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I feel like I just don't have that much time to put in on my beats - like it'll take about 6 hours plus properly to get like 8-bars up and running - some decent hitting snares and a nice sequenced pattern, a bass line I can bounce to and then sorting through pads and leads to find something that sounds nice on top - then lots and lots of fiddling with levels and eqs to get a mix centered nicely... but still this leaves me with a pretty barebones track (and still about 8 bars on loop) no arrangement and sort of at a loss on how to add more to it with it still sounding cohesive as a piece of music...

basically I can get a sketch of an idea down in one night...


but I listened to those new reso bits - and a lot of others beats on here (sorry to not name names at this point) - and there is just some boggling drum sequences and crazy bass edits that just seem like they would take for ever to get properly into a track...

how many beats do you guys put out in a week - or should I say... how long does it take you to complete a track..

my reference track for this question is "climbing the walls" by reso... this track is fucking insane it just seems like it must have taken forever!

I dont think I have enough mental stamina to concentrate on a track this long!

or is it one of those creative flourish things where the shit just bangs itself out and you're done with a beat in one evening at the PC - some spliffage and a few cold ones...

whats up?

try starting an arrange quite early on once you've got a loop running. If it helps, draw your track out on a piece of paper (esp helpful if you use FL), it will give you an idea of where you want things to happen, where to add/drop loops in & out and where do create edits etc.

What sequencer are you using? I found that Ableton helps me through that.

pushre wrote:What sequencer are you using? I found that Ableton helps me through that.

I find ableton just makes me go around and around in circles

do you have enough midi control? maybe fucking around with the mouse and keyboard is slowing you down?

fliPPo wrote:maybe fucking around with the mouse and keyboard is slowing you down?

Good point. Much more 'organinc' way of writing to be able to flow with the knobs, as apposed to point>click.

Jolly Wailer wrote:I feel like I just don't have that much time to put in on my beats - like it'll take about 6 hours plus properly to get like 8-bars up and running - some decent hitting snares and a nice sequenced pattern, a bass line I can bounce to and then sorting through pads and leads to find something that sounds nice on top - then lots and lots of fiddling with levels and eqs to get a mix centered nicely... but still this leaves me with a pretty barebones track (and still about 8 bars on loop) no arrangement and sort of at a loss on how to add more to it with it still sounding cohesive as a piece of music...

basically I can get a sketch of an idea down in one night...


but I listened to those new reso bits - and a lot of others beats on here (sorry to not name names at this point) - and there is just some boggling drum sequences and crazy bass edits that just seem like they would take for ever to get properly into a track...

how many beats do you guys put out in a week - or should I say... how long does it take you to complete a track..

my reference track for this question is "climbing the walls" by reso... this track is fucking insane it just seems like it must have taken forever!

I dont think I have enough mental stamina to concentrate on a track this long!

or is it one of those creative flourish things where the shit just bangs itself out and you're done with a beat in one evening at the PC - some spliffage and a few cold ones...

whats up?

time and detail...also cutting and pasting some stuff is a good way to change up something, just chuck some effects on it and see what happens

add a few drum breaks every 16 bars

too be honest if i had more time and could be bothered i would switch up my songs every 4bars lol

quite often i start 6/7 projects a week then make 1 good track every two weeks, but bare in mind i hardly switch on fl, last time i looked at it was last week...its just time and for me...determination but im quite lazy.

i think metal box is on his pc 24/7 so that goes to show that he puts time and effort into his songs, hence the mad arrangements and all the crazy stuff, loops and shit.

arrangement wise...start thinking bout intros, verses, pre chorus, chorus, middle, chorus , end or whatever...if it means changing something slightly in ur 8 bars then do it...but i think the best beats come by accident and through experimenting

hope that helps a lil'

sara

Logic Express loaded with massive/absynth and the soft synth plugins bundled with it (ES blah blahs) and some bits of samples from my old hard drive I loaded up onto this laptop before coming to asia...

I'm using a padkontrol to trigger...


I feel like its not enough...

what I need to do is cop a motu breakout and a tape delay machine methinks...


i feel like i'm not on par with the hyper-trickery that going on amoungst the dubstepforum poster set...

Logic is tough for drums too - good for multi-tracking - but Fruity was a superior sequencer in my eyes... simple and inferior yet easy to arrange ideas

are people like rusko using templates for their beat patterns and bass sounds? there's a remarkable consistency to the work of cats like that - like they have a crazy archive of projects they can just easily call up and reference in a tune.. I guess this is amoungst the pitfalls of getting a new computer... starting all your sonics from scratch... or maybe if you've just been producing 2-step and late jungle your whole life you're a step ahead of the game amoungst people trying to make quality dubs?

Jolly Wailer wrote:Logic is tough for drums too - good for multi-tracking - but Fruity was a superior sequencer in my eyes...

now thats just crazy talk!

Spoke to Reso at one of the Streamizm's a while back and some of those tunes might take several weeks of work to get the basic composition down. Some take months.

It's what you put in innit.

Jolly Wailer wrote:Logic Express loaded with massive/absynth and the soft synth plugins bundled with it (ES blah blahs) and some bits of samples from my old hard drive I loaded up onto this laptop before coming to asia...

I'm using a padkontrol to trigger...


I feel like its not enough...

what I need to do is cop a motu breakout and a tape delay machine methinks...


i feel like i'm not on par with the hyper-trickery that going on amoungst the dubstepforum poster set...

Logic is tough for drums too - good for multi-tracking - but Fruity was a superior sequencer in my eyes... simple and inferior yet easy to arrange ideas

are people like rusko using templates for their beat patterns and bass sounds? there's a remarkable consistency to the work of cats like that - like they have a crazy archive of projects they can just easily call up and reference in a tune.. I guess this is amoungst the pitfalls of getting a new computer... starting all your sonics from scratch... or maybe if you've just been producing 2-step and late jungle your whole life you're a step ahead of the game amoungst people trying to make quality dubs?

man that's more than enough to be making tremendous music. logic alone w/o any other synths is enough, provided you really get in there and tweek away.

sounds like you need to spend some time building an autoload in logic. have an array of sounds that you can sculpt into things more specific. once you open a new session, say, you've got a square lead, a sine sub, some sort of wobbler, some simple drums, some percussion instruments, a bank of FX... generic shit that you can use to just write and then sculpt into a real tune.

does the padkontrol have a keyboard, or is it just pads like an MPD?

FWIW the tracks that dhruva and I did that were in the soundclash on mary anne's show each took about a month to compose/record/sequence/mix; this is meeting 2-3x a week. tracks i do alone generally run from a few days (if they start in the mpc) to a few months.

ultimately it ain't about the software, or the plug-ins, or the tape delay (though i use mine all the time...... sigh); the point is to have something to develop. if you're coming at making tunes just putting together cool sounds, you'll reach a point where you need more to make it work as a song.

reso takes fecking ages on his tunes, and it shows! i think he mentioned it taking between 20/30 hours hard graft iirc.

Batfink wrote:reso takes fecking ages on his tunes, and it shows! i think he mentioned it taking between 20/30 hours hard graft iirc.

I think you'll find it's a lot more than that.

Oh, okeydoke. Well, his exact words from the "how long do you spend writing a track" thread were:

" For every tune that gets finished there are ten that don't. I dunno, probably about 20-30 hours a tune. But spread over a month or so.
I'm slow as fuck at writing em "

Don't fall into the trap of thinking more equipment/plugins are going to help. I would strongly suggest you don't waste your money. Your much better off learning the apps you already have. I still use logic 4.7.1. It a good 6 years old now but' i can do pretty much what i want with it. I don't use any esorteric plugins. I use a novation hard ware synth but, from what i know of logic 7 express it's synths are just as capable of making the sounds.

Best thing for learning is to try to copy a track. Oh and loads of hard work unfortunatly.

BTW @ Ikonika. I drinck 24/7 lol

Reso is a much better producer then me. I just can't be arsed most of the time but, he seems pretty dedicated. I used to spend weeks on drum sounds and stuff but i just got really tired of doing that and now just bang tunes out and if they sound good, cool, and if they don't i just file them away and use then for idea's. Nice of you to think of me in the same sentance as him though. Oh god i'm pretty proud.

Reso new tune is fucking great btw, Poax played it last week and my jaw hit the floor.

good advice in this thread. I definitely believe that reso spends forever on his tunes, as it shows! I, myself probably spend a few days on each tune. but like ikonika, i could stand to spend more time on my stuff as well. I think im pretty lazy.

Jolly Wailer wrote:Logic is tough for drums too - good for multi-tracking - but Fruity was a superior sequencer in my eyes... simple and inferior yet easy to arrange ideas

are people like rusko using templates for their beat patterns and bass sounds?

Download some MIDI files of drum patterns, change the tempo and quantise where you want, should give you some good ideas...

Try starting with a sampler with just a basic, triangle or sawtooth wave then work the filters/oscillators/decay/release etc put on some effects to get a bass sound. Then layer a sub below it, i dunno man thats just something I do sometimes, start with something really basic and build from there to get you into spending endless hours crafting your sound. Or you could just use a preset

Sickman wrote: Download some MIDI files of drum patterns, change the tempo and quantise where you want, should give you some good ideas...

alternitivly you can get your free MIDI when you purchase a happy meal from mcdonalds lool

I think the quickest I've ever finished a tune that I've been happy with at all is three months.

Mostly I take a bit longer, probably about 6 months from starting a project file, to finishing off a decent mixdown.

But I start quite a lot of new things, and only a small percentage are ever finished.

And yeah, le Boite is correct - learn what you have! It makes it much easier to get sounds that you want!