whats your procedure

[1ManBand]

for about the last 8 months i have completly stopped making tracks and instead.. making little 8 bar loops real quick to practice mixing/engineering. Now that im confident in my mixing skills im back to making tracks and it gets paused for hours and hours because i get lost in the creative mixing part of it. I know producing and mixing intertwine.. so im just wondering if u people go threw the same thing. i wonder how kanye/justblaze do it. i wonder if they even get into creative eq'ing/compression and balancing at all/while making a beat. ken lewis ? i know u produce and mix.. and have worked with those producers. how do the pros go about it.

[tonymission]

first of all, im not sure what "creative mixing" goes... if you're trying to do "cool things" before you even have a decent core established then it should come to no surprise that you're not finishing anything.

instead of preaching, ill just paint a workflow example that should clear things up...

two nights ago...

1. bang out a quick four bar drum loop on the MPC
2. start jammin some chords on a fantom g
3. both are synced as slave to a digi midi rack
4. within 4 minutes of starting im already solo'ing tracks on the mpc and dumping them into PT
5. copy out the drum beat to maybe 16 bars
6. mute the mpc, playing fantom live over the drums in pro tools now
7. maybe it loops a couple times but i stop playing/recording once i feel i have a couple nice pieces to work with...
8. chop a bit, get a good four bar loop or whatever i decide
9. record enable another track
10. find an accompanying melody
11. repeat 7 down
12. do it again and again and again
13. MY TRACK IS WAY TOO FULL NOW but all the POTENTIAL elements playing nicely together so i do know that no matter what sounds/riffs end up making the cut are all in the same "theme"
14. decide what riffs/melodies arent strong enough to stay
15. start muting tracks, delete this, delete that, playing drum variations (mpc now, more tracking) copying shit, out, droppin out parts for the verse, defining the hook.
16. route all my drum pieces to a bus, do the same for my sounds (eq, slight group comp)
17. go back through and dump fills in, rolls, percussion changes from my mpc, **** around with pro tools, do some more creative stuff

12-13 is important. most people do a beat and when they have two sounds going, light a blunt and pat themselves on the back for awhile because the riff is so dope. then you start arranging and realize you need some percussion or a little thing here or there. you were vibing 2 hours ago tho! now its not feel, it's force...

id rather create subtractively than with addition... i always seem to fall short when i have to come back to creativity later.

seperate your creation into phases and stick to them... focus on workflow and finishing beats.

finishing music is a habit that can very easily be rationalized for or against (im just doing creative mixing, honing my skills, etc). the more you plow through it and get in the habit doing that, the less you find yourself having to go back through and try to finish a track because you were stuck.

the goal is to never be stuck. to always be feeling it and to know what direction is NEXT... and ultimately turn your 8 bar loops into marketable beats.

[JuelzB]

thx for the very honest and detailed description of your beat making workflow!

[Zionpro]

I can't claim pro status or even close to it, but I follow a similar workflow as tony mission, mainly trying to rack my brain for all the possible parts I may want in a song. I sequence them as they come to me...

The reasoning is the same as tony...once I've exhausted my possibillities, it's easier to come back and say..."whoa, this part adds too much." so I can more easily delete and arrange afterwards...

I try complete most of what I start, even if I lose it somewhere in the process. I at least force myself through the process...even if only to mine for ideas later when I'm in a creative drought...