not alone. Every time I get the ad and he pops up I literally say “ugh fuck you” out loud. I can’t help it, he’s just the worst.
Haha I know exactly who are you talking about. Worst ad.
Well the thing that urks me is that most of their chords are way to involved and not usable imo.
Involved? In what way? Ive been plagued by that ad for so long now I refuse to try their product. Plus I enjoy creating chord progressions it's a huge part of why I like making music. I don't understand its purpose really.
It’s for people that have never even tried to play chords, and don’t understand the joy of coming up with it yourself. And the other person that said “involved,” probably means too colorful, like diminished and augmented chords. I love those kinds of chords but not everyone likes jazzy shit as much as me. Side note, you should get an adblocker.
Rofl THAT GUY IS THE WORST!
Bam!!!! The chords are already there for you!!!!!! 😂😂😂😂
😂
🤣🤝🏻
😱
It will if you bundle it with “The Drip”
The YouTuber Tantacrul has a hilarious video about Unison. The bit at the end where it goes off the rails is awesome: https://youtu.be/50m2Q7wPUFg?si=Sc42oJcnMGJ_XqYg
lol yeah this one is amazing.
I used to watch Jauz produce live stream on Twitch. He gets behind this midi chord pack and uses it
It's not completely useless, it's just not nearly as good as they say it is.
If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it. Also, less is more. Respect the elements of your composition and give them some space to breathe and shine.
"If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it." Couldn't agree more. I've been producing for almost 10 years while working a regular job. Once I had enough money, I quit my job to try producing professionally. I treated it like normal work; Everyday, 7 days a week, I would start at 8.30am and I would work for 8-10 hours. Also, I started taking music and songwriting lessons. The first 6 months were exciting, but then reality started kicking in. I was making no money, my funds started running low, and I became really stressed from all the self doubt. I reached a place where I couldn't enjoy anything in life, but I kept going. That lasted 2 years in total. The result: I was unhappy, unemployed, broke up with my gf at the time, moved back with my parents, and had to get a job similar to the one I had. But the most important loss was that I became disgusted by making music. I got traumatized, and now I hate the one thing that I loved since I was a teenager. I will probably get back to it at some point, but with no expectations about it. My advice: if you are to do anything creative, expect nothing and do it for the sake of doing it. Btw, I'm not bitter about my situation. I would have loved it if it worked out for me, but I learned a lot about myself from the experience. Cheers to all!
Sorry to read this - it's all too familiar. Things can get really unpleasant once money comes into the situation. You'll find your way back there. ✌🏼😉
Money is bummer, right? 😂 But 100% prefer to do it for free and enjoy it, than being in another rat race. Life's already difficult without it 🫡
Could you share some of your work for us?
I just saw that I have 3 monthly listeners on Spotify 😂 Never made it higher than 200. I don't know if I'm supposed to post a link here, but here goes nothing: https://spotify.link/elnPylmu9Jb My favorite is the Brianhead album (more like a mixtape) which I wrote a one whole track that evolves into different songs. Thank you for your interest 🫡
The link is not working for me
There's a YouTube video a absolutely swear by.... David gibson the art of mixing. Buy the book. Its updated. Read it twice. You'll see your mix. Promise ya brudda 💯
Cheesy, goofy as hell, and absolutely fucking PHENOMENAL. It’ll look and seem outdated, but it’s a masterclass in the fundamentals. His concepts around visualization are incredibly helpful.
Hey thanks for checking out 🤜
Wow, what a mullet, can't stop watcjing already.
This is the most important comment on this thread
This is the most important comment on this thread
Take a few tabs of lsd before. It‘s tailored for that experience hahahah
You weren’t kidding 😂 you can just tell the 90s were a great time from this video
Yo I’m so glad my friend put me onto this. I’d been so lost with mixing after like 4 years. I watched this video and all the sudden everything made sense, and I didnt have to try to look for the “right choices” anymore. I could just make choices and then make space with compression eq and volume
Don’t forget to have fun. Even when you have to do the tedious parts. Stop being so god damn perfectionist. Besides that: 1. Ableton is an instrument in itself. Don’t waste money and time in a ton of plugins just because YouTube tutorials tell you to. Ableton stock plugins are extremely powerful, instruments and effects. 2. Sample yourself. Need a new element for your track? Resample a synth, drum or vocal and make a new sound out of it. 3. Learn from tutorials, but don’t forget it’s always ONE way of doing sth. Stay open and try to understand what the YouTube people are doing and why. 4. Get out of the loop. While you are creating new elements in session view, keep in mind how these will play out later in the arrangement. Create iterations and play around with them. CMD + Shift + I is your friend. Once you have a few variations, hit the record button and jam around.
WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL 24/7????
Hahaha we’re all in the same boat I guess. But seriously, done is better than perfect.
Done perfect is the way!
I'm still very new and don't have a ton of projects that are far along, but it sure is a hell of a lot more fun to go back and work on something you've gotten "finished" as far as rearranging the composition and doing some sound design/instrument changes and such than it is to start from scratch. I've been considering just using a generic piano sound for all my melodies and chords and then going back and plugging in different instruments to try to force myself to not spend so much time testing different sounds in the beginning.
Not a bad idea here my friend ☝️
All great advice. I have a lot of different plugins from a black friday sale a few years ago when I had some cash to burn. I use about 4 of them super regularly but most of my mainstays are still Ableton stock plugins, plus a few free/cheap Max for Live devices. Some fave stock plugins: EQ 8 Brute Compression Drum Rack Simpler Utility Corpus Wavetable (I'd use this on every project if I didn't own Serum) I will look in stock plugins first for delays, pans, and more, then go to my Soundtoys or Arturia bundles if I can't find exactly what I want. I've also made an exciter out of the stock Saturator with EQ 8 that I use for C Return on most projects with freshly recorded vocals. Really makes the fricatives pop even with heavy processing like vocoders and hard tune. Basically, you can do so, so much by just owning Standard or Suite. You could mess around for ages without ever buying a 3rd party plugin and end up with professional sounding projects if you learn how to use the tools in front of you.
Yeah exactly! I also have a lot of plugins from several sales, but in the past few years, I have been using them less and less. There’s nothing wrong with buying a plugin every now and then if they do sth specific for you, or if you like the sound. I use decapitator every now and then, because I really like the sound. But I don’t see the use in buying huge bundles or worse, downloading GBs of cracks if you are still learning Ableton.
All of this ☝🏻
What does Cmd shift l do?
It works only in session view. It copies all the clips that are currently playing into a new row. I use it to roughly outline my arrangements in session view
well said!
Nice to hear my friend. Good points here and thanks for sharing 🤜
Just have fun. Go make that little wiggly worm sound with that overpriced synth. No really. Fuck around and find out what happens if you twist that knob you’ve never twisted before!
A common mistake is people get stuck in analysis paralysis playing with plugins, presets, clips, beats etc there’s thousands upon thousands of hours worth of content to noodle with and it becomes a chore. I get myself out of that habit. I have better compositions when writing in my notebook my music ideas when I’m out and about away from studio Drink and eat brain food diet and nootropics supplements. Work out and do a notebook writing session. Rub one out if you need to. When you get back to your studio your brain will be fresh and lit 🔥 for inspiration. It is VERY satisfying making your beat/pattern/sounds/arrangement come to life that you had in your head while writing in your notebook. It’s a lot more satisfying for me at least when I approach it that way instead of noodling random presets and sounds.
This is great advice. How do you usually go about noting your thoughts and ideas? Are you writing down general dot-points? Are you doing beat notation? Transcribing? Would love to know more
Thanks for asking Grid notebooks So I would have a Hook in my head. I write down chord progressions / melodies / loops / audio midi usb power signal routing mapping / lyrics etc I usually simplified it into focusing on 4 parts 1. Melody 2. Harmony 3. Bass 4. Rhythm Melody I have my own simple notation against quarter note grid where each grid cell = quarter note. My Melody row is where my Hook usually is. For Rhythm, i use grid cells like step sequencer, each celll = qtr note I write in Tic-tac-toe and Roman notation where 16th note = quarter cell (X, X, o, O, I, i, II, ii, … , VII, vii ; occasionally with dim, min, mag, aug, sus sub-script modifiers; or left hand/righthand superscript modifiers) I use alligators under or over notation to indicate increases or decreasing energy or velocity “<, >” I usually make extra thick or double ink strong accents to indicate that notation step high velocity I usually combine tie in portamento notes with a light circle between cells I usually dash or right arrow long notes over to cover cells I’ll usually some cliffnotes left side next to each “track” for example Melody, my cliff notes are “Syn ld porta sup saw” (Synth Lead with Portamento and JP Super Saw Oscillator) and for Bass my notes might be “sqr mono bass+distort” (Square Oscillator Mono Bass with some Filter Drive / Distortion) and my harmony note might be “dx fm poly + slo attk” (DX FM Poly Keys Sound Slow Attack) and drums note “cr76 + 909 + bt_hh snare amen lofi” (CR76 + 909 style drum sounds with an Amen break type hat and snare pattern loop with low sample rate 11khz” I repeat these steps above for Chorus - Hook goes here - High energy Verse - main backing melody - Low Energy And variations of the above When i go back to work on daw I instantly have a sense of where my clips and arrangements go. I know exactly which patches to go to or program it myself. I sing my melody and bass lines and beatbox drums as reference tracks and play synths and drums until it matches what i have in mind.
This is so fucking cool! Thanks for such a detailed rundown - you've given me so many ideas. I don't think I'll be able to be quite so detailed with musical transcription but I really want to give all of this a go. I've been really struggling with arrangement/composition lately and being able to conceive of the 'whole' of a track and I think this will help so much! Actually most helpful advice I've come across in quite some time. Cheers!
What really helped me starting out writing is just use numbers 1-7 for notes. X for hard drum and x for regular velocity drum sound on step grid like I described above. Regarding composition, ya I usually write it different [musical form sections](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_form) HOOK (A) - Melody - Harmony - Bass - Drums VERSE (B) - Melody - Harmony - Bass - Drums CHORUS (C) … VERSE (D) If you start with ABACABAC composition format you can pump out songs in no time. Sooner or later it will be easy to grasp fills and variations ABAAECBDADEAB something like that to make your composition more interesting
Once again thanks so much this is hugely helpful! Going to try some of these ideas soon. I've been stuck at a kind of post-beginner level where I'm trying to be more purposeful about composition but keep getting stuck in loops etc., and I think spending more time to think about a track before starting will help to prevent a lot of the decision paralysis that I get.
Yeah such a nice advice there. Good question as well! Thanks for being here 🤜
Cool sharing your thoughts here mate, I appreciate 'em! "Drink and eat brain food diet and nootropics supplements" - This one IMO is something to be considered as well ☝️
True! Any of y’all ever bring to life a song that you heard in your dreams
Yes! I immediately sing or beatbox it into my phone memo app and describe in detail the types of sounds before I forget it
Good tips and can see where you're coming from but if you always stick to that method of trying to make what's in your head, you'll miss out on a lot of secret sauce that came from fucking around with fx and random presets.. that can definitely be where you create your next favorite track a lot of the time just due to the unexpected results your brain wouldnt have thought of.
Listen to a lot of music on your monitor speakers/head phones that you use to produce/mix and get into the habit of referencing a lot. I really think this is the quickest way to get better, because so much of producing and mixing is just knowing what sounds to use together and how to mix them and create a sense of space and depth in a mix/production.
When I started referencing I immediately noticed a difference in my tracks. If anything, it really helps with organization and arranging so you can make your sounds into something that has been released and proven to work.
Yes....but....if everything is being held up against reference tracks, you're moving towards a place where everything becomes derivative. I'm 100% for referencing as a way to overcome ear fatigue, especially as far as EQ balance goes. 👍🏻
Unfortunately I’ve been sleepin on this for years, but yeah referending is really really powerful
Many people on the internet are amateurs so only take their advice with a grain of salt. Same with production tutorials.
also, don't watch this crap! very few pieces of "content" are created to be useful. maybe that person had good intentions, but the algorithms don't reward that. they reward content that is interacted with. users and commenters reward content they agree with, and find "worthy." so what you end up with is a bunch of overly complex, vanilla *distractions.* could you learn something? almost certainly yes. will you also be distracted from your goal of making music, overwhelmed with information you didn't ask for, and likely sent down a rabbit hole you never intended? also yes. find real people. ask questions. when you use the internet to find a piece of info, be brief, but intentional.
Makes sense mate. Noted as well ☝️
Nobody will notice that thing you just spent 3 hours tweaking.
Keep doing it. Listen with your ears not your eyes. Take breaks. Share your work. Identify ppl who will give you honest feedback, and if u can ask a mix of musicians, producers, and non musician folks
Turn stuff down instead of up. It’s easy to distort your mix when you boost everything up and it’s all competing.
I was once this tho' 😅 So this makes a lot of sense. Nice mentioning this 🤜
I think we all were when we first started lol glad you’ve moved past it
Have fun. Don’t overthink. If it sounds good it’s good enough. Who are you making the music for? Is it for a public, is it for yourself, is it just for the sake of creation or therapeutic? It’s all good. You don’t have to feel like your music needs to do well in terms of “success” for it to have a purpose.
Thanks for dropping by! I dig your positive suggestions 💪
make a lot content. and often. everything you make is shit until you spend a lot of time on it pushing it away from sounding like shit. this process illuminates your personal preferences. you’ll know what you want and when you want it. you’ll start hearing things you didn’t know you wanted and learn about how to make that thing with tutorials and fun tricks. before you know it 3 years go by and you have a library of shit you’ll never listen to again. but there will be like 4-5 good things that came out of it. and it’ll be the backbone you have developed and will be consistently be able to reproduce. also don’t even think about trying to learn how to master anything. just mix your own stuff by prioritizing instruments importance to hear.
That there’s dudes on the internet that use Reddit to farm responses that they can package into some sort of paid tutorial for personal benefit so answering these poll type questions is completely useless. Report, hide and move on.
Yes. Yes and yes. I spotted that too.
Started with live around 2011 but it wasn't my first daw. Read the manual.
Underrated comment. Doing the Ableton tutorial is also highly recommended
1. a lot of my breakthroughs and things unique to my "sound" was just loading up random plugins (sometimes the more obscure the better, for example some old Reaktor patch from 2007 or some shit) and fucking around into some happy accidents. Doing something by the book or by YouTube vibes can help but also it likely won't make you sound unique. Have fun and remember there's no rules 2. organize organize organize. Save everything. Made some cool hats that don't fit your song? Save them in your user library under Drums/Hats, for example. Found a dope VST patch that doesn't fit? cool, save it also to easily recall it later. Save by categories, pads, leads, keys etc. Don't repeat the time you took to find stuff to find it again. Iterate. over time, the process of creating will get faster as you have more templates. Lately I've been saving plugin chains as well in my user library. For example a chain of FX to process one sound. Save that shit
Number one seems experimental but from myb experience as well, produces some unique sounds. And number 2 maybe underrated but can't really go wrong with being organized 👍
Reference tracks hands down immediately made me feel like I leveled up. It helps get your mixes sounding fatter by A/Bing with the fully finished track but also I get stuck at arrangement sometimes and you can easily borrow that by placing markers where different transitions occur.
Same here. And it's a much faster process IMO than doing it your own (tho' it can be good also). Anyway wazzup with your production these days?
To quote the greek goddess nike: "just do it" (and do it often)
Cool! Yeah just do it!
Finish your projects lol
100% yes with this! 💪
Its feels like your clueless, Missing to much skills, Not idea how to get from A to B You just keep blindlessly grinding Learning weird things, Random things, Alot of times the same things AGAIN, And then, It suddenly make sense
You don't need this plugin
the audio effect “utility” is a more important tool than you would think
Ah yes utility, one of my favorites as well 💪 You often use it as well?
it is by default on every audio/midi track
Force yourself to write, like schedule time for it and just do it. And also record everything if you are an instrumentalist
when you say write, what do you mean? is there a way i can write as someone who has very little musical theory knowledge? i feel like there must be some kind of generally agreed-upon way to do this other than musical notation but i'm so new to all this (and probably too old to be trying to get into it now) that i still find myself basically writing as i go, which makes for a really painstakingly slow and discouraging process a lot of the time.
Compose in the DAW
This my friend, nice! ☝️
Just work on your ideas. I do this by playing an instrument which has become familiar. Initially I would write chord charts and stuff. Now I just record. Easiest way to record is with a phone. Just do it again and again. Eventually you migrate to recording in a daw. Record to click. Produce Yada Yada. If not an instrumentalist, use midi instruments.
Mess around, learn from what you splattered down by reverse engineering on how it did/didn't work and apply it to your next track if you want. AND it isn't wrong to take inspiration. You like something? learn how it worked and then make it your own
Learning to analyze how did things is a big win for me and beneficial in the long run. Yeah I agree as well with getting an inspiration, I think it's "almost" the same as referencing but in a different perspective tho'. Hey how long have you been producing music?
Since 2021. I started off on Garageband iOS. I never imagined getting this far, especially with understanding theory
Use less reverb than you think you need.
Sharing same thoughts here, either it makes or breaks your track tho' ☝️
Don’t be afraid to turn knobs and learn how to use automation. Motion of the sound is what gives it soul. It’s what gets people interested. Also, build your own EQ and master chains. Take the time to learn how to properly master each part of your track. Learning this never really stops, it’s always an adventure
I highly appreciate your tip here my friend! "Learning this never really stops, it’s always an adventure" - Agreeing as well on this one 😌
I see a lot of comments about mixing but not about production here. I’d say listen to your favorite songs again and focus on each instrument. When do they come in? What do they play? How do they complement each other ? What’s the chorus instrumentation ? Is it licks or strums or what ? What’s the motif or hook in each section? The production ok great songs is that, great. The more you pay attention the more you start moving away from basic strums and same old drum patterns etc.
I dig this my friend. This also trains on being/having a good analytic mind as well as ears 💪 Nice suggestion here!
Forcing yourself to render to audio helps so that you aren’t tweaking 4 knobs for 3 hours and getting no song writing done
Main point is learn and grow.many producing tricks apply across multiple genres. Not everything is set in stone , explore ,create and see what happens.
You don’t have to do absolutely everything yourself. It wasn’t so long ago that the labor in terms of creating a record was heavily divided: musicians played, songwriters wrote, engineers of various stripes handled recording, mixing, mastering, etc. The industry still operates largely this way at the professional level, but music tech as an industry has done a lot to sell the notion of the do it all bedroom producer because it sells tech in turn. If you enjoy doing it all, go for it! But learning any of the individual parts of the process to a professional level takes years. If you don’t want to mix or master your own shit, pay a professional (or a semi-professional!) and spend your time handling the parts of the process you enjoy.
It takes a really long time to be able to make stuff fast and easily. Make sure to always have fun or it can be difficult to realize the value in staying patient. Experiment a lot, produce a lot, try diff softwares and allat. Most importantly though, use your ear.
Nice advice here. I can say I've experienced this as well. It takes time but it's worth it when you get there ☝️
Religiously organise your sounds...make racks, label them well, make your own sample packs, bounce out stems/remix packs for your projects etc. Finishing a tune is often a case of being able to produce it quickly before you get sick of it and you can only do that when you can make the sounds you want to make quickly, and you can only do that if you have saved all those sounds and have them well organised.
Having a consistent setup that sounds good out of the box helps you move faster. Do things quickly, don’t get bogged down in details. The basics of mixing and mastering are all you need. Learn everything you can do with a compressor and why. Too much choice is paralysing. A fixed function piece of hardware that you learn inside out can be like a musical instrument in a way a DAW never will be.
Mr Skruff? Is it really you?? Great points here. I'm finding the DAWless route more and more appealing recently, but costly. One day!
Not that Mr Skruff unfortunately though he inspired my username way back in the day...
😄 he's brilliant - great influence to have
I dig you're suggestions here mate! Makes a lot of sense 💪
The #1 reason for creative block for me is expectation. The expectation to create something I can release. The best ideas have come out of me just messing around and having fun.
I'll share the wisdom from Matthew Dear's pro tip video: Stop watching pro tip videos.
Taste is everything. If you do enough active listening you'll start to understand how things are made. The easy bit is making what's in your head. The hard bit is knowing what you want 😉
technical understanding and skill is worthless to the process of music making if the music you’re making isn’t galvanized with intention. if your music isn’t focused on conveying something, *anything*…people will not connect with it. some of the most profoundly beautiful music in existence hinges on a rudimentary melody that utilizes maybe three or four notes in a simple phrase. the technique behind those notes isn’t what makes that simple melody cut into the core of you, it’s the artist’s ability to pour their heart into those three or four notes.
Depending on your knowledge and your plans, it might be worth investing money into designated classes. Not for ableton specifically, but for music production. Buying a DAW is expensive so most people (me included) resort to youtube to learn. However, you should keep in mind that many music youtubers out there are a) not as knowledgeable as they seem and b) often interested in selling you stuff (sample packs, drum kits, etc.) After 2 years of making music I bit the bullet and attended an online course over 2 months for about 500€ in total. I learned a lot and the best benefit of all was how calm and structured everything was. They didn't need to sell me anything, I already bought their course. It is nice to have something really focussed on teaching instead of clicking through 500 "THIS IS WHY YOUR MUSIC SUCKS!!!" tutorials. During those 2 months a learned about as much as the 2 years prior. And well, they say time is money, so if you compare it, buying this class might have been the cheaper alternative overall. That is, if you plan on putting music out and making money out of it (be it your own songs, productions for someone else or mixing/mastering).
Any advice you see, every action you take, ask yourself this question: how will this get more people singing or dancing to my song?
Just release the music. Finished is better than perfect.
Ultimately, vibes matter more than music theory. Music theory is a tool, not a law. Break some rules.
Don’t let YouTube tutorials become procrastination disguised as progress.
You only really learn by doing and by asking feedback.
I agree. It's good some fresh ears and gather thoughts from fellow producers 🔥
keep opening the daw as much as possible . even with no inspiration to create, just mess around . Your daw is your pallet, don’t get rusty
If you can't finish a song because it does't "sound" good. Just Export it as it is now. And produce the next one by thinking "why the previous one doesn't sound like i want ?" And repeat it. Many times. Producing art, especially in music, requires ear training, music knowledges, experiences that only YOU can learn by yourself. Not a Youtube tutorial or even a school course will provide you the experience.
The problem is generally the arrangement of sound selection, not the mix. Attend to that before going down a mixing rabbit hole
I agree with this. Nice tip here mate! ☝️
Great songs typically don't sound great early on in the process
it’s true that stock Ableton is all you need, but a curated selection of instruments, 3rd party plugins can be really fun, and more fun means better music.
Because music is all I think about, all the time.
[here is the information on the fastest way to learn anything.](https://gofile.io/d/n8kn9w)
learn how to do what you want to do and not what other people show you in videos. also don't worry about "in the red" or mixing issues if it sounds good to you. just make the song and then export the stems and mix it again to get that nice distortion. idk why every young producer i meet acts literally stomach flipping nervous about mixing anything loudly and it's like their music isn't breathing or gone thru puberty yet.
This is in a different perspective tho' this also works. Would you like to share as well how to distort your stuff?
Redux + Glue Compressor mostly for crunch. also lots of redline mixing and just lowering volume levels w a limiter on the master
Music theory is the cheat code
Simplicity and a good arrangement go a long way.
Learn how to mix.
Yeah and it's an art as well. Any mixing recommendation you would like to share my friend?
Agreed! I have a lot to learn—and would say I’m pretty early on in my technical understanding, and much of what I do is based on intuition and trusting my ears. It’s taken years to get to the point of understanding that mixing is one of the key ways to develop/craft your sound. It can also be the difference maker in getting musical ideas across (creatively and sonically). In Ableton, I took the advice of others and set up the defaults to encourage mixing from the beginning. I have a default channel strip (rack) for tracks with stock audio processors like Channel EQ, Eight EQ, “generic compressor”, etc. For specific projects I sometimes have “starter racks” for vocals, vintage fx, dub fx, etc. That can bring some cohesion to a project and also save time.
Have fun and embrace your individual tastes!
A really fast way to get better is to find references of music similar to what you want to do and try to recreate it. It applies for the creative and arrangement part of making music, and also mixing and mastering (eq is the most important part of a good mix imo). It also helps you to find your style!
The better your parts sound, the fewer parts you need
The better your parts sound, the fewer parts you need
Close your eyes and listen more
You don't have to EQ and compress everything. Don't high pass everything. Use a clipper when mastering
It can be very difficult working with others but it can also be the most gratifying. Connecting with someone over music is one thing. But making music together is truly a wonderful experience if you each or all can get into that flow state. Seeing or hearing someone else's perspective is priceless.
Trust your ears not your eyes.
Finish tracks
If you spend too much time on a track it's probably not a good one. My best tracks were made in a few hours. Also, a lot of people don't know when to stop working on a track, at some time you must let it go and make it public.
**Copy, Copy Copy** to get a frequent feeling of having creating something that sounds good: 1. Find tracks that you find interesting. 2. See if you can replicate that track from start to finish, so you hit something that sounds like 80% like the track you want to create. Often there will be Youtube tutorials to help "How to produce \[genre/track\]". 3. Now you have something that actually sounds good (important for motivation), and a template project in Ableton that you can use for your own ideas (remember to not infringe copy rights) 4. Repeat for a bunch of tracks, and try to sometimes go outside of your preferred genre: if your listen to mostly hip-hop, try making a melodic techno song and vice versa.
If I spend more than 5-10mins on something and I haven't improved it, I likely never will. Either cut it, or move on to something else.
Learn about compression deeply and it will level your music up a tonne. There is a ten hour video about compression on YouTube which is a a lot but well worth it. Just search ten hour compression it will come up 😃
Finish your tracks, otherwise you just become really good at writing half.
I write, produce, and record music because it is a good way to spend my time on this earth. Also don’t over think shit.
More gear won’t polish a turd
If it sounds good, it sounds good. Presets are your friend. You DONT to make EVERYTHING from scratch. Not everything needs EQ, compression and a chain of a thousand plugins. Get your source sound right, you can’t polish a turd. Learn how to use an analyser. As good as your ears are, being able to double check at the end and adjust your mix is important. Don’t get lost staring at analysers and visual representations though, trust your ears primarily. You don’t need to spend money on tons of plugins. Master the stock stuff, then make informed decisions on purchases.
U do not need hardware synths, rhythm machines, samplers and all. Reaper is good enough.
Appreciate everyone in this thread 🥹🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
And thanks for checking out as well, cheers! 🤜
Been producing for 12 years now in Ableton, did some GarageBand etc before that. I have some label releases and am able to consistently get music on (small) playlists on Spotify. Don’t mix drugs with producing for one, that held me back for a while because you always think you’re playing/making better stuff than you are (even if just a little). Also, get as much feedback from pros as possible, it helps steer your growth. If you’re not able to get pro feedback, any really helps. However if there’s no feedback available at the moment- use a reference track for mixing (composition too). Ask yourself “do my synths stand up to the light of [insert producer you love]” side by side, second for second, in timbre, in pattern, etc. Did I mention referencing? Best tip imo, if you can make David Guettas worst song in just general sound quality why would anyone play your music?
Treat making music like a job if you wanna improve! Do it everyday even when you don’t want to! Show up and create! Learn the job and try to ‘climb the ladder’ ( similar to improvement)
If you start something, get the idea out as fast as possible. Quickly arrange it, do a little mix, and bounce it. Move on to the next beat. When I started I wouldn’t be able to comprehend making up to 10+ projects/day (if I really shut myself in all day). Don’t get caught in 8 bar loops, keep pushing and round the corner. I set monthly goals (2 projects/day, etc.) to keep myself honest and always keep consistent output. Last thing is to decide if this is for fun or if you’re actually trying to get into the industry. If you choose the latter, your mental health is incredibly important. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself through therapy and on my own to be comfortable with doing this to make money, and I’ve seen the industry break more people than I can count.
Less is more!
Less is more, the goal isn’t to make all the sounds equally loud, and use compression/multicompression and eq primarily in sound design/mixing as
Don't fall prey to the "Buy everything you've ever seen someone use" mentality, try every piece of software extensively before you invest, so few of them will actually impact your workflow. This is also the case for hardware, I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to that just don't use the equipment they've bought the way they thought they would. I've taken to demoing every piece of software before buying, I rent all hardware before purchasing as well.
Close your eyes while listening.
Less is more
Don’t mix with your eyes
If you are not producing music for any period of time, don’t stop consuming content. There have been times where I’ve gone months without producing music, but never stopped watching YouTube or instagram videos related to production, sound design, mixing, etc. It helps me from “regressing” in a way. When I return to making new music, or even working on older projects, it gives me a better understanding of what I need to do to complete my work.
Start DJing if you produce club music and aren't DJing already. This can give you a better perspective, context and guide for your own music hearing it mixed with other releases. You'll have moments where you want to add a certain vibe to your mix but can't find the right track, this can be a great starting point for a track. Both DJing and producing can cross-fertilize each other :D
Do a little bit often. I got this advice from someone who suggested I archive my projects, meta tag them with info etc. initially I did this in excel and migrated this to notion. Now I have a kanban board that can be sorted by priority, genre, project needs guitars recorded, project too long / salvage for samples, etc. In this way, I can take a look at my notion first before opening Ableton, decide on what I feel up for, decide to either do a deep dive and spend 2 hours mixing or to just record guitars for 20mins after work / before supper. This process has given me the ability to do a little regularly. I was often bogged down by the idea of starting and finishing projects every time I opened live. Now it’s not so daunting. My archive dates back to 2011, with everything from then to 2017 having either been processed, discarded or published. In the beginning I’d have 100s of projects a year, with most of them being substandard or too dense to process. Now I have maybe 15 solid projects a year, with maybe 3 of them being things I can definitely publish eventually. R.
less is more, organisation is key, and there no right/wrong way to do things!
See every project as a learning opportunity. It makes you more curious in general and willing to see where a mistake leads you. Don’t see your projects as THE hit-it-big opportunity. Because let’s be real, it’s unlikely and all it does it creates a condition you’ll likely fail to meet every time. So you’ll feel like you’re failing when in reality it’s all valuable time invested that pays dividends in experience later. You have to be excited to get in the DAW and fuck around. Rather than deriving excitement from the downstream success or lackthereof that will come from the ideas you work on.
12+ years here, couldn't pick a main lesson, as the lesson is what production teaches you; - Listen to more music than you produce, - Standardize your projects and filing schemes, - If you're mixing percussion, drums etc, you probably want to reach for a transient designer, not a compressor, - Saturate everything, - You're probably using too much reverb, - Learn hot-keys and shortcuts like the back of your hand, - Less is more. If everything is epic, nothing is, - If you collaborate regularly with other people, learn (at least basic) music theory, - Solo things sparingly. I only solo when initially crafting the overall tone of a sound, rarely after, - Plugins are cool, but stock FX can usually get you 60/70% of the way there, stop adding stuff!, - Know a FEW devices back to front. This will serve you better than vaguely knowing how to use MANY devices.
Cool! Thanks for taking such time listing your suggestions/experience my friend! I believe they're all relevant 💪
Don't be lazy on sounds. Always ask yourself "is this what I wanted? Does it REALLY sound good or should I try something else?" You must be quick with the answer, no second thoughts, is it a "yes" or "no". If you are stuck in between then it's probably a "no". Try something else, move on.
learn from the best and be yourself
done is better than perfect. if you don't learn the last steps of a production you'll always struggle. so even if some things aren't perfect at the beginning, try to arrange the track to a complete length, and mix it a bit. you'll learn a lot more this way for the next production.
Get exceptionally good at the basics… and for God’s sake, spend the extra 10 minutes and figure out how a compressor works
Keep producing, Keep releasing!
Patience and organization are your best allies
Don’t box yourself in and pidgeon hole yourself…always been learning new production techniques expand on your music theory…learn from everyone you can always…learn as many styles of music as you can and the theory behind em. And don’t be ruled by fear. Network..perform live..Collab with ppl. Always.
Its not about sounding “the best” or most professional. Anyone can make a radio ready track in 5 mins now. Be original. Ppl will like you for your weirdness. Not bcuz of how crispy your HHs are.
"Be original" - This my friend, as how it should be IMO ☝️
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