Your Workflow...

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:43 am

I know it strips all artistry and passion from the process to call it a "workflow" but I couldn't think of a better word. Anyway how have you guys been working in the studio lately? Just generally, like putting tracks together. I've hit a sort of dry spell again and am finding myself hopelessly sifting through the same old samples. I never thought I'd get sick of a 100 Gig sample library, it's a bummer. I've been working soley in Live for the past few months. Started to feel kind of "boxed in" so I started firing up Logic again, which is fun b/c of the all my AU instruments but again Logic gets boring as well, for me it's all the windows all over the screen. Then I started messing around in Reason 2.5 again which is really great but I dunno, I need some new shit I think. But I know it's just that old evil gear lust talking again. So I wanna start approaching stuff from a different angle. Tell me how you guys like to get a track going, I think my way is getting a bit stale for me. Also, for the fellow laptoppers; are you finding that working soley on a little screen is affecting your music making experience? I think it's a big part of my problem. I use a 12" PowerBook right now and while it's great to be so portable (and stylin') it's really lame to see only a bar or two of your music at once and be flipping between apps all the time. I'm having wet dreams about trading in for a desktop with twin Studio Displays. So, am I the king of the "writer's block" posts or what?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:53 am

I would say either of two approaches would do wonders and they are:

1. limiting yourself to one program and challenging yourself, often all of
these programs that we have can have a numbing effect, try limiting
the grams you use and that should force creativity out of you.

2. the second is to be hybrid, hardware/software, often this approach spawns something.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:17 am

Anonymous wrote:I would say either of two approaches would do wonders and they are:

1. limiting yourself to one program and challenging yourself, often all of
these programs that we have can have a numbing effect, try limiting
the grams you use and that should force creativity out of you.

2. the second is to be hybrid, hardware/software, often this approach spawns something.

i agree, and it worked for quite a while. i was really psyched and productive when i actually "forced" myself to use nothing but Live. i think i really just started to miss playing some keys and more drum programming tools. hence the jump back into Reason. the idea of picking up some hardware is very tempting, i have fond memories of working with hardware. i was playing around with that Alesis Ion in the store recently and quite liked it. maybe i'll check it out again. or that Novation Remote 25 with the K Station built in, that's be an all-around fun addition to the studio for sure. hey anyone in NYC area want to meet up and dig through eachother's sample libraries. i've got a ton of stuff. funny, i'm so sick of all these sounds because i hear em everyday but they might be treasures to someone else, and vice versa.

special ed · Post by **special ed** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:58 am

you seem to already know the answer to your question. you say that the hardware is tempting then thats probably the direction that your creative mind wants to go in at the moment. and speaking for myself, i used to have an mpc2000, roland 16 track, a couple synths, my guitar and a bunch of pedals, i was in a great workflow but i did something crazy and just sold everything except my acoustic guitar. that was all i had for a couple years. then i bought my laptop with logic, reason and live. as much as i like these programs i felt really limited without hardware. in the past few months i invested in some hardware again and i feel my workflow coming back. some people are more productive with the hardware others arent, you just got to know how you work best. other things that help sometimes are just taking a short break from it, whether its a couple days or weeks, music creation is like an addicting drug, spend sometime away and let the desire build up. that works sometimes. if your constantly submerged in music it gets to the point where everything sounds stale even though it might actually be fresh to someone elses ears, my point is that when you start to feel boxed in by it your mind isnt as objectional to what your trying to create. the human mind works on an input/output principle kind of like a mixer. if your in output mode too much your going to wear yourself thin. try putting it in an input mode for a while like listening to the music that inspired you in the first place or discovering new music or reading a good book. all of this has helped me as getting in ruts is common for everyone even hendrix had his moments where he wanted to throw the guitar away. but then again all creative fustration means is that you want to push yourself further and thats not a bad thing. as for wanting different sounds check out metasynth, its perfect for creating completly new sounds. i just got it and it has given me musical inspiration in a program that i havent had since i started using live.

Mbazzy · Post by **Mbazzy** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:00 am

Did something radical recently ... wanting to start like from a blank canvas I completely deleted my entire samplecollection [mostly original/personal ]5-6 years worth of work ... only kept the final wavs of the songs ... no backups ... now I'm curious to see how this will tickle my creativity ...

I think its important to to admit that your music is in you, not a bunch of files sitting on a hard drive.

Since than I've started [re] discovering sounds & music everywhere ... ine of the trax I'm working on is called "my little yoghurtpot" ... I leave it to your imagination .

But I admit it IS strange to fire up Live with an empty sample folder - ... VERY refreshing at the same time . Haven't regretted the move.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:31 am

wow mbazzy! that is scary. while it's inspiring to hear i don't think i could muster up the strength to trash all my samples. i mean, i've spent years stealing these fair and square. i definitely need some new input material though, whether it be into my head or my hard drive. hopefully both.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:00 am

To echo what special ed said, I definately think you need to distract yourself. Change your methods. Get away. Lock the studio door. Frustrate yourself that you can't go back and get on the gear. That will increase your hunger for creating again. I gather you work from your sample library. Instead of throwing it out, go find a new palette of sounds from places you've never explored. Make a drumset with your mouth into a mic (not beatboxing - single hits) and sequence it. Hell make a whole track from just vocal samples. Rent a bunch of DVDs and listen to the sound design, not the music. Set yourself intellectual challenges: If I have a sound that is loud/wet/organic, what would be its polar opposite? How many cool "axes of difference" can you imagine, and what would be a cool trick to reveal them to people? What was the feeling when you walked out of the theatre after seeing your favourite ever movie for the first time - can you put that into music? Sitting between your speakers, your ears and your brain is a 3D space. How would you fill it VISUALLY. Do you play an accoustic instrument? Borrow an instrument you CAN'T play and record the noises you make. Then mangle them.

If all else fails, read "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.

HTH

p

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:28 am

When you're doing it, never stop working.

It's like method writing, really. Get yer pen out and just ATTACK the paper. Don't stop to think, is this any good?, just do it. Criticism hampers creativity when you're in the, err, creating phase (as opposed to the 'final touches' phase).

Most of my tunes start on the guitar or as a lyric & sort-of melody.

Actually, I think my workflow can be quite accurately be described as pissing about

Oh, and accept down time, writer's block, and dry spells. It happens. It took me three-four months to make an EP that runs for 9 minutes. I don't find that particularly impressive, but still, I got something done in the end cos I kept at it, even if quite a bit of that time was spent just staring at the screen.

-Paws

Spiralgroove · Post by **Spiralgroove** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 1:55 pm

I recently got the microTonic drum VSTi, ive been running two copies of it in bidule with 4 instruments on A output and 4 on B output for each machine... then i rewire it into live on 4 tracks with plogue... put some effects on the sends and go nuts...
its been very inspiring to say the least
ive come up with a lot of great drum loops...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 2:43 pm

I find making music from scratch to be the most exciting and rewarding. I don't use any samples, drum loops, or anything like that. Make your own beats if FL or even Live, play some real instruments--if you play keys then you can start to use those to make all kinds of sounds. If you play bass or guitar, add those to the mix. I highly recommend getting a midi drum pad (DrumKat) to bang out beats. Music to me is a very personal and liberating experience--its about the reaction and interaction of the different parts. I find this interaction is often much more organic and real when you've laid each part down one by one, and each specifically reacts and is influenced by the other parts. This is difficult to do with pre-recorded samples and loops--sure it can be done with some tweaking, and Live rocks at this, but its still not the same as doing it all yourself. I find that if I come up with a cool bass line, drum part, keyboard pad, etc. all by itself, it isn't long before the other parts start to appear out of the ether and the song fleshes itself out. Instead of searching gigs of sample libraries and loops for one that works, just make up your own by playing an instrument. Think about it, how can a sample be anywhere near as responsive and interactive to your track as you playing along in real-time. just my 2 cents, thats how I work, and I have trouble trying to not be working on too many things at once, and never spend time searching for samples or loops (cause I don't have any!)

Ryan

zebastian21 · Post by **zebastian21** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 2:50 pm

tjwett wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I would say either of two approaches would do wonders and they are:

1. limiting yourself to one program and challenging yourself, often all of
these programs that we have can have a numbing effect, try limiting
the grams you use and that should force creativity out of you.

2. the second is to be hybrid, hardware/software, often this approach spawns something.
i agree, and it worked for quite a while. i was really psyched and productive when i actually "forced" myself to use nothing but Live. i think i really just started to miss playing some keys and more drum programming tools. hence the jump back into Reason. the idea of picking up some hardware is very tempting, i have fond memories of working with hardware. i was playing around with that Alesis Ion in the store recently and quite liked it. maybe i'll check it out again. or that Novation Remote 25 with the K Station built in, that's be an all-around fun addition to the studio for sure. hey anyone in NYC area want to meet up and dig through eachother's sample libraries. i've got a ton of stuff. funny, i'm so sick of all these sounds because i hear em everyday but they might be treasures to someone else, and vice versa.

hey I'm in nyc...I'd love to meet with live users . email me zebastian21@hotmail.com

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:07 pm

Spiralgroove wrote:I recently got the microTonic drum VSTi, ive been running two copies of it in bidule with 4 instruments on A output and 4 on B output for each machine... then i rewire it into live on 4 tracks with plogue... put some effects on the sends and go nuts...
its been very inspiring to say the least
ive come up with a lot of great drum loops...

second that! Microtonic has given me a big boost - and so has ANtares' kantos, unfortunately microtonic's pc only which doesn't help you tjwett, but one thing i'll say is if you only have a mac power book, if you're thinking of getting a desktop - rather than sticking to what you know mybe consider getting PC so you can have both. OSX integrates brilliantly with XP, just one crossover RJ45 lead and they're networked - despite all the mad deluded territorial mac vs PC rants recently it can only be a good thing to have both platforms because then you have the best of both worlds (and things like microtonic which is well worth it - as soon as i tried it i went for the 'buy' button - not too dear either)

but i did the same the other way round recently, got an older G3 powerbook and metasynth (which is mac only) metasynth is a very cool different approach to music making too by the way...and I'm really loving OSX - very cool - but having both means each one fills the gap the other leaves

I've been getting more inspiration out of the technology lately than actual music which sometimes worries me because i've been going mad spending money on all these programs and not finishing anything for a long time to try and bring any money back in because all my time's been taken up learning and messing about, but now i have a major arsenal of tools so i find when i sit down to do some music there's always inspiration to be found from a different place, I'm still not finishing things, but I have to just remember that if the music's in me in the first place it wont go away so there's no harm in taking time out to learn and develop technically - we're in very exciting times musically and while hardware is good in some ways, the PC or mac gives you so much flexibility.. I network the powerbook to my pc laptop, and OSX recognises FAT32 drives, so i map to the extrnal FW HD i have connected to my PC and use metasynth to do mad things to my samples

so for example, lately i start with microtonic (via plogue bidule)into live to get a groove going, record a few loops then start messing with the clip envelope stuff, then load kantos on one channel and plug my guitar into it and mess about with different sounds and come up with bass and lead type sounds, soetimes run kantos into reaktor session fx either as send or insert and by now have some thing getting going, then start messing with metasynth and either record straight in via analog ins, or export as aiffs and load it straight into live from the shared external hard drive......

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:43 pm

thanks for all the good replies everyone. always know i can come here for support during my once-a-year music meltdown. i think i've got a good solution. i was just at Guitar Center looking to spend some money and i don't know why but i ventured out of the "Keyboard/Pro Audio" department for the first time in a few years and headed straight for the basses. i've played bass, upright and electric, my whole life. but i have this terrible habit of buying expensive things, using them for a few months, and then selling them. i do it with everything; computers, music gear, etc. about 4 years ago i sold my 75 year old upright bass because i was moving across the country and a few years later i sold a $3000 Zon fretless, probably the best bass i ever played. after realizing what i had with those two things i vowed to myself to never buy another piece of equipment again. infact, i have to fight myself to not sell my computer all the time. i know, it's crazy. anyway i picked up a fretless Fender Jazz and plugged it in and just started playing. it was great, i was the only person in the store i think. by the time i looked up i was playing for like 45 minutes. needless to say, i'm psyched and will be picking myself up a fretless bass ASAP. i can't believe i hadn't thought of this. it's the most natural direction for me to go in. i'm just worried that i won't be able to work it into my tunes, it's been so long. the other thing i make music for as part of my job. while it's a blessing, it can be tough to spend a whole day churning out cheezy tracks for a commercial and then come home and snap into creative mode. you can forget what your sound even is after a while. and i'm working in both worlds from the same sound library, with the same tools, same apps, etc. i think i really need to separate these two worlds right away before i accidentally put out an album of laundry detergent jingles.

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:09 pm

I've been making Art and music for narly 22 years now, on and off. The two disciplines seem to wax and wane at the same times for me, I get ideas for both audio stuff and visual stuff at the same time which is DAMN frustrating. It always feel like a fight between the two. The thing is, I get long dry spells all the time in both worlds. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that it's nothing to do with technique or equipment at all, more like changes in the weather or phases of the moon, stuff that's happening in the world (just watching the news sometimes can ruin inspiration) or just simply the need to leave it all alone for a while. I've just been through a really long spell where i just can't get satisfied with anything I do at all, and I'm sure it's nothing to do with software cos it's the same with my art. It's just one of those things I guess.
It'd be great to have a place to share samples wouldn't it? It could be a great rut-buster. I just wish I had broadband

EARLGREY · Post by **EARLGREY** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 12:28 am

"(just watching the news sometimes can ruin inspiration)"

...not if you're into deathmetal...