What way do you start your production session, majority?

[Realziment]

Ok im sure something like this has been asked a billion times, but im going to try delve into peoples work flows here a little deeper.

Heres they way I find i work these days, ill open up a session, open up kontakt or Battery, go trough my drum library and make a kit i like, lay down a the basics of the drums, then i choose a synth or look for particular sound im looking for and go from there. I havent in awhile, but i love to start tracks with obscure percussion like 5 or 6 percussion tracks that barely make sense on their own but when i lay drums on top they make a difference. Now that i have edrums i play on top where theres room, if it works.

I used to start a lot with redrum do a loop export all the sounds individually, then program the hard hitters on top. Other times ill go trough a bunch of sounds pick out a few i like have them ready and then start from there instead of pickin sound recording, then picking other sound, but thats usually the way it works out anyways.

Just wondering if you guys work with specific templates with specific instruments etc most of the time, or what. Anyways like to hear how some of you get down.

Oh yea i forgot to mention the part i hate, after i compose the track, i then arrange it, bounce all my midi to audio importing back in on a track and geting rid of the midi, and heres were i get my rough mix. Time consuming horrible buzz kill.

[.T.]

Nobody has replied yet? I'll bite...

I start production in a similar way to yourself. 3-4 instances of battery, one drum piece per instance (this just makes it easier for me to freeze tracks in Ableton). Once I have the drum foundations down (generally just kick and snare, and a simple on-beat hat or percussion line) I'll start playing around with melodic ideas. The sort of melodic stuff I'll put down will vary, depending on the mood and what sort of feel the drums are communicating. I find that when there's a solid drum groove in the background it's much easier to work in lines that sit in the pocket.

From there, it's about filling out the groove. I'll just go for an 4-8 bar loop working with the various instruments to build everything up. Once it's sounding good, I'll start taking some parts/ideas/motifs out of the loop that keeps repeating and add in extra little elements to taste. The reason for this is it's easier to create extra variation from verse to verse if you have extra parts you can interchange. Once I'm fairly happy with all the loops/melodies/lines/etc I've built up at that point, I'll look at building a chorus (my sore point). The chorus will vary from a minimal change from the verse, to a completely different progression.

Once I'm fairly happy that I've got the foundations for the beat laid, I'll start playing around with it on the launchpad, working out some structures on the fly. Once I'm pretty happy that everything gels together, it's onto recording the final structure with the launchpad.

From there, it's exporting all the wavs out ready for a rough mix!

I've also started using the method of limitation to get some more creativity happening and it's working wonders (limiting yourself, this could be anything from only using one type of instrument/effect to a particular scale to a select amount of notes. Try it yourself sometime, you'd be surprised at how effective it is!)

So I guess myself and the OP have a similar way of laying down tracks... anyone else do things differently? I'm keen on hearing different methods.

[ether88]

If its going to be for someone else, i normally start off with the snares, then kick. I dont make "full Kits", i have separate kits/ all snares/ all kicks/ ect, saves me time having to duplicated track n drag to EQ each part - I always "baby mix" while making the beat so i like each thing on its own track from the start.

If im doing it for myself i start off with either a sample or play piano for 4-8 bars to get the basic melody down and then build up.

- Those two are both in Logic, on the MV its always drums first then get the sample or midi to go with them.

[3rd Degree]

I sample more often than not. I would say it almost always starts by simply putting on some records. I either find something I want to sample and then it gets recorded and chopped up, or I may get restless and start to create something from scratch. Then I usually have a few instrumentals on the back burner to finish up if I just want to get something done but not really do much creatively that day.

Anyway, 99% of the time it just starts by listening to music and getting my thoughts clear so I can focus.

[damien907]

i sample all my stuff, find a sample, chop it, arrange the sample first, lately ive been using audio files and just dragging them around in logic; other times ill load up the samples into my mpc and sequence it into logic that way.

but i usually open up a groove from the ultrabeat just so i can hear drums under the sample. after the sample is all laid out, i delete the ultrabeat and open up battery 3 and create a kit and bang out the drums from there.

[3rd Degree]

Originally Posted by damien907

but i usually open up a groove from the ultrabeat just so i can hear drums under the sample. after the sample is all laid out, i delete the ultrabeat and open up battery 3 and create a kit and bang out the drums from there.

I do that too. I have had the same reason drum loop as something to give me timing for like 6 years now lol. The loop is almost "symbolic" to me, it just means when I hear that drum loop, it is time to get to business lol. I even put it on my mpc on autolaod.

[arcanjoloco]

1. Sample chop/time/pitch shift on PT -> crtl+shift+k to export the region loops -> choose some drum samples from my library -> put the main sample and the drum samples directly to my MPC via USB -> start getting fun with the MPC as the main sequencer along with my Korg Triton and a few VST´s working

2. The same shit without the main sample... just get some drums and start playing with the instruments and making all from scratch..

3. Same shit as 1, but with the PT as the main sequencer and the MPC as a midi controller for battery... Maybe I´ll pass the drums through the MPC and apply some filters later...

Well that´s my main 3 ways right now, but I did it by so many different ways that I can´t get the time to write em all...

[illacov]

Sit down with a session player. If there's no drummer, then I'll hop on the kit and find a basic rhythm thats taking me somewhere good.

If its my main guitar player, then we'll come up with a cool rhythm part on guitar that interacts well with the pocket on the drum kit. Other times, we'll play to a drum machine vsti. For guitars we're using either my hollow body Delta King, G and L strat with upgraded pups, Ibanez 1976 Les Paul clone, Lauren Acoustic or Gibson SG.

Once we get a good groove going. He'll grab his Fender Jazz MIM with EMG active pups and we'll lay down some bass parts.

I'll hop on keys and run my rhodes vsti out to our Fender Hotrod Deluxe cabinet.

I'll mic that up, just like I did guitars and get some keys recorded.

We may go back over the music and add stuff like guitar noises or wah etc..

Then if we are providing the chorus, I'll fire up a mic, usually one of my tube mics and lay down some vocals.

For processing I might run stuff thru Izotope vinyl or put Ferric TDS on my serial drum buss. Usually drums are tracked with compression, maybe a mono overhead a kick mic, sometimes a snare mic too and a room. So little bit of processing to just tickle the sound of the drums.

After that we call up the client with an mp3 or call them over.

If I'm by myself, I'll do all the drums, keys and guitars, then call up a bassist.

Rinse and repeat.

For making things sound sampled and chopped, its cool to record things in small segments like 2 bars, 4 bars or 8 bars.

I'll fly stuff into short circuit and add small snippets of the sample out of time or slightly off beat etc.. to simulate truncation points.

Usually I can get alot of sampled tone via the recording chain, colored preamp, track with compression, might hit tape on the way in.

Lots of tone texture!

Its been going great this way so far!

Peace
Illumination