 time it takes to make a song % skill |
Mix_Man_Dan 
Cool Steppa
Registration Date: 02-09-2004
Posts: 191
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i remember when i was making my earlier music,
and my songs were simpler, and not as good, but
i made them fast.
i had a theory way back then that as a person got
more skilled and their songs got better it would take
longer and longer to make these songs.
i was probably right.
for a while i was worrying about what if i lost sight
of the main theme and "wasted" time with minor
details, but now i just do all that i can and focus on
making the song sound good and i just try to have fun 
)
what do you all think about the time a person spends on one song,
and the results.
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Wow, i was feeling pritty bad there 10/18/2004, but when a person is under an emotional extream error is sure to soon fallow.
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01-10-2004 07:14 |
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thechronic
admin
Registration Date: 01-11-2002
Posts: 5,293
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If you want to make music fast, it's important to seperate composing, sound creation, structure building and mixing.
Step 1: melody composition:
Make a basic drum line and make a range of melodies and bass lines which you are going to put in the track later. Start off with a basic drum pattern and a bass line, and make a couple of melodies using only a simple piano sound. This way you can easily check if all the melodies sound good together. Make at least three melodies, but more is better. While you're doing this, try to imagine what type of sound you're going to use for each melody and where it will sit in the frequency spectrum. This will make your next step quicker.
At the end of this step you will probably have 2-4 parts which can be looped in 8 bars.
This step will take 2-5 hours.
Step 2: sound creation:
When you are satisfied with your piano melodies, start working on the sounds. You'll notice this is much quicker than working the other way around (making your sounds first and make melodies with them later) since you can now quickly cycle through your basic sounds and hear immediately how they sound with a particular melody.
Most people prefer to get the drum kit and bass lines ready first, then the lead sounds, and background sounds last.
Every time you start working on a new sound, make sure you chose one that sounds as good as possible with the rest of the sounds. Don't EQ anything yet, but try to find sounds that fit together naturally.
It's important NOT to do any mixing stuff at this point! No EQ, no reverb, no effects, no panning, ... it's a complete waste of time. You can roughly set the volume faders though, but also don't waste time in finetuning your volumes.
This step will take the longest, between 5-20 hours.
Step 3: structure:
Now get back to the sequencer and make the entire structure of the song. Rearrange the different parts into a song with an intro, first buildup, drop, middle part, second buildup, second drop and outro.
Your track is really getting shape quickly now, because you already have your basic drum pattern and all your 8-bar melodies ready with the sounds in place, and you just have to cut and copy.
The track will not sound great, but that's not important at this point, we'll take care of that when we start mixing.
This will take less than an hour.
Step 4: refinement:
Add details to your track. Put in some extra sounds like pads, background noises, atmospheres in the intro and outro etc.
Make variations in the drum programming now!! Try to follow and enhance the structure you made.
At the end your track should be finished and ready for mixing.
This can take between 3-10 hours depending on your taste in drum programming and amount of detail.
Step 5: mixing:
Only as the very final step you will make a mix.
a) Start off with the basics: balance and EQ. Keep playing the track and concentrate on the levels of every sound.
Adjust the worst offenders first, leave the finetuning for later.
Plug in a compressor if the volume of a certain sound is hard to control.
EQ while listening to everything at once, so don't eg solo the bass line and waste an hour in EQing it, just to find out that when you bring in another sound it doesn't sound as good anymore.
Try only to remove parts of a sound that are infering with another sound, don't do it the other way (boosting the characteristic frequencies).
If something sounds fine, don't mess with it!!
It's best to automate the volumes and EQ BTW, but that's an article on its own 
b) stereo image: put on a pair of headphones and adjust your stereo until everything has it's place.
c) effects: chose 2-3 reverbs (a short room for the drums, possibly a gated reverb for the snare, a hall for the leads) and put some nice effects on sounds that benefit from it.
This step will take between 2-6 hours.
The greatest benefit of working this way is that you save a lot of time. You've probably noticed that when you make a track you sometimes have to redo a sound 10x because every time a new sound comes in you have to readjust the other ones again to make room. All this double work is completely eliminated when you leave the mixing to the end.
Also creating sounds before you make melodies is a major waste of time, because you can spend hours in making a sound, and then find out it doesn't work with the rest of the track.
On a different note, one of the biggest time saver is buying an analog mixing desk. EQing and leveling is incredibly quick on an analog desk, enabling you to EQ 32 tracks in 20 minutes or less. And it sounds better too
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If you find spam on the site, please hit the  button and select my name. I'll personally kick it to the murky depths of hell where it belongs! 
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01-10-2004 10:11 |
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Mix_Man_Dan
Cool Steppa
Registration Date: 02-09-2004
Posts: 191
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very good advice,
but the way i work it is like this:
i make the song as i got and do basic tweaking on
all the instruments before i use them.
i make the song as i would have mixed it,
this is always the way i have done it and is probably
always the way that i will,
i dont premeditate anything, i make it on the fly,
i dont try to get every single instrument right,
i throw in the instruments then try to make the
song suit them, instead of the other way around.
i re-listen to the song every so often and try to
keep a fresh outlook on it and every time somthing
cool comes to mind i throw it in.
this is a very n-conventional method im guessing,
most of the time i have no pre-meditated plan for
the song. i dont think about what it should be,
but rather let it make it self.
its sub-contious now, i run on instinct and experience.
its hard to describe....
but my method seems to make the songs very origonal
and my personal style is not very pronounced.
im not the best song writer in the world but i do
have consistency and origonality, and that has to
do partialy with my methods.
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Wow, i was feeling pritty bad there 10/18/2004, but when a person is under an emotional extream error is sure to soon fallow.
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01-10-2004 10:53 |
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marisol
Steppa
Registration Date: 23-09-2004
Posts: 279
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as you get farther along in experience you will find yourself making tracks more in the manner of the one chronic stated.
it really just makes sence
now one thing is you can do is sound design without even thinking about producing a track.
good to make your own sound fx for later use.
saves time......
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01-10-2004 18:10 |
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Electro
Producer
Registration Date: 22-04-2004
Posts: 41
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Some good advice in here, it's good to see how other people work actually, because yeah there is a basic pattern to the construction of a track, but at the same time you still build up your own little habits that work for you and i think thats worth bearing in mind.
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**************TWISTED MIND****************
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/1/electromagneticmusic.htm
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01-10-2004 20:21 |
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B-complex
Wicked Producer
Registration Date: 07-04-2004
Posts: 374
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when i have an idea i usually make song about 5 hours.. i am tweaking the sound and mixing it on the fly .. after this section, i usually listen to the tune lots of times and everytime i hear any mistake or i have any idea how to change something i open the structure and change it.. after this phase i am just mixing and mastering it.. so first "releasable" version is done after day or two.. sometimes i remaster and change song months after it was made first time..
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01-10-2004 21:36 |
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Mix_Man_Dan
Cool Steppa
Registration Date: 02-09-2004
Posts: 191
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@B-Complex
thats like exactly how i work! :-)
i work fast like a maniak to.
but i forgot to tell you all somthing,
i add patturns with names but no sound,
then when im done witht he most vital stuff
i go back and add vertous hits, bursts, cymbols,
reverses, and textures.
anyone ever tried that? were you add markers to
the playlist of the song as you make it to remember
what will go were later in the prossess.
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Wow, i was feeling pritty bad there 10/18/2004, but when a person is under an emotional extream error is sure to soon fallow.
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02-10-2004 00:04 |
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