I decided to write down some music making tips for beginners in the field of electronic music producing. A little about myself is that I have a bit experiment in such genres as trance, ambient and downtempo. Some of my tracks has been released and also used in a film projects. Excuse my english, it’s not fluent, but I hope you understand and find these tips useful. Also, feel free to comment.
So, let’s begin.
1. Get the tools. Hardware first.
The following are just what I use and am familiar working with. You can actually produce very good music just about anykind of computer setup and even with free software.
- Computer. I still have my old Athlon XP with 1GB ram memory and 800GB hard drive space and I’m still doing fine with it. But the more power, more merrier. UPDATE: Well, here’s my latest computer system: http://petrisuhonen.com/studio-upgrade
- Sound card with ASIO driver support or any sound card. Although I recommend the ASIO support. It reduces the latency in your audio software. I have M-Audio Audiophile Delta 2496 and it has been enough for me for all these years.
- Monitor speakers or good headphones. Although I created “Turnpoint” with cheap Sony headphones I bought from a supermarket, decent headphones or monitors are highly recommended. I have Behringer Truth B2031A monitors and AKG K271 studio headphones and I’ve been very happy with them.
- MIDI keyboard, although its not necessity: I’ve created many songs just by using mouse and computer keyboard. Many computer music software lets you play music using your computer keyboard as a sort of ‘virtual keyboard’. But on the other hand you get a totally different feel for playing melodies and controlling your audio software with a MIDI keyboard. I use M-Audio Oxygen 61.
Get the software:
- Get a digital audio workstation and learn the basics of it. I really recommend Image Lines Fruity Studio. It’s a very powerful, easy to use and you can do so much with it and fast! I’ve been using it for years and all my released stuff (including the “Turnpoint” which was number one position in dutch dance charts) has been produced using Fruity. There are others like Ableton Live and Cubase and some free alternatives too although I’m not so familiar with the free ones. I must say I’ve been working with both, Ableton and Cubase, but I’ve always come back to Fruity. This is a matter of taste, but Fruity is my choice. For more info about Fruity Studio, check out: http://flstudio.image-line.com/
- Get audio editor. This is for doing final adjustments for your song before you upload them to the net. I recommend Sony Media’s Sound Forge Audio Studio. Check it out here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/audiostudio
- Get some soft synths aka VSTi’s. They’re virtual synths that produce different kind of sounds. There are loads of free ones in the net, just do a search through Google for free vsti or free soft synths. And if you have some money I recommend reFX Vanguard. It can produce many kind of sounds from huge basses to lush pads and sharp leads and arps. Native Instruments Absynth is one excellent synth too. In fact all stuff that comes out from Native Instruments is highly recommended! Others I recommend are H.G Fortunes synths like ProtoPlasmTSMPro, STS-33 and Artvera’s Golden ASET. These can produce some really beautiful and experimental pads and background sound. Also, check out reFX Nexus.
And now to the music making. First things first.
2. Learn song structures: listen and study other peoples work.
- Get some songs from the genre you wan’t to break into, take a song you like, listen it carefully an make a notes how it’s build: how many bars long is the intro, what kind of elements does it have, where does more elements start to come in, where’s breakdown, how many bars long breakdown is, what kind of elements are repeated and faded etc. Make a notes and write them down on a paper.
- When talking about radio-pop songs, they’re typically 3-4 minutes long and structure goes like: [intro]->[verse]->[chorus]->[verse]->[chorus]->[bridge]->[chorus]->[outro] or chorus can also work as intro so it would go like: [chorus(intro)]->[verse]->[chorus]->[verse]->[chorus]->[bridge]->[chorus]->[outro]
- If we think trance or dance music that is aimed for club’s, it goes typically like: [quite long intro with drums and other elements]->[breakdown(here's the main idea of the song, it could be a nice melody or whatever. I call it the "hook")->[the "hook" with drums(this is the climax where everything's playing together. In dance floor people will typically go nuts at this point lol)]->[the "hook" with drums fades out]->[another breakdown with the "hook" or another "hook", whatever you like]->[the "hook" with drums again(another climax)]->[fade out]
These are the structures I typically like to use with my own songs. Of course, it can be anything you like. There’s no boundaries. I’ve also used many different kind of variations. But some sort of logical progression is recommended if you wan’t to produce music for the ‘masses’ and wan’t it to be easy to listen and catchy.
3. Start with the drums and bass.
- I’ve found it’s best to first build the drums and get the groove going. With a cool drumgroove it’s much easier to start build a bass groove on top of it and other instruments as well. And remember drums & bass should work together, not overlap each other. If you have heavy drums, find a little bit lighter bass instrument or do some EQ’ing. Or vice versa. Or if you have harsh sounding drums, dont’ use harsh sounding bass sound. And vice versa. I think the most hardest part in music producing is to make drums & bass work together and IMO it’s also the most important thing. When you build a solid drum groove and bass, you’ve come a long way in your song. I really recommend to put a great effort on these two.
4. Fire up the synths.
- Many soft synths has several quality ready made preset sounds to start with. These will help to get you going. But I recommend to experiment and twiddle and fiddle with the knobs and sliders and buttons and see what happens. You can find some really original and wild stuff by experimenting.
5. Use sample cd’s. Sparingly.
- I use sample cd’s. You can find all kinds of song elements there: drumloops, synthloops, bassloops, single drum hits, fx etc. They speed up the producing process. So many times I have found a perfect fill, fx or drumloop that fits perfectly to my song so I don’t have to start building it from scratch. You can find some really cool stuff from these cd’s which you can then recycle and chop-up to get you started. I recommend checking out samples from Peaceandloveproductions, Big Fish Audio, Zero-G, Mutekki Media and Best Service. These guys produce some pretty awesome stuff for many different genres. But remember, don’t build your songs based on ready made samples, use them as a helping aid instead. You have to have something original and something you have created by yourself. In fact most of the song should be YOUR idea. Of course you can turn ready made samples into something completely original by reversing, twisting, cutting, pitching and running them through various effects. Just use your imagination.
I use help of sample cd’s like a spice or glue to help me achieve my goal in my music which is to present my original ideas to the people.
6. Mixing: give a power to the rhythm
- When I mix my songs (if it’s a rhythmic music), I give most power to the drums. Drums are element that should be heard of clearly. Then, “according to drums”, I level the bass and other instruments. I use drums as the basis for how I mix other instruments in my song. I just make sure drums are punchy and loud enough and if some other instrument is trying to compete with drums (or bass in this matter), I EQ the low out a bit or simply drop down the level of that instrument. Use the drums like a “yardstick” to make other instruments fit in your mix.
7. Mixing: hear how pros do it and learn from examples.
- Again, listen to your favourite songs in a same genre and notice how they’re mixed. What kind of elements stand out and why? How does your song sounds compared to your favourite songs?
8. Plan to use vocals?
- Well, I don’t have much experience working with vocals, but if you’re building a song which main idea are based on vocals, make sure you make them stand out CLEARLY in the mix.
9. Your ears get tired so take a break or continue producing in the next day.
- It has happened to me many times that I thought I’ve made a killer song in a day and then in the next day when I listen to the song again, it sounds like garbage: all the instrument levels and EQ settings are out of balance or there are elements that doesn’t seem to fit in the mix at all. And then I either dump it or get depressed and forget it. That’s because if you produce music for several hours nonstop your ears get sort of tired and you can’t hear things in as balanced as with “fresh” ears. So it’s not better try to finish a song in a day (I’m not saying you can’t, I’ve finished songs from start to end in a day, but in my case, this is the way it usually goes), leave something for a next day, maybe the mixing and EQ’ing part.
That’s about it. Later I’ll write down some more tips and maybe a few words about the promotion through internet.
