Tips For A New Producer?

[Tropp]

Hey Dubstepforum
I'm a fairly new EDM/House producer. I have been using Fl Studio as my DAW before I recently switched to Ableton Live 8.

I am really driven, and passionate about making music. I know I have a really good musical ear, I'm just not familiar enough with my DAW, or other tools needed to produce music.

If anybody can give any essential tips to help a producer start up (What I should get, Various tips, Etc.), I would appreciate it greatly.


swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

[SunkLo]

I am really driven, and passionate about making music.

Keep this shit up.

swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

Cut this shit out.

[ineffable]

swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

[Sure_Fire]

I see you've already made the generic FL to Ableton switch. Good. Now get massive, vengeance samples, all the fabfilter crap and like 20 different compressors. Only then will you mixes be tight as Skrillex's.

Alternatively you could take a look at the moneyshot thread and get some actual knowledge on what it takes to be a decent producer. Pick a synth or two and learn them inside out. Read up on equalisation and compression. Listen to heaps of music, make heaps of music, post it for feedback. Send you tracks to producers you like (that aren't that famous) and politely ask them to check out you tunes and provide feedback. Join heaps of forums, facebook groups, soundcloud groups and the like so that you can get plenty of tips from other producers.

Most importantly, make SHITLOADS of tracks, the more you make, the better you'll get. It takes time, but with every new track you start and finish you will learn something new. I remember Kill the Noise saying he had literally hundreds of tracks in the works for the shift from Ewun to Kill the noise, the more you make the better the quality of the ones that stand out will be. Trial and error is the best way to learn because it's very personal, meaning you'll find what things work for you.

Also, try not to be a copycat, but don't go out of your way to be the most original artist in the scene. Find a sound that works for you, and do it well.

[SunkLo]

Fabfilter's actually good though. I also semi-support the notion of having tons of compressors.

But that's not relevant if you're just starting out. Trying to get good sounding mixes is just gonna be a massive distraction from making tunes that aren't shit. It is important to have some basic mixing skills; filtering tracks, setting relative volumes, not clipping plugins, etc. But there's no point learning how to polish the last 2% of a track until you've got something to work with.

If you want a cheap and dirty recipe style advice, here's what I'd recommend...

On the sound design side of things:
-Get Zebra2 and learn to use it inside and out. A good way is by deconstructing presets. You don't have to use Zebra but it's an amazingly powerful synth and is really intuitive. I always recommend it over Massive. Ableton's got enough built-in effects for you to get down with sound design.
-Grab some free drum samples from around the internet. Go to freesound.org and grab some field recordings too.
-Learn Ableton really well. Become a badass with drum racks and experiment with layering a couple samples together and adjusting their ADSR to fit how you want.
-Get in the habit of automating things. If you don't have a midi keyboard with some sliders and knobs you should really consider picking one up. Especially in Ableton, it's really easy to map parameters to macro controls and twist them around while you're jamming. Once you figure out what parameters you want to modulate you can record them in or draw in envelopes.

Then there's the actual musical side of things:
-Learn some basic theory. It's not important for you to know notation since you'll be using a piano roll, but some understanding of harmony is pretty crucial. Enough to know how to fit chords under a melody, which notes to accent, how to make smooth chord progressions with voice leading, etc.
-On the rhythm side of things, again notation isn't important. A lot of rhythmic theory is actually just teaching you notational syntax. You'll benefit more from learning about syncopation, accents, swing. Learn to emulate how a real drummer plays.
-Learn about arranging. Tension/release, call/response. How to make variations on parts you already have to progress a song forwards. How to distribute the listener's attention over the instrument range you have. How to strip back or build up a section. A lot of this you can't really be taught but just pick up along the way of being a listener and also attempting to make tracks yourself.

Once you're actually making non-horrid tracks, you can get into more serious mixing and refinement.

[m8son666]

swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

[nameless133]

First: Don't call yourself as a producer, I guess you haven't got music producer training. You just a music maker like many of us.

[titchbit]

sorry m8 jack sparrow is taken

[Crimsonghost]

First: Don't call yourself as a producer, I guess you haven't got music producer training. You just a music maker like many of us.

^this

Oi m9, I'm a pro ducer like skrillzor. I make sik wubz on my momz laptop.

[Crimsonghost]

swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

Such swag. Much wow. Bass.

[m8son666]

alert alert swag on deck,
so much swag i'll break ur neck,
dirty yois make u say oh heck,
i'm a noob now but i'll be the best,

[re6ter]

Check out some of my videos on producing http://www.youtube.com/user/re6ter/videos (there is also one on mastering)

One thing I like to tell people who are starting off is headroom! In ableton you have to move the UI around a bit to expose the RMS reader. Make sure ur entire mix does not exceed -10rms! Also, do not compensate with your master knob. Dont even touch that knob. Use ur volume sliders man! Get into the habit of turning all ur chans to 0 and slowly turning them all up until it sits nice.

[Sure_Fire]

Fabfilter's actually good though. I also semi-support the notion of having tons of compressors.

But that's not relevant if you're just starting out. Trying to get good sounding mixes is just gonna be a massive distraction from making tunes that aren't shit. It is important to have some basic mixing skills; filtering tracks, setting relative volumes, not clipping plugins, etc. But there's no point learning how to polish the last 2% of a track until you've got something to work with.

Yeah got nothing against fabfilter, used their stuff for a while but I'm too in love wit FL's stock plugins to make the move. I've also been getting into the whole character compressor thing lately, but I've only really used a few of NI's compressors outside of Fruity Limiter. Don't really need that kind of thing for what I want to achieve.

Anyway it's all good to have mixing knowledge but you're not gonna know how to apply it if you don't have experience making tracks. It is good to have basic knowledge like you said, but I know guys that don't ever finish tracks because they don't think their mixing is good enough. I have shit up on youtube from a year ago that makes me cringe, but I still got that invaluable experience from actually finishing tracks.

Grab some free drum samples from around the internet. Go to freesound.org and grab some field recordings too.

This. Get heaps of samples. The more the merrier. EDM studio has some great free packs available via their facebook page, definitely worth grabbing them imo.

[ChadDub]

When you're making a beat/choon/tune/track/dub/whatever it's called these days and you have it pretty much done but you don't like how your drums are sounding, you'll try to eq/compress them and whatever to make them "pop", but really what you should do is go back through your samples and find drums that really fit the track. Once you find the right samples then you won't hardly even need eq or anything.

[ChadDub]

Check out some of my videos on producing http://www.youtube.com/user/re6ter/videos (there is also one on mastering)

One thing I like to tell people who are starting off is headroom! In ableton you have to move the UI around a bit to expose the RMS reader. Make sure ur entire mix does not exceed -10rms! Also, do not compensate with your master knob. Dont even touch that knob. Use ur volume sliders man! Get into the habit of turning all ur chans to 0 and slowly turning them all up until it sits nice.

I like your videos keep it up.

[Capture pt]

what VST can i torrent to get swag on the decks?

[titchbit]

must be massive.

[SunkLo]

The Ham 2

[Genevieve]

Listen to Somatic Responses.

[outbound]

I am really driven, and passionate about making music.

Keep this shit up.

swag on deck, call me jack sparrow

Cut this shit out.

This has just cracked me up on some next level thank you