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Do you follow any strategy when composing?
I would love to hear you guys how you confront a composition, a new idea and turn it into a piece of music on the ipad.
If you have a plan before even start the ipad, is there any steps you follow religiously? Any strategy that works for you?
I'm not talking about basics as "I start from a melody" or "with a beat".. no. I would like to know if you have some concrete specific steps you do to make a song. Like for example... right now I'm trying to follow an simple strategy based on:
1. I open AUM and 2 channels (3 maximum). One for firing up a lumbeat app and another one for guitar or bass. Third one maybe a melody or texture that grabs my attention.
2. Play until some riff, chord or melody seems interesting to me.
3. Open cubasis 3 and record the loop and the guitar/bass. Compose the basic guitar parts, basses, synths there.
4. Once it is more or less ok, go to garageband and compose the real drum track with the drummer.
5. Come back to cubasis 3 and start from the beginning with the drum track. Record the rest of instruments. No insert or send fx unless necessary.
6.Once everything is ok again, download the tracks to audio waves on a third cubasis take.
7.Then I mix. Once it is finished i will get the stereo master track of different mixes and on different formats out.
8.Examine the mixes and have a winner. Write down why you think is the winner.
9.Master the final track.
I'm curious to know your own way to make it so we can share experiences here. 🙂
Comments
A bit, yeah. It’s convoluted as fuck
1. Get really stoned
2. Crate dig or make loops in AUM
3. Find samples I want to use
4. Take a sample I want to use and chop it up in Koala and bring in drum samples and bass samples. If I need something else I can’t do I’m Koala, I’ll open AUM and use Link to record whatever I need and then bring that to Koala. Then I get about 3 parts and then I have to do the somewhat ridiculous method of isolating tracks in Koala.
5. Once I finally have all my stems, I arrange it all in Auria and drop stuff out.
6. Finally I start mixing and balancing. Once the mix is good, I do my mixdown.
7. I’ll do final touches on the mixdown.
8. Then I’ll take that mixdown and record that to tape for analog yummyness. Then I’ll run the tape output back into Auria and record that.
9. Any other final touches that may need to be made and then I’m finally finished.
I have been using a variation of this though bu replacing Koala with Drambo and running everything inside of AUM for a bit of an expedited workflow. It has been a lot better tbh but I’m still not completely satisfied with chopping in Drambo, there’s a lot of clicks and pops going on that I can’t seem to eliminate, whereas in koala I can always get rid of them.
Well, I improvise every track. But my setup is always the same. I set up three tracks recording.
1. Full midi track with a piano (RC275)
2. I split the keyboard into two zones, bass and high (left and right hands) using Audioveek Keyboard zone splitter.
3. Set up a hi midi track
4. Set up a low midi track,
5. Sometimes I edit the midi tracks further to create middle or extra hi midi tracks.
6. Then I choose an array of instruments.
7. Add fx as I arrange.
If I get stuck on a single project for too long, I just release it as a sound bite and move over to a new project.
Still no master plan.
I get a black ink pen and a Steno pad. Then I think about what is important for me to say at this time. I usually think about who it’s addressed to, but sometimes an idea will hit me that is for itself or for everyone. As I’m writing (and crossing out) various words a rhythm and sounds will start to become evident. When the words are at least half written I’ll get on an instrument (or app) and start the flow. Usually the words will point me towards an instrument to start with.
I’m not trying to derail this thread, I realize I just wrote something more pointed at @JohnnyGoodyear. I DO always end up on Barkfilter no matter what, if that helps!
@NoiseHorse I enjoy that you begin with the words. I am usually in a late stage of mixing a song, sick of listening to it and having it stuck looping in my head, when the words start springing forth for it.
Either compose something at the piano, possibly with MuseScore if it's more complex. Or sit down and jam something out using modular step sequencers (VCV Rack/Mi Rack/Brambos stuff/whatevs).
The degree to which that gets finished varies wildly
I just put on the blindfold and step off the ledge.
I have to confess that I have never finished an edm track. Ever.
I get stuck on the beauty of the loop and sonority and the fx and spacy synths...and that's the end of it. After a couple of hours hallucinating when I'm in control of myself again I don't want to keep working on it. On the bin and off I go.
I guess I'm more of traditional composer if any.
I totally relate to this.
It’s like I keep putting myself in a trance while deep listening to what I am working on.
When I emerge from the trance, I am ready to move on.
I use the theory of Multiple Personality Composing: Find an Inner Self and Expose Yourself.
It's a refund version of the childs game "Dress Us" only using Music Apps for the "clothing".
I put on a DAW suitable for the season. Moving from AUM into NS2 right now.
Accessorise with AUv3 Generators and a coordinated cluster of FX.
The results are always the fault of the precise personality that emerges to make this shite decisions. I'm not responsible in this way. I just handle marketing the results and buying more tools for the herd.
Always the words first, unless a tune takes me or, you know, I see a photograph that makes it all make sense or, say, there's a woman.
From time to time it happens that an idea starts playing in my head.
From that point on, no tool can be fast enough to capture that, and the more time I'm going to waste, the more the idea seems to drift away.
My first go-to app in these cases is almost exclusively Gadget 2. I have found no other app yet that allows me to write it down as fast as I do.
Funnily, the "LE" version would be good enough for the first steps. A bread and butter "Sound Canvas", a fat monosynth and a drum machine with enough sample choices.
When I'm uninspired and would like to create something anyway, I'll usually load a few of the 1000s of REX files into Stockholm and start mangling. There is always something worth building upon usually...
Avoid the sharp bits...
A) Make a sound. Make weirder sound. Space them out rhythmically.
C) Drop in in and various midi sequencers and generators and mute gate filter permute re-generate
D) Try different keys/scales
E) Rub my fingers over apps like Thumbjam, Figure, Soundprism pretending I can play an instrument.
Mix drop parts in and out, and try to record it without my iPad groaning.
It’s progressing
1- Put a basic beat, usually kick snare. Pick a tempo that fit my mood.
2- Select or dial in bass sound or a pad
3- Hook my keyboard to the previously select sound and try to find a riff or progression.
4- Record that and build on it.
5- Decide if what I have is a chorus or a verse.
6- Find one or two more riff or progression that work together (the hardest part for me)
7- Arrange and refine everything
8- Mix and master (second hardest part)
9- Sell millions of copies 🍰
I don’t have a consistent / universal method worked out on iOS. Anyway, right now I am working on a BM3 ‘megamix’ experiment. One big assed seamless mix that just evolves for about an hour.
1.) set up a template session in BM3 with the following banks with various (mostly Fab filters) on them...
A.) Egoist Drums
B.) Egoist Vinyl samples from old records
C.) Egoist Synth FX and/or turntable Scratching samples
D.) Synthmaster One
E....) misc synths (Done!)
2.) Make a bunch of new sessions using this template, small 8-16 bar sequences that can loop for quite a while without wearing out too quickly. (In Egoist And Bm3 using uneven pattern lengths etc.) I told myself to not be precious at all in this stage and if something simply isn’t working well then just overwrite it with that which is working. Repeated this step for three months. 60 sessions or so later it kinda sounds like New Age RoboHop, whatever. (Done!)
3.) export all sessions Master channels to Cubasis 3, pick through them and remove the chaff that doesn’t fit or measure up (Done!). 27 sessions now remain.
4.) back in BM3 expand individual sessions and keep updating the Cubasis Megamix as sessions evolve, being mindful of the neighbouring sessions and how they overlap.
...now with quarantine I have a little more potential desktop time so I am thinking of rethinking how this is going...
Thanks for all your sharing. I take note of the different approaches and try to experiment with things. 👍