Yeah I have FL studio, before that Cubase, before that Cakewalk (!!!).
I can come up with nice breakdowns / melodies easily enough, structure is pretty textbook usually (especially for trance), but I have come to the conclusion that I will NEVER get to grips with the witchcraft of track levelling, my attempts never quite sound... "proper".
I have a ton of beats in my head, and I have a ton of ideas, but just can't find the proper way to go about it. I can get the basics down, and have figured out risers and white noise. But the songs I have have no depth and I can't break it down, or build it up. Either I can't find the right sound, or I can't get a good chord progression. I am a drummer so am used to jamming with other people playing guitars and bass. So this is very far off from what I'm used to doing for making music.
Any tips for a complete noob?
Also, you pick up on any of their black Friday deals in November? I upgraded to have all plugins for only $150.
I have a ton of beats in my head, and I have a ton of ideas, but just can't find the proper way to go about it. I can get the basics down, and have figured out risers and white noise. But the songs I have have no depth and I can't break it down, or build it up. Either I can't find the right sound, or I can't get a good chord progression. I am a drummer so am used to jamming with other people playing guitars and bass. So this is very far off from what I'm used to doing for making music.
Any tips for a complete noob?
Also, you pick up on any of their black Friday deals in November? I upgraded to have all plugins for only $150.
I have a ton of beats in my head, and I have a ton of ideas, but just can't find the proper way to go about it. I can get the basics down, and have figured out risers and white noise. But the songs I have have no depth and I can't break it down, or build it up. Either I can't find the right sound, or I can't get a good chord progression. I am a drummer so am used to jamming with other people playing guitars and bass. So this is very far off from what I'm used to doing for making music.
Any tips for a complete noob?
Also, you pick up on any of their black Friday deals in November? I upgraded to have all plugins for only $150.
Hah tbh I think @LostLegend is probably the most advanced in here with regards to all elements of production, but these are bits and bobs I've picked up over the years:
1) You will ALWAYS have a hard-drive of unfinished ideas / riffs / loops etc! but then some days a tune will just come together in a matter of hours, it's actually quite weird and almost entirely random.
2) With regards to build ups, progression, layers etc, this is the jigsaw I tend to near the end really, maybe do it backwards?: copy/paste all tracks for about 4 minutes and pull out/temporarily mute sections as you go along to see how it progresses? since I mostly do Trance this bit it so formulaic / second-nature I don't really have to give much thought to it.
3) Depth is also where I struggle, this (for me at least) is making sure that none of the individual tracks are falling over eachother (too close in EQ range), or that one track is not completely overbearing in terms of volume. I tend to sense-check alongside a "real" tune? i.e for me an absolute benchmark of trance production is Paul Oakenfold's remix of Yahel & Liya - Creatures
I reckon that bench-marking bit is imperative, there is a thing that some people when drawing; they draw what they think they see, not what they see. I fall into that trap with music over and over again, usually too much low end and/or reverb.
@Melba Toast sorry one thing around getting the right sound that may either be offensively obvious or actually useful: You know you can loop a section and change the instrument(s) while it's playing?
I have a ton of beats in my head, and I have a ton of ideas, but just can't find the proper way to go about it. I can get the basics down, and have figured out risers and white noise. But the songs I have have no depth and I can't break it down, or build it up. Either I can't find the right sound, or I can't get a good chord progression. I am a drummer so am used to jamming with other people playing guitars and bass. So this is very far off from what I'm used to doing for making music.
Any tips for a complete noob?
Also, you pick up on any of their black Friday deals in November? I upgraded to have all plugins for only $150.
Ableton user myself. Only really got back into production in Jan after a long hiatus (long story), but I picked the right year to pick my hobby back up, hey?
Any way, stand by, wall of text incoming
Music Production is very much about 'marginal gains' in that, there's no one thing on its own that's really going to accelerate the quality of your music (Except learning basic music theory)
It's all about learning small tricks and techniques that improve your sound gradually. That's why there's such a huge attrition rate with newbie musicians/producers; It can take years to get to a point where your music starts to sound professional. Patience is the most important 'skill' you can have in the early stages of learning.
Try not to spread yourself too thin early on. It's easy to get carried away wanting to learn how everything works, how to program synths, arrange tracks, gain stage, compression, EQ etc. But if you try to cram too much stuff in at once, you'll end up forgetting most of it.
It's better to pick 1 or 2 things at once and just concentrate on them.
For example, I'd start with learning your DAW inside out. It's what you are going to spend the most time staring at in your sessions.
Learn all the keyboard short cuts, what all the menus are for and what all the buttons do. Read the manual (RTFM ) and there are tons of good video tutorials and beginner video's on YouTube (Avoid the click baity looking ones).
Concentrate on this and you'll find your work-flow will improve.
With that in mind, I'd also avoid spending too much money on plug-ins at the moment, unless they fulfil an essential role that isn't within FL.
The stock plug-ins are pretty damn good, they are optimised for the DAW and are usually very learner-friendly. Once you figure out their limitations, that gives you a better starting block to decide what to spend your money on. Also, be sure to take a look at some of the free plug-ins around these days. There are some amazing ones to be found. Valhalla Supermassive, Spitfire LABS and the newly released VITAL.
For coming up with chord progressions, try this site:
Free online resources and tools to help you learn and compose music, scales and chords, for guitar and other instruments.
www.scales-chords.com
You can put in the notes of any chords you have come up with, and there are tools to show you what other scales and chords work well with it. It's a great starting point if you are low on ideas.
Also maybe try posting some of your ideas in here:
2) With regards to build ups, progression, layers etc, this is the jigsaw I tend to near the end really, maybe do it backwards?: copy/paste all tracks for about 4 minutes and pull out/temporarily mute sections as you go along to see how it progresses? since I mostly do Trance this bit it so formulaic / second-nature I don't really have to give much thought to it.
3) Depth is also where I struggle, this (for me at least) is making sure that none of the individual tracks are falling over eachother (too close in EQ range), or that one track is not completely overbearing in terms of volume. I tend to sense-check alongside a "real" tune? i.e for me an absolute benchmark of trance production is Paul Oakenfold's remix of Yahel & Liya - Creatures
I reckon that bench-marking bit is imperative, there is a thing that some people when drawing; they draw what they think they see, not what they see. I fall into that trap with music over and over again, usually too much low end and/or reverb.
I remember seeing an interview with a producer on YouTube a while back (for the life of me I cant remember who it was) and he said the thing that separates the professional producers from the rest is "attention to detail"
All the small things, the effects and how they are used and the little ear-candy moments within tracks that are easy to overlook.
In terms of benchmarking, I've always found using a good reference track during the mixing process can be massively helpful.
Try to find a track that sounds similar to what you are trying to produce and A/B it against your track. Listen to the volume levels and gain staging of the instruments. Listen out for details and note the song structure. Even compare it through a frequency anayliser (SPAN is an excellent free one, I use it myself) so you can compare peaks and lows on the frequency spectrum.
It took me way longer than it should to realise that trance kicks are closer to a knock than a thump/boom sound.
It wasn't until I started studying tracks in detail did I realise that they invariably sit comfortably in lower mid-range rather than off to the left/low side
Ableton user myself. Only really got back into production in Jan after a long hiatus (long story), but I picked the right year to pick my hobby back up, hey?
Any way, stand by, wall of text incoming
Music Production is very much about 'marginal gains' in that, there's no one thing on its own that's really going to accelerate the quality of your music (Except learning basic music theory)
It's all about learning small tricks and techniques that improve your sound gradually. That's why there's such a huge attrition rate with newbie musicians/producers; It can take years to get to a point where your music starts to sound professional. Patience is the most important 'skill' you can have in the early stages of learning.
Try not to spread yourself too thin early on. It's easy to get carried away wanting to learn how everything works, how to program synths, arrange tracks, gain stage, compression, EQ etc. But if you try to cram too much stuff in at once, you'll end up forgetting most of it.
It's better to pick 1 or 2 things at once and just concentrate on them.
For example, I'd start with learning your DAW inside out. It's what you are going to spend the most time staring at in your sessions.
Learn all the keyboard short cuts, what all the menus are for and what all the buttons do. Read the manual (RTFM ) and there are tons of good video tutorials and beginner video's on YouTube (Avoid the click baity looking ones).
Concentrate on this and you'll find your work-flow will improve.
With that in mind, I'd also avoid spending too much money on plug-ins at the moment, unless they fulfil an essential role that isn't within FL.
The stock plug-ins are pretty damn good, they are optimised for the DAW and are usually very learner-friendly. Once you figure out their limitations, that gives you a better starting block to decide what to spend your money on. Also, be sure to take a look at some of the free plug-ins around these days. There are some amazing ones to be found. Valhalla Supermassive, Spitfire LABS and the newly released VITAL.
For coming up with chord progressions, try this site:
Free online resources and tools to help you learn and compose music, scales and chords, for guitar and other instruments.
www.scales-chords.com
You can put in the notes of any chords you have come up with, and there are tools to show you what other scales and chords work well with it. It's a great starting point if you are low on ideas.
Also maybe try posting some of your ideas in here:
The bolded part is probably the firs thing I need to do. I find myself sometimes making a mistake, or even making a good mistake and then not knowing what I did or how to get back to it. Then the frustration sets in. I just want to jump ahead so bad and start making awesome music that this step has eluded me.
Also, I do notice the marginal gains you talked about. I record on my phone some of the stuff I come up with. A few days ago i was scrolling through my videos and I came upon the first video of the first pattern I made... it was pretty bad lol. It's only been about 3-4 months, too.
@Melba Toast sorry one thing around getting the right sound that may either be offensively obvious or actually useful: You know you can loop a section and change the instrument(s) while it's playing?
) and there are tons of good video tutorials and beginner video's on YouTube (Avoid the click baity looking ones).