How much of production is random?

jaydot · Post by **jaydot** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:35 pm

and how much is knowledge? Like what I mean by random is experimentation/happy accidents etc.

And knowledge-executed with actual prior forethought

3za · Post by **3za** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:39 pm

Everything is random

jaydot · Post by **jaydot** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:46 pm

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:35 pm

Its taken a long time bu these days I feel like the amount of knowledge and *experience* I have has more to do w my good work than happy accidents. In the past much more of my good output relied on happy accidents. The number of happy accidents hasnt changed. The number of songs put out per year has gone up. The number of hours in the studio is down. Somewhere in these facts lies something quantitative.

apostlebass · Post by **apostlebass** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 2:46 am

It just depends on how you look at it. I've noticed that when I go into my daw looking to make a banger it never works out. I may get something mediocre but it never flows. When I'm messing around with sounds and get a melody, or the perfect beat, everything just flows for me after that. But it takes a good ear to realize what sounds good and what doesn't.

pulsewaves4stopsines · Post by **pulsewaves4stopsines** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 3:02 am

It all depends on how much you want it to be.
I like a certain level of control, so even my experimenting is thought out and performed accordingly, where when I first started producing I'd do all sorts of stuff, logical or otherwise, all willy nilly without a second of thought.

I do tend to be random with chords though. I'll play a few out, then get a feel of the chordal progression, remove a few chords to see how it sounds, then start over, randomly playing different voicings, adding a different chord or two, and stuff like that, and go through the process a few times until I've got something I'd never thought of before.

I'm not sure I understand what people mean by accidents and randomness, because I see everything I do as somewhat calculated and based off something, or maybe I just play it too safe and am missing out on my fair share of accidents.

apostlebass · Post by **apostlebass** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 3:34 am

By accidents, in my case at least, I literally open up a vst, browse through presets and make random little melodies until something sounds good.

Barnski · Post by **Barnski** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 6:54 am

It kind of depends what you see as the actual production part.

In terms of the "songwriting", when i started making music I used to stumble across a lot of cool effects by mistake. Like experimenting with the speed of a delay and all of a sudden finding it sounded awesome, and it changed the feel of the track and made it something else. When sampling especially I find i get some cool results by mistake. I added a stereo delay and reverb to a sample of me pinging the tab of a beer can and added it to one of my tracks and all of a sudden the whole thing took on a new life and sounded like an underwater rave when before it was just spaced out and boring.

But as your knowledge develops you have a better idea of what will happen. You learn from the accidents and random results you have had in your past and learn to incorporate it into the music. I often set out deliberately when I try to make tunes with a specific sound in my mind and can dial it in fairly successfully generally. Sometimes i get better stuff by accident though. I make whats in my head and find its a bit bland or generic and then fuck with it to see what random results i get.

For the "songwriting" part, I think experimenting is key.

But In terms of the "mixdown" part of production (and i realise that a lot of us often do this in sync with the "songwriting" part as a lot of electronic music is all about the sound and textures) I feel like that should all be deliberate and calculated for best results. Compressors and EQs rarely sound good by mistake. Though having said that, I'm sure we would never have found out how good "all buttons in"on a FET compressor sounds if someone hadn't been fucking around with it to begin with.

outbound · Post by **outbound** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 4:58 pm

I think that "knowledge" based production (stuff based on experience and knowing what you're doing) can get you from A to B a lot quicker so you may make tracks quicker but...

Accidents/experiments/random can lead to results that are a lot more interesting so you could end up with something "better"

I think both compliment each other nicely.

NinjaEdit · Post by **NinjaEdit** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 2:38 am

This is like the planning vs pantsing debate writers have. It's a matter of personal preference and both methods can work well. For example Stephen King knows "fuck all" about what he's going to write, whereas Clive Barker plans his longer projects like novels.

apostlebass · Post by **apostlebass** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:07 am

outbound wrote:I think that "knowledge" based production (stuff based on experience and knowing what you're doing) can get you from A to B a lot quicker so you may make tracks quicker but...

Accidents/experiments/random can lead to results that are a lot more interesting so you could end up with something "better"

I think both compliment each other nicely.

I agree, I think tend to have a healthy mix of both. Have a certain vibe I want going in and everything flows from there, but it's all personal preference.

RKM · Post by **RKM** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:17 pm

the basis of creating any tune, should be making a thread in gd on how to make zomboy's bass and drum sounds, from then on you're just polishing

hubb · Post by **hubb** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 4:02 pm

It doens't matter how much is random, conscious or whatever.

Only bit that matters is that you as a producer isn't too arrogant to invite the happy mistakes into the mix when they happen

Alexthegr81 · Post by **Alexthegr81** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 8:10 pm

Occasionally, the stuff I make, I learned off a tutorial, or off some pro tips on sites like this. Come to think about it. A lot of the stuff I make with prior forethought is always something I made, before, on accident. Id say its about 60/40 on the planned/accidents ratio. I mean, how else can you learn new cool stuff without accidentally turning a knob somewhere on a Synth and forgetting about it, creating something way different.

fineprimitivesounds · Post by **fineprimitivesounds** » Sun Nov 09, 2014 6:18 pm

production is like performance or songwriting, 50% left brain, 50% right brain, so, 50% accident, 50% calculation

Samuel_L_Damnson · Post by **Samuel_L_Damnson** » Sun Nov 09, 2014 6:53 pm

50% slacking off 49% drinking beer. 1% doing something

pete_bubonic · Post by **pete_bubonic** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 3:53 pm

Samuel_L_Damnson wrote:50% slacking off 49% drinking beer. 1% doing something

Very close to me.

Usually I only start a project if I have an idea in mind. I have my basic rhythm or motif and play around from that point onwards. So for me, I guess none of it is random, whilst all of it is. #causeandeffect

BassOfDecay · Post by **BassOfDecay** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:14 pm

I'd say about 47% is the white widow, 52% is by accident (mainly fucking with massive and slapping camel crusher and sausage phattener along with sound goodizer onto it) the other 1% is actually me being the intro and all.

What could you do if you tried doing the shit instead of letting your mouse do the work.

I would get jack shit done from that I just throw the mouse across the room and get something like this [https://soundcloud.com/bassofdecay/rainbow-piss] and say finished.

hubb · Post by **hubb** » Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:41 pm

fineprimitivesounds wrote:production is like performance or songwriting, 50% left brain, 50% right brain, so, 50% accident, 50% calculation

the bit about the brain being divided in two has been debunked for years

same with the taste buds on the tongue

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