How has your process evolved?

[ad.mixx]

I put more emphasis on writing first. Generally sound choices don't bother me as much, as I usually pick from a preset bank anyways.

I used to produce the song a whole lot as I went, but that actually end up slowing more down more than helping me.

I also started making deadlines for myself. I guess it's my right-brain preference but I tend to have trouble finishing songs in reasonable time (because I like for "inspiration" to hit, which is a dumb excuse), so it helps to make schedules of when to do what so I make sure I'm actually making music. Also it helps me to not be lazy.

[timaeus222]

Just because you couldn't figure out FM leads doesn't mean that the synth industry didn't. FM has the most interesting synth leads I've ever heard. Just browse an FM synth "leads" preset library.

Saying that FM can't do leads is just... plain incorrect. You basically just insulted the last 40 years of FM synthesizers.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying in my encounters with FM synthesis, I've never explicitly made a lead with FM. That's all. Go look at that post again, I edited it a good 1.5 hours ago. I never intentionally meant to say anything like that.

Edited February 3, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nabeel Ansari]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying in my encounters with FM synthesis, I've never explicitly made a lead with FM. That's all. Go look at that post again, I edited it a good 1.5 hours ago.

For example, if you limit yourself to FM sounds, you've got E. Pianos, dubstep basses, atonal bells, glassy pads, and noise generator percussion at your disposal, and you would then only be able to use those five things plus drums and other things I haven't heard of (it'd be silly to limit yourself to FM without exception).

I'm looking at my FM library and there's like 2000 presets here, half of which don't fall under "keys", "bass", "bells", "pads", or "perc".

If you want to get an idea of what FM can do, check out Sega Genesis soundtracks.

The point is that FM was a really bad example for "limiting yourself", it has the most potential for sound diversity of any type of synthesis.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

I also started making deadlines for myself. I guess it's my right-brain preference but I tend to have trouble finishing songs in reasonable time (because I like for "inspiration" to hit, which is a dumb excuse), so it helps to make schedules of when to do what so I make sure I'm actually making music. Also it helps me to not be lazy.

Totally not dumb. If you wait for inspiration to hit, you could bust out this awesome thing that you never knew you could do. Now, of course, it doesn't come *just like that*, but when it does...

Inspiration isn't the only thing that gives you good reason to write music. You could be motivated by some sort of incredible event that just transpired (like OverClocked Records opening, for instance!).

I hear just occasionally varying your day-to-day activities could help instill some creativity in your brain.

I'm looking at my FM library and there's like 2000 presets here, half of which don't fall under "keys", "bass", "bells", "pads", or "perc".

If you want to get an idea of what FM can do, check out Sega Genesis soundtracks.

Quoooooting myself.

and other things I haven't heard of

Clear acknowledgement before the fact. Juuuust saying.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Inspiration isn't the only thing that gives you good reason to write music. You could be motivated by some sort of incredible even that just transpired (like OverClocked Records opening, for instance!).

Pretty much, for me, it's album project pressure that gets me going.

Quoooooting myself.

Clear acknowledgement before the fact. Juuuust saying.

That's like me saying a piano is limiting as an instrument because it can only do solo piano music "and other things I haven't heard of".

[timaeus222]

That's like me saying a piano is limiting as an instrument because it can only do solo piano music "and other things I haven't heard of".

Kind of, except a piano will mainly remain as a piano used in many roles (ambient texture, jazz lead, solo piano, etc.), while FM literally can take up quite a lot of REALLY different timbres.

Edited February 3, 2014 by timaeus222

[Meteo Xavier]

You basically just insulted the last 40 years of FM synthesizers.

Love your hyperbolic bickering there.

To the point, FM synth generally can do simple waveform stuff like squares, saws and triangles. With the grinding, slightly distorted nature of the sound, it does actually make some pretty meaty sounding leads that cut through and soar and shit. I get your frustration with FM, I kind it really overrated with mostly chunky, bassy, elemental metal type sounds, but it's still kinda fun and you can definitely do some killer leads on it. I think the key there is actually to scale back to simplicity as opposed to working harder to craft something there.

[timaeus222]

you can definitely do some killer leads on it. I think the key there is actually to scale back to simplicity as opposed to working harder to craft something there.

Yeah, I'll likely be trying more of FM and focus on lead sounds for a few weeks.

[ad.mixx]

Yeah, that might work for some but for me it's best to just do it. The only real reason I start a song is because I'm inspired to begin with, but I've dropped a lot of songs in the past half way through just because I couldn't figure out the "perfect" thing to do for a bridge or something like that. I've learned that sometimes it's good to just keep going at it and a lot of times the song ends up being pretty dang good because of my efforts to finish it.

[Nase]

LEAVE TIMAEUS ALONEE!!1"!"1

regarding the OCD, i cannot go for one plugin to rule them all because the simplicity of hard wired synths makes me more creative than modular type stuff like zebra.

example with my current synth setup:

synth 1, the workhorse.

charlatan, the super simple subtractive with better oscs and filters. (recommended!)

i left sytrus in there mostly for the presets. can't be bothered with advanced FM either.

lofi stuff, nostaljia (adlib) and basic65 (c64).

now i added an old favorite, oatmeal. it's great and has some unique properties, but also shares a lot of common ground with synth1.

this is where the OCD kicks in and i get indecisive.

i might be able to integrate it, or i might end up deleting it.

i sort of miss the old days where i just juggled around with 30 different mostly redundant synthedit plugins without caring, but my mind works differently now.

[Argle]

Yeah, that might work for some but for me it's best to just do it. The only real reason I start a song is because I'm inspired to begin with, but I've dropped a lot of songs in the past half way through just because I couldn't figure out the "perfect" thing to do for a bridge or something like that. I've learned that sometimes it's good to just keep going at it and a lot of times the song ends up being pretty dang good because of my efforts to finish it.

It's good to make every effort to finish your songs. Otherwise you cultivate a mindset of failure. Every time you sit down at the DAW you should be moving forward in a track, even a tiny bit.

[lazygecko]

You can accomplish most typical subtractive stuff using FM. At least if you're using a more modern synth which also has a filter built in. In FM8 you can just rout single operators with different waveforms to a filter and effectively treat it as a subtractive synth. I find subtractive to actually be quite limited in itself. It relies a whole lot on effects like distortion, chorus, etc to augment the sound which I technically don't consider a part of the synthesis process since you can just apply those effects on anything else. FM oscillators would lack things like sync and ringmod features but they can still be "faked" to various degrees.

The best thing about FM8 is that the filter doesn't even have to be the end of the signal chain (before the fx processing kicks in). You can just as well use the filtered signal itself as a modulator to get even more control and still retain a lot of the FM character while playing around with the cutoff resonance settings on the filter.

[MockingQuantum]

It's good to make every effort to finish your songs. Otherwise you cultivate a mindset of failure. Every time you sit down at the DAW you should be moving forward in a track, even a tiny bit.

thisthisthis.

I ignored this exact piece of advice for too long. I always thought that if I wasn't making strides on a song every time I sat down with it, that the piece wasn't worth finishing. Now that I've moved out of that mindset, I have much less issue with spending 3+ hours on a track, only to have changed one cadence voicing and a couple of compression ratios.

I think the point is, you occasionally need to spend as much time figuring out what a track isn't, as you do figuring out what it is. It's just hard to break the mindset that that kind of creative work is "wasting time".

[Garrett Williamson]

I'm looking at my FM library and there's like 2000 presets here, half of which don't fall under "keys", "bass", "bells", "pads", or "perc".

If you want to get an idea of what FM can do, check out Sega Genesis soundtracks.

The point is that FM was a really bad example for "limiting yourself", it has the most potential for sound diversity of any type of synthesis.

FM is also heard a crapload in mainstream songs, a LOT of which are in good ol' 80s tunes. I think I hear a good amount of FM in MJ's Bad album.

[timaeus222]

It's good to make every effort to finish your songs. Otherwise you cultivate a mindset of failure. Every time you sit down at the DAW you should be moving forward in a track, even a tiny bit.

Certainly. It took me forever to finally develop the mindset to just "go with the flow". If you don't know what to do next, write SOMETHING after the current section in your song. One musical line, whatever it may be, could inspire many more (or a few more, YMMV---literally).

@Gecko: The funny thing about synthesis is that there is definitely more than one way to do many many things in synthesis. You can "fake" a synthesis method with creative manipulations. For example, you can draw a wavetable ranging from a pulse wave to a square wave, tween them, route an LFO to modulate the wavetable position, and call that Pulse-Width Modulation. There might already be a PWM knob on your synth---you're just manually doing the same thing.

Edited February 3, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nase]

Certainly. It took me forever to finally develop the mindset to just "go with the flow". If you don't know what to do next, write SOMETHING after the current section in your song. One musical line, whatever it may be, could inspire many more (or a few more, YMMV---literally).

oh yes.

i find it gets harder to maintain that mindset the further your track progresses. the happier i am with what i already got, the more conservative and stale i get with what i'm adding.

i then need to pinch myself to wake up and take risks with the additional writing. once i do manage to add something, it often brings about a wealth of new ideas.

sometimes all of them result in a dead end, the tune develops schizophrenia and i can't tie it back together. this is frustrating, and admitting defeat is sometimes the only option (rolling back to a previous version).

but it's that wrestling with wildly different parts and ideas that makes for some of the best moments in my music making: the moments where i surprise myself.

[SnappleMan]

Just as in lovemaking, I try to keep my musical process fresh and exciting. If I don't get a musical erection then I'm doing something wrong.

[Garrett Williamson]

Just as in lovemaking, I try to keep my musical process fresh and exciting. If I don't get a musical erection then I'm doing something wrong.

slightly disturbing analogy but totally accurate.

[timaeus222]

oh yes.

i find it gets harder to maintain that mindset the further your track progresses. the happier i am with what i already got, the more conservative and stale i get with what i'm adding.

i then need to pinch myself to wake up and take risks with the additional writing. once i do manage to add something, it often brings about a wealth of new ideas.

sometimes all of them result in a dead end, the tune develops schizophrenia and i can't tie it back together. this is frustrating, and admitting defeat is sometimes the only option (rolling back to a previous version).

but it's that wrestling with wildly different parts and ideas that makes for some of the best moments in my music making: the moments where i surprise myself.

Yeaaaaah, that can happen too; keeping backups: great idea!

[Nase]

Just as in lovemaking, I try to keep my musical process fresh and exciting. If I don't get a musical erection then I'm doing something wrong.

well music is sex.

i went through several months of depression, with utter lack of libido.

music was boring as fuck (pun intended)

[ectogemia]

???????????????

Slow down, man. It was a joke.

[Garpocalypse]

I divide my works into pre and post Temporal Duality periods now.

In my pre-Temporal Duality period the way I worked was crap. Usually I would try to settle on the notes first and get to mixing only when I was satisfied with the arrangement. It ended up giving me one of the worst cases of writer's block I've ever had in my life.

Now I write and mix in the same session. If I have an hour at least 15 minutes of that will be spent voluming and EQ'ing so that I can get a clear picture of what I am actually working with.

Last year I also had an epiphany when I realized I was using waaaayyy too much sound in my mixes. I thought I knew why I was layering pads on top of pads and using 4 or 5 different bass instruments but I didn't. It was pretty common for me to go over 100 audio tracks and struggle to mix that garbage. Now i'm using roughly half of what I used to and limiting how many vst's I load into a given mix. So far it seems to have helped alot.

Now I feel like I can actually get some work in and my projects don't get so overwhelming to work on like they used to.

[Eino Keskitalo]

I've been banging away on the tracker & playing in bands since 1996-1997, but only when coming to OCR I've actually started learning about production and mixing. OCR's high standards bar was something that made me do that. Rozovian's remixing guide helped me a lot, especially the bit where you're advised to not worry about secret mixing and mastering techniques, but just start simple (levels, EQ, panning) and pick stuff up when you feel like you need or want to. Discovering Renoise as a DAW that is comfortable for me was also key.

I had a hard time thinking anything else, but Garpocalypse's reply made me remember. I was struggling with the mixing of (the first version) of my TMNT project track, and Square Zero (from Be Aggressive!) - so many tracks, though not dozens, but enough to make me scratch my head where to fit all that. Then I listened to some classic David Bowie and especially Jeff Buckley's Grace, where the instrumentation is pretty clearly panned left, right and center. From then onwards I actually, usually, plan my mixes to have a center, left, right and wide tracks (on top of bass and drums), and I try to not have much more playing at the same time. Funny thing though, Clockwork Groove is the first thing I started on Renoise, and it follows this scheme, but I don't think I was thinking about it consciously.

Something else that I've done last couple of months, is that I happily take a previous track and use it as a basis of a new track. I used to start from scratch every time, but now, since I'm doing a lot of compos with little time, I do that to get started. I think Darkesword's comments on Talkback about sticking to sounds you know so you can get the most out of them was a partial inspiration. I *prefer* to start from scratch - I usually grab a bunch of sounds and see where they lead me - but that is just so time consuming, I'd rather get the song done.

I'm also trying to recognize if I have formulas - ambient intro -> groove seems to be a common trope for me - and embrace them. I tend to try to do different things every time, but I'm thinking developing some comfortable formulas (my own sound/style if you will) could help me get more productive, and also being conscious about them will help me in both applying them successfully and realizing when I'm limited by them.

I've also tried to plan my arrangements beforehand, in my head and even on graph paper (hehe), which usually leads me to miscounting the bars or something. Usually I just make it up as I go along, which gets slower the longer the piece becomes (since I tend to listen from the beginning a lot), and is also pretty slow process if I'm recording live instruments & stuff. Learning more music theory & trying to use staff notation is also always on my TODO list.. it's becoming evident that learning theory would help me a lot with putting what I hear in my head into actual arrangements.

--Eino

[timaeus222]

Slow down, man. It was a joke.

Couldn't tell.

On another note, I used to be pretty disorganized in my large (40+ layers) project files, and I separated patterns from automation clips instead of pairing related objects together. These days I try to at least put related objects near each other (but not overlapping each other), if not label the patterns I make, so that I at least know what's associated with what. EX: A bass clarinet and its expression (CC11) automation clip on adjacent layers.

I sometimes also associate one automation clip with many similar automations so I can have one automation clip labeled to automate more than one knob.

Edited February 3, 2014 by timaeus222

[Garrett Williamson]

I've been banging away on the tracker & playing in bands since 1996-1997,

that was close to around the time I was born

do you feel old yet