Random Production Tips Thread™

[Karoshi]

lol i tried this thread a while back and got loads of spammage. good idea for a thread imo!

Anyway.. ill post this again:

get a basic waveform (sine square triangle etc) and give it a shortish of an attack and realise. then put a reverb on it and put dry to minimum and wet to maximum. there you go, a nice string/pad. add a phaser and or chorus for more awesomeness. 3XOSC in fl studio is all i use (awesome underrated little synth!)

bounce a short drum loop to audio and bring it back in a fruity granulizer channel, send it to an effects channel and add edison (to record what comes out). while the loops playing on repeat and edisons recording fuck about with the grain knobs and you will get some fucking awesome transformer like sounds. cut them out of edison and there you go.

[victor w]

Nothing techy, but just helpful for Reason users I guess...

When using redrum, I use a full 14:2 mixer in a cominator with redrum's channels routed to it's channels obv...and it's easy to visually see the audio levels, and use up to 4 effects/devices on your samples individually.

[Aquathesis]

Put a donk on it.

(edit, Im sorry, really, but I couldnt resist.)

[Debaser1]

Nothing techy, but just helpful for Reason users I guess...

When using redrum, I use a full 14:2 mixer in a cominator with redrum's channels routed to it's channels obv...and it's easy to visually see the audio levels, and use up to 4 effects/devices on your samples individually.

What a lad. Superb idea

[wub]

Bump as this thread is awesome

[RandoRando]

Bmup as tihs tarhed is aosmewe

[wub]

- In FL, set yourself a sampler channel, load a sample in (doesn't matter what), then adjust the Cross Fader (CRF) dial so that it loops a very small section of the sample.
- You can now 'play' your looped sample using the MIDI keyboard/piano roll, to have the loop going up and down through the notes as you do to create a stuttering effect to be played over the beat. Adjust to taste where you want the start/end points to be.
- You can also try this with granulizer to adjust the pitch without altering the speed.
- Add effects to taste.

[jaimelee]

In Ableton, If you want to create some really disturbing basslines.
Try placing an Overdrive on an Operator.
Then add saturator and see how that comes out!

Remember to automate filter frequency and LFO! Otherwise it will be boring.

[Filthzilla]

[nitz]

Don't drink anything with sugar in it, drink water. Don't smoke weed when producing, don't be drunk when producing. Am sure many people do exactly that, but you should really be producing with a clean mind.

Have a healthy life style; don't sit in your house all day.

Quit junk food. Eat at min 3 times a day.

Buy some flowers randomly for your soon be girlfriend/girlfriend/wife.

Get some new swag.

Listen to some soundtracks from movies.

Come back in the house now and make some music.

Kids don't play with LFO's, they can make your fat

[Ldizzy]

^that's some very good advice.
reaches me .

[charliefoy]

LOADS and LOADS of cups of tea

[wub]

Been mentioned before, but try and have at least one session a week dedicated to sound design. Resampling, field recording, crazy ass effect chains, patch design etc etc.

Build up your own unique body of sounds and you'll have a better idea and working knowledge of where you can find that one particular sample/patch when inspiration does hit.

[wub]

• Start off with bass, then do drums. You're probably more comfortable with drums so you'll probably find it easier to fit drums around a bassline, if you get my meaning.
• If you find your loop monging out to the same 8 bars, then set out a rough arrangement. It'll be really bare bones, but it'll give you an idea on how to move the track forward.
• Set yourself a time limit to finish a track - a day or two maybe from start to mixdown. If you constantly start tunes then trail off, then you'll become really good at starting a tune and trail off. Push yourself to go through the whole process and not get stuck seeking perfection from every element from the get-go; it's just going to slow you down and lead you up creative dead-ends too early. Save the tweaking for later
• Related to the above - learn the keyboard shortcuts for your chosen DAW if you haven't done so already - little time savers like that can really help productivity.

Trying things is how you learn, but in the beginning it's not like you're going to efficiently use your time layering a perfect snare (because you don't know what you're doing). I would say start with a sample and build a track around it. Something with a melody of some sort... vocal or instrumental. you can base your bassline on that melody. Download whatever pre-made DnB loops you can get your hands on and drop them in instead of spending tons of time on drums. Do your leads using the presets that are closest to what you want. Take as many shortcuts to the end as possible. Then go back and nit pick. Fuck around with filtering and reverb and all that on your sample(s). chop them up, rearrange resample, make your synth patches, learn drums etc. You're going to be bored to shit with that first track inside of 2-3 weeks anyway so don't make 'perfect' the enemy of 'good' and spend all your time on the technicals. Make a song, then make it better.

• 1'st MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GOOD SPEAKERS(bought mine with 120euro and they are alesis-monitor one mk2___the passive ones)
• Some play with sounds years before they can make a tune some have their 1'st tune released...you said you make a beat in one mounth? well make next in 3 weeks then faster and faster if you know what i mean...then make a loop, nothing big just something that you could listen to 3 hours and don't get bored, then serch for the elements in that loop that can be modulated...have a variation, then duplicate and again and again...you'll get it
• Be playfull, try different approach each time try different scales if you use MIDI: C D# G A# for that classic techno feel or if you want more dark try C D# F F# G G# anyway there are mane beautiful scales can't write them now/here
• Also see a synth that suits you and try to learn the basics of that one you'll be proud of yourself to see what sounds you can make from scratch
• On the other hand i can't stress enough______not to use Ozone______ or any mastering/eq/compression till you don't have a beat going at least...better not at all(i didn't use a compressor for 1 year now and i'm happier then ever)
• Always pay special attention to master meter and don't go on yellow(-6db) you'll see later why! A starting point to a nice mix is to put the bass drum at -12db/ snare -12/-15 subbass -10/-14...pads and the rest at half.
• Pitch your drums especially the bass drum not to interfere with sub...i also found a higher pitched snare makes way for a deeper pad witch is awesome!
• Don't send demo's till you have some hundreds of plays on your soundcloud tunes or when you are good enough people will loose interest in you they already know your past tunes and won't listen to them...also if you have 200 followers and you only get 50 listens on week something's wrong with your tunes

This question really depends - if you're not at a stage where you can think of a sound and know the way to produce it then trying to visualise a whole track is hard. when you work this way you end up concentrating on one bit and losing the vibe when the time comes to progress to another element.

best way to make a track ive found is audition some elements together till you get something decent in a 1-4 bar loop.. this gives you an idea of how something might sound in the mix.. Ableton is win for this as you can load a channel strip up with multiple sounds/midi clips and then audition different ones with each other to see how they sit.

Then it's just down to arranging them, drag them to their channels at say first drop (after 64 bars maybe?), and working back from there.. if that's the drop, then you figure out the 64 bars prior that will build in to the drop.. maybe thats just dropping complete elements, filtering them, changing patterns etc..

Before long you've got an intro and a drop.. repeat for the rest of the tune .

one good idea working with midi triggered instruments is you lay out say a 16 bar pattern. at first the pattern's length is set to 1 bar so it repeats that 16 times obviously. This is good when you're just laying a sketch out.. when it comes time to make it more interesting, then make the pattern length say 4.. now it will play the 4 bar pattern 4 times over the 16 bars.. so for each of the 4 bars, you remove/add notes from each bar so that over the 4 bars it's a different pattern each time.

IMO, just means you get basic sketchs down first, concentrate on the musical part of it, then you can fiddle with how varied it gets once the idea is already down. getting overly technical before you have the idea down is a bad idea ive found,..

[Refuzed]

occasionally do a 'quick fire track' ie set yourself a time limit to make a tune in (i'm not talking about a couple of days here) i mean like 2 hours, start to finish. including sample selection and mixdown. it's not gonna be a chart topping banger, or even vaguely good but it'll teach you to better use your time

[sunny_b_uk]

good tips!
my random tip would be: try to limit yourself and try to create good sounds with just a sine wave or saw wave.
take it as far as possible to create your own unique sound
make ultra long effects chains like wub said, it will lead you to making new sounds when experimenting enough.
its rewarding and a lot is learnt doing this!
never get discouraged when making a massive chain of effects, its hard to get it sounding clean at first but with trial and error you'll realise its a powerful technique

[antipode]

May seem a bit obvious, but have ONE instance of a vst effect (reverb or delay or something), set them to 100% wet and just route your other channels/instruments into the single effect channel. Much easier than using multiple instances of a vst on each channel which is just a waste of processing power. (especially with certain types of reverb.)

When sampling vinyl, CLEAN THE RECORD with a static cloth, get all the suspicious stains off the surface (can't do much for scratches though). The records you find crate digging a lot of the time have seen better days, so I tend to run the samples through click/pop reduction in cool edit to remove clicks from surface scratches. They can really mess with your mix, when the sample is running at -30 and youve got a pop at -5, you can imagine what the wave form looks like.
Also hi-pass vinyl samples and remove any super-low rumble you get when recording it. Another mix killer. I also tend to roll off the highs aswell.
The good thing is though, if you've got that under control, a good vinyl sample sounds a million times better than anything else. Especially around the low mids and in the stereo field imo.

-Parallel expansion
-Sidechained reverb (Reverb gets compressed when drums hit)

This. All about the big room reverb turned up with it ducking under a 4/4 kick or whatever. sounds awesome.

[Volatile Psycle]

First usful post i've contributed here so I've got a few for this fine thread!

1. Get Phil collins on your drums....G A T E D R E V E R B

On a snare it can add a more length (lol) as well as give nice stereo width without it clutering your mix.
Sounds great on kicks too if you have a simple/uncluttered kick pattern. Stick a nice gated room 'verb on it (with the lows mono'd of course) and it can feel like the kick punches you in the chest whilst wrapping round your head too!

2. While on the stereo field tip.......for bass sounds, follow your filter modulation with some subtle stereo width modulation so that when the filter opens up the bass feels ike its bursting from the centre outwards.

3. Dynamic EQ......seriously underrated from what i've read on most forums.
Great for picking out the transients on drums without reaching for a compressor.
for example:
You can boost the low end of the snare/kick just for a short period of time giving you the punch without cluttering the low end. And also boost the upper mids/tops on your snare/hats without them sounding hissy or harsh. #
(for all you reason users i've made a dynamic eq combinator so hit me up and i'll try send it once iv got the studio rigged up in my new gaff)

Another great use for this is to do frequency specific sidechaining. Group your bass and mid sounds together and use the snare to duck the bass around the lower mids and snap of the snare. This can help it chop through the mix without it sounding as destructive as full band sidechaining.

these tips are only limited by your crativity too......Try them in other senarioes (sp) and see where it takes you.

Peas out

[sunny_b_uk]

iv got another random tip for every1:
no matter how much you exercise or how healthy you think you are, dont overwork yourself for extended periods of times in the studio.
im quite an athletic person & i eat a lot of the more nutritious vegetables out there & since the xmas holiday i had spent WAY too much time producing everyday till 7am, however now iv been diagnosed with shingles which is herpes gained from over stressing (its made me find out herpes isn't just caused from unsafe sex lol)
its very painful so i cant really sit and produce like this but yeah were all human and no one is invincible..
at the same time don't be a lazy tnuc

[Anne Droid]

iv got another random tip for every1:
no matter how much you exercise or how healthy you think you are, dont overwork yourself for extended periods of times in the studio.
im quite an athletic person & i eat a lot of the more nutritious vegetables out there & since the xmas holiday i had spent WAY too much time producing everyday till 7am, however now iv been diagnosed with shingles which is herpes gained from over stressing (its made me find out herpes isn't just caused from unsafe sex lol)
its very painful so i cant really sit and produce like this but yeah were all human and no one is invincible..
at the same time don't be a lazy tnuc

herpes from producing thats a new one