Music making sites and tips anyone?

dave_from_2001 · Post by **dave_from_2001** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:00 pm

I learned alot about sound in front of a real, analog synthesizer with all the controls as knobs or pots or patches. 2 plus osc.

dono · Post by **dono** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:07 pm

Hi, first time poser here. Sorry if I have resurrected an insanely old thread. I didn't look at the date.

I really wanted to just share my experience and love for BoC.

I started making music when I was 12 or 13, and will now be 23 in a couple of months. Music is one of the biggest parts of my life, and I always thought it strange how BoC's music is exactly how I have always viewed music should be. Maybe that's why I love them so much.

I also wanted to let people know what I use, because I think it is interesting, and maybe even helpful to see what other people use.

My personal in home studio and equipment is as follows.

- 1980's technics turntable
- Stanton STR8-80 turntable
- Stanton SA8 Mixer
- Some old 80's tape deck (I forget what it is off the top of my head)
- 2 studio condenser mics
- 2 Acoustic guitars
- Several M-Audio and Korg midi controllers
- Korg ES1 MkII drum machine and sampler
- Korg Micro X synth
- Korg MicoKorg synth
- Lots of $5 children's pianos and "musical toys"
- Logic Pro

Sometimes I go for month long periods of time without writing, or even touching a single thing. And then when the inspiration hits, I'll sit and work for days, or weeks to finish stuff. I can completely understand when BoC says that they have tons of work lying around that isn't finished, or that nobody has heard. I just checked one of my folders the other day, and it had 108 unfinished songs in there.

Usually I'll take a mic with me, or a field recorder, and just record stuff wherever I can. If I'm out in the city, I'll record, if I'm by the lake, I'll record, if I'm watching TV and a cool commercial comes on I'll record. Then I take and sample stuff into the ESX24 sampler in Logic, or sample it into my Korg sampler and start laying stuff down. I end up playing everything back in anyway, and 3/4 of it isn't even the samples I took in the first place. You know, you get an idea from the sample, then you end up re-creating it anyway.

I like to use a lot of early 80's hip hop, and trash them, and maybe resample the sounds to re-arrange them. Or mimic some "poppy" stuff, and make it sound old. Then of course, I lay down some fantastic airy, or deep woody, or old music boxy sounding melodies using synths or real instruments, and try hard to take the electronic edge off of them. I love the outdoors, and that's what I like my music to sound like.

Sorry for such a long post. I am just super excited to talk with other BoC lovers, and musicians alike. It seems I haven't had much time to write or record lately with the wife starting back to school, and work picking up and all.

saob · Post by **saob** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:00 pm

Hey dono, sounds interresting. Do you get your music released? ...or do you got anything online to share with us?

dono · Post by **dono** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:44 pm

I'll see about getting some stuff up. I am currently revamping my website which had some older samples on it previously.

dave_from_2001 · Post by **dave_from_2001** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:56 pm

PLEASE SHARE

dono · Post by **dono** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:51 am

I will get stuff as soon as I can. I'll try to bounce some newer stuff too if I have time.

tsg · Post by **tsg** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:43 pm

Bryan wrote: Its called hard work. Practice practice practice. Improvise. Sing. Playing an instrument/MIDI keyboard is an act of translation, the fluency of which you have to make a long term commitment to honing.

He's right. Not everybody CAN be the next BOC or Aphex Twin. You can have as many toys as you want but as I have discovered you can sometimes get lost because you have so many of them and can spend a long time fannying about with 4 bar loops.

Okay , solid advice.. get past the four bar loop thing. Just get past it, it doesnt matter if you head off somewhere that sounds moribund, just keep going. Keep trotting out tunes even if you dont like them as its all a learning process. Learn about traditional song structure (you would be suprised how closely even BOC and Aphex follow them, but they are masters at breaking the rules and expectations). Id recommend a lot of things.

1) a book called "this is your brain on music" by Daniel J. Levetin.
2) Learn Ableton and your vsts inside out. Do a search on Tom Cosm on youtube, a friendly Kiwi Guy with great tutorials on ableton live.
3) have a look at KVRAUDIO for a bunch of good free vsts. I assume you know how to steal them via torrents also. Learn how they work.

Realise that the end of the day it will take a long time to come up with something that doesnt just sound monotonous. Its a lot of HARD work creating interesting Midi parts , though the work that you put into it will be reflected at the end of the day. You can spot a chancer a long way off. Sorry to preach and I hope this is some help. I know all these rules but dont always put them into practice, its part of being human i guess but , once again, its a LOT of hard work. Only you can be your own quality assurance manager, if it doesnt sound finished its not finished (but keep churning them out anyway).

above all do it for the love of it.

tsg · Post by **tsg** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:52 pm

Try this too.

http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

okay the guy probably has MOR tastes but he seems to know what hes talking about

cheers

IanRedpoint · Post by **IanRedpoint** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:48 pm

If you're wanting to make electronic music (loose general term I know) then you could try picking up Reason. It's a relatively closed stable environment, but I found it easier than Ableton or Logic to get to grips with. Initially, stick to a single synth - in Reason I started by figuring out the inbuilt Subtractor synth, which taught me a lot about how subtractive synthesis works. Then try some straightforward samplers. It's way too tempting to use a bit of everything and not really understand how any of it works, but you don't learn so much that way.

The other thing I do is listen to music and try to understand why and how it works. As important as technique is simply recognising when something works, when something sounds interesting

Bryan wrote:I had little conception of the full scope of what a four-limbed drum beat entails. It takes a lot of trial and error, especially if you share a taste for complexity, but my biggest takeaway is that using multiple hi-hat/cymbal sounds will make your beat come alive (and is the heart of what drummers do). The open hi-hat seems to be the glue, although I'd love to hear the thoughts of anyone with more drumming/beat creation experience than myself.

Yeah, open hi-hat is key. Partly because it cuts through a lot and can be introduced to dominate a rhythm, also because it often either opens or closes off-beat, giving an elasticity to the groove. Off-beat kicks can do similar tricks. I love layering hi-hats too. Such an expressive element of a drum kit.

zeitgeist · Post by **zeitgeist** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:02 pm

a few sites i have bookmarked that may help you out depending what you're looking for:

-Audio Studio Engineering

-Jokosher is a cool free program, Audacity is probably better.

-Tweakheadz - Awesome resource

-http://www.musictheory.net/

-http://www.essentialguitar.com/

-http://www.musipedia.org/

-Guitar Chord Charts

There are some excellent e-books as torrents as well, try finding "real world digital audio". The library always has some excellent books too, "but don't take my word for it."

EDIT: I don't know why some of the links aren't clickable.

dono · Post by **dono** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:05 pm

dave_from_2001 wrote:PLEASE SHARE

http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5962

Beacon · Post by **Beacon** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:18 am

tsg wrote: Okay , solid advice.. get past the four bar loop thing. Just get past it, it doesnt matter if you head off somewhere that sounds moribund, just keep going. Keep trotting out tunes even if you dont like them as its all a learning process. Learn about traditional song structure (you would be suprised how closely even BOC and Aphex follow them, but they are masters at breaking the rules and expectations). Id recommend a lot of things.

I think that's a good tip for sure. I have so much unfinished stuff, that I love, but is so short. Not as short as 4 bars, but I didn't push myself to keep going with them, I just kept "improving" the beginning. Now I've lost the inspiration to work on a lot of those songs.

I remember reading something someone from Sigur Ros said that kind of relates. He said that you need to be fearless about changing songs if you don't like them. If you don't like a part of a song much GET RID OF IT and make something new. I have a really hard time with that one. You can't be too critical of yourself either.

dono · Post by **dono** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:56 pm

I don't think anyone has posted this yet, but It's a very interesting site to screw around on, or make little samples from and download them.

http://www.hobnox.com/index.1056.en.html

It will also teach you the basics or sequencing, as there are sequencers.