What recent discovery or technique took your production to the next level?

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Proboscis
Posts: 1004
Joined: 28 Aug 2019

03 Dec 2019

TritoneAddiction wrote:
03 Dec 2019
I hear you. The shower is where I come up with at least 30% of all my musical ideas. A shower installed should be the standard in every studio. :lol:
Do you 'hear' then only in your head ? This thing I'm talking about, I hear them in the music itself. Some changes in room resonance I guess (and being between rooms)

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littlejam
Posts: 787
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

03 Dec 2019

heyhey,

regarding 16 bar loops on repeat, or songs for that matter
i will put the piece on repeat and then go do dishes, cook, clean, read a book
to get a different perception / sound of the music

also, changing rooms to listen from afar, go outside and listen through the wall or in the hallway
also, listening from different rooms helps me figure out what frequencies / sounds are too loud, not loud enough

go for a walk, go shopping and then when you come back with the music already playing it's a different reference point

cheers,

j
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Loque
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03 Dec 2019

motuscott wrote:
03 Dec 2019
krokodil
Good luck. You will need it...
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Seckin
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Joined: 09 Apr 2016

04 Dec 2019

Not a recent one but nevertheless a permanent one: to stay the heck away from the people who prophesize that this amazing little EQ'ing (or compression, or reverberation for that matter) trick will take your mixes to the next level.
If you can't make a hit with Malstrom, Subtractor and Redrum, you can't make a hit at all.

WarStar
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04 Dec 2019

For me Mid/Side EQing of music samples. So much character can be pulled out of old songs and recordings via M/S EQing, especially in hip hop/edm type production.

Also have backed off on using sidechaining for ducking opting for volume automation or using Ochen Ks CARVEs for some dynamic EQ. This dynamic EQing also helps with many other things other than just kick/bass balance.

Lastly arrangement in hip hop and edm is the primary thing that allows you to pack loud sounds together for a more impactful sound. Not needing crazy compression either just nice open arrangement where not many sounds occupy the same frequency space at anyone time. This also helps you scale down, streamline your song to where the most impactful sounds have their place to shine. Arrangement especially helps with low end kick/bassline balance.

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moggadeet
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Joined: 27 Jun 2018
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

04 Dec 2019

For me it was discory of Selig Gain RE about a year ago. It made me aware of the difference between RMS and peak level measuring, which made the whole sound shaping with saturation and compression just fall in place in my head. Only then I understood how to use Scream4. Apart from that, I also learnt to be selective too with which instruments own the >10kHz, so I now low-pass almost all tracks.

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MannequinRaces
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Joined: 18 Jan 2015

04 Dec 2019

This is more of a mental technique but I’ve learned not to get down on myself as much if my music doesn’t sound like my favorite artists, lol. I’ve realized that there will always be music makers who are way more talented than me and that it’s more about improving over my current skill level than trying to achieve the unobtainable.

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rcbuse
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04 Dec 2019

Work quickly
Create a track in 30-60 minutes.
Don't throw anything away, keep moving forward.
Render out to audio.
Save and Close.
Do not listen to it again, move on to the next track.

Repeat 10-20 times over the course of several days, do not go back to old tracks.

Now, once you have a large collection of tracks, you probably won't remember what any of them sound like.
In the state of mind as a consumer of your music, go back and only listen to the rendered audio, do not open in the DAW.

Make a list of the tracks you like.
Listen to those tracks again as audio, write down the changes you want to make to those tracks.

Now, take that written list and open the file up in the DAW, make those changes, render out to audio.
Put away for a few more days.

Listen to the rendered audio, making change notes again.
Iterate until you are left with 2-3 tracks you think are quality.

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aeox
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Location: Oregon

04 Dec 2019

rcbuse wrote:
04 Dec 2019
Work quickly
Create a track in 30-60 minutes.
Don't throw anything away, keep moving forward.
Render out to audio.
Save and Close.
Do not listen to it again, move on to the next track.

Repeat 10-20 times over the course of several days, do not go back to old tracks.

Now, once you have a large collection of tracks, you probably won't remember what any of them sound like.
In the state of mind as a consumer of your music, go back and only listen to the rendered audio, do not open in the DAW.

Make a list of the tracks you like.
Listen to those tracks again as audio, write down the changes you want to make to those tracks.

Now, take that written list and open the file up in the DAW, make those changes, render out to audio.
Put away for a few more days.

Listen to the rendered audio, making change notes again.
Iterate until you are left with 2-3 tracks you think are quality.
30-60 min? Challenge accepted! No but really, if I was going fast it would take me like 2-4 hours :(

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TritoneAddiction
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Posts: 4219
Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

04 Dec 2019

rcbuse wrote:
04 Dec 2019
Work quickly
Create a track in 30-60 minutes.
Don't throw anything away, keep moving forward.
Render out to audio.
Save and Close.
Do not listen to it again, move on to the next track.

Repeat 10-20 times over the course of several days, do not go back to old tracks.

Now, once you have a large collection of tracks, you probably won't remember what any of them sound like.
In the state of mind as a consumer of your music, go back and only listen to the rendered audio, do not open in the DAW.

Make a list of the tracks you like.
Listen to those tracks again as audio, write down the changes you want to make to those tracks.

Now, take that written list and open the file up in the DAW, make those changes, render out to audio.
Put away for a few more days.

Listen to the rendered audio, making change notes again.
Iterate until you are left with 2-3 tracks you think are quality.
That's a cool idea. I've done something similar in the past.
I tried making full tracks from scratch with the time limit of 2 hours.
This is one of them.
https://www.soundclick.com/music/songIn ... D=13242062
Other songs took more time to polish into something presentable, but I got a lot of raw material from it.

A couple of other times I've set the time limit to 3 minutes. In that time I need to come up with a riff, melody, idea, beat, whatever. And no matter how much the idea sucks I have to record/program it in Reason. Don't worry about it sucking, just move on to the next idea.
Then repeat 10 times in a row.
Do this procedure about 3 times on different occasions and then go back to see what you came up with. So now you have 30 little quick ideas to pick from. There's bound to be something useful in there.
But for this you have to prepare a couple of basic sounds before hand. A piano, a bass sound, a drum kit, a pad etc. The point is not to worry about sound choices when working this way. All those things can be fixed later on.

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EnochLight
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04 Dec 2019

I could never do a full track in just a few hours - my creative output doesn't work that way (I wish it did)! I can flesh out a few bars with a solid melody that has several tracks in those 2, 4 or 8 bars though.
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rcbuse
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04 Dec 2019

EnochLight wrote:
04 Dec 2019
I could never do a full track in just a few hours - my creative output doesn't work that way (I wish it did)! I can flesh out a few bars with a solid melody that has several tracks in those 2, 4 or 8 bars though.
I wouldn't call anything I've done after 60 minutes a full track, rather, they are track seeds... just sketches. The most important aspect for me is to do a lot, and do enough and give it enough time that I forget all of the material. When I revisit what I've done, its almost all new and I know within 10 seconds if its good or not, whether its worth continuing. Only after several iterations of the "take notes, write down changes, make changes, save, wait days" does anything actually grow into a full track.

WarStar
Posts: 296
Joined: 17 Oct 2018
Contact:

04 Dec 2019

rcbuse wrote:
04 Dec 2019
Work quickly
Create a track in 30-60 minutes.
Don't throw anything away, keep moving forward.
Render out to audio.
Save and Close.
Do not listen to it again, move on to the next track.

Repeat 10-20 times over the course of several days, do not go back to old tracks.

Now, once you have a large collection of tracks, you probably won't remember what any of them sound like.
In the state of mind as a consumer of your music, go back and only listen to the rendered audio, do not open in the DAW.

Make a list of the tracks you like.
Listen to those tracks again as audio, write down the changes you want to make to those tracks.

Now, take that written list and open the file up in the DAW, make those changes, render out to audio.
Put away for a few more days.

Listen to the rendered audio, making change notes again.
Iterate until you are left with 2-3 tracks you think are quality.
Pretty close to my approach except I allow a little more time.

I try to have three songs that I'm actively working on. Hit a snag move on to another song. Hit another snag again, switch again. Then I allow myself time to create new stuff as I'm actively working on finishing those three songs. It works for me and keeps the ears fairly fresh when critiquing my own material. At least that's what I'm shooting for.

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Boombastix
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Posts: 1929
Joined: 18 May 2018
Location: Bay Area, CA

04 Dec 2019

rcbuse wrote:
04 Dec 2019
EnochLight wrote:
04 Dec 2019
I could never do a full track in just a few hours - my creative output doesn't work that way (I wish it did)! I can flesh out a few bars with a solid melody that has several tracks in those 2, 4 or 8 bars though.
I wouldn't call anything I've done after 60 minutes a full track, rather, they are track seeds... just sketches. The most important aspect for me is to do a lot, and do enough and give it enough time that I forget all of the material. When I revisit what I've done, its almost all new and I know within 10 seconds if its good or not, whether its worth continuing. Only after several iterations of the "take notes, write down changes, make changes, save, wait days" does anything actually grow into a full track.
Yeah, it is a good idea to split creative time from "the grind" of making an arrangement and putting in small features. I also sort them into ideas that can be made into a full track, or ideas with a couple of elements to pick from to make something like a full idea, and finally the dreadful folder trash ideas... I also sort them by category. Churning out many quickly is the way to hone you skills, it is about quantity - that will give you a few quality. It is a well known concept in the creative world, keep the diamonds.
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