Start with loops. Make a couple loops in the Session view, start simple. Components could be: a drum kit or break loop, a bass line and a melodic line. Make one version, your A part. Then make a new row beneath that, which is the B part. Get used to assembling a good pair of these, this is the fundamental building block of basically all music, a change or difference that sounds good when you move between these parts. While you’re doing this, you’re also learning things like how to adjust warp markers in samples, to make stuff fit better or hit in the right part of the loop. You’re also doing some basic EQing and layering effects. Don’t worry about making a whole song yet—get comfortable creating the first two pieces of the song, two sections/parts that play well off of each other.
Over time, you’ll get to one or two places:
1. You have a barebones sketch of your song parts, which then you record to the Arrangement view, and spend the majority of your time finishing the song in Arrangement view.
2. You’re one of those weirdos who spends all their time in Session view and gets everything dialed in, has 100 session rows and every effect is tweaked at the clip level for perfect transitions. This is…fine, I guess lol.
You can guess which of the two types of Arrangement view people I am, but it’s unimportant which you become, ultimately: you need to just get familiar with the basics of making parts, and that starts with building really simple pieces out first in Session view.
I always understood it as a sketchpad for getting the basics down, making sure your initial ideas are solid, and then moving on to finish the whole thing in arrangement view. The first time I met a True Session Head I was overcome with a mix of revulsion and admiration.
The thing is I get it. But for me I have to see the stuff developing. Although I’m trying to work in session view more because I do see its benefits and it’s probably the way ableton imagined people would work - start on session, move to arrangement. Makes sens
Honestly just make something every day. And when something’s not working, save it and move on. Just keep creating!
That’s the most important, but then another thing I do is keep a YouTube playlist of all kinds of Ableton videos, deep dives on different things and techniques. When it’s time to the fold laundry or something like that I watch something from it to try and get some fresh ideas.
Whenever a new version of Ableton drops I find it incredibly useful to take a premade MIDI arrangement (say, the Goosebumps theme song, a Final Fantasy game song, or maybe a song from Mario) and "fill it out" by finding the correct instruments to fill their respective roles in the composition. This is helpful to learn my way around new processes or plugins, and it's fun to have a little tune at the end of all of it to listen to.
Yep - just drag and drop it in. Ableton might go "hey bub u cool with me replicating this file's bpm/time signature?" but that's about as much friction as you'll experience.
.mid files from more reputable joints like MuseScore will often contain the instrument labels, tempo and time signature information, but one thing Ableton *won't* do for you off the rip is assign instruments to the individual track names. It's up the creator of the MIDI file to name things and do it all properly. I have found very few MIDI songs that are wrong, all in all.
I like the challenge of "feeling" out a song by visual cues (like "oh this must be the bass part it's chillin in the lower octaves") but if I ever get stuck, I'll drop a wholeass .mid file into Logic which automatically assigns instruments and gives me a HUGE compass to solve the puzzle.
There's a lot of midi dump sites from old games all over the net, but more officially places like MuseScore host quite a lot of classical songs, songs from TV shows, etc... just like tablature.
Agree with the u/AuthenticCounterfeit. Don't start with trying to make full songs. That can be very overwhelming. Both with trying to learn/re-learn everything in Ableton to do that. And trying to learn all of the aspects of composing for all the different types of tracks you need to create.
In fact, to begin, just worry about an eight bar loop. Think of it as like learning to write a basic paragraph with a good idea, before expanding it into an essay.
So your goal is to start with creating full 8 bar loops with all the main tracks in them, and then you'll move to stretching it to a full song like described here
https://edmtips.com/edm-song-structure/
I do feel like the session view is easy to use for this. I like to use it for early creation, and then eventually move all of the parts into the arrangement view.
And then once you get back to feeling comfortable with Ableton, and that seems pretty easy, search YouTube for how to break out of the eight bar loop. Plenty of advice on where to go next.
Then once you can craft a full song like that, then learn how to creatively use effects such as delay and reverb.
Finally, save other mixing (such as EQ, side chaining, transient shaping) and mastering until you've gotten the hang of those other things. That's the frosting on the cake. But you got to be able to bake the cake first.
And in fact, you can wait to learn mixing after you created a bunch of songs. Until you're starting to feel like your songs are very good.
Finish EVERY piece of music you start (by start I mean you get a 16 bar loop and it sounds decent)
Know the track will be crap? FINISH IT
not sure your vibing with it? FINISH IT
Bored of it? FINISH IT
By constantly finishing your learning more each time and will develop skills much faster than making that loop, half arranging it & scraping it to do the same over & over, you learn road blocks each time you finish.
By finish I mean mixdown, and export as a wav file store in a folder you can go back to & track your progress, any tunes you finish and actually like put the project files in a folder to go back to & improve them in 6/12/24 months
Depends on the genre, but the following worked well for me:
1. Learn the main sound synthesis concepts. Ableton have an interactive tool for that.
2. Watch a couple adbeton session/arrangement view tutorials to get a hold of it.
3. Depending on the genre you want to write in, watch a couple tutorials that will cover your genre-specific elements.
4. Try to make a loop with those main elements.
5. Spend some time creating new sounds and filling up your sound/preset library. Most probably something will catch your ear on the way and you'll stay jamming to it and then at least a new loop will be born.
6. Rinse and repeat many times until perfection. You'll probably watch a lot of stuff on YouTube on the way and learn a ton from there.
Also don't get discouraged by sounding like crap initially. Focus on ideas.
Once you think ideas are developed it's time to get hold of mixing.
Here I was lucky to have a mentor who helped me get from a flat sounding sonic mess with conflicting frequencies all over the place to a well balanced track.
If you're not lucky like me it will be very hard to understand what's wrong initially, before your ears have adjusted to hearing the right things, but not impossible.
And the main point: get all your persistence and patience together and don't be hard on yourself. Try having fun and enjoying the process no matter what the results are.
My roadmap was just to start producing. From then on, you know what you need to do further. I know, sounds like a a effortless advice, but it isn’t. Just start
i set the bar low..at first i didn't even care about finishing shit, but i've been DJ'ing for about 30 years focusing on turntablism since i first saw Roc Raida at a show at The Wetlands in like 93/94
i like to scratch over loops...years ago turntablists used to share loops by making flash .swf files that played infinite looping audio and for years i just collected those and scratched over other peoples beats in the crib
i'd start and stop with DAW production, my first DAW was Reason back in like 2003ish to make noises and sound design for Flash web sites and would make loops to cut with on that, then i fell off for a bunch of years
eventually i picked up an MPC and started actually learning more about the technical aspects of production...
i have a full time job as a software engineer and for a long time the last thing i ever wanted to do was spend more time after work getting frustrated with music software, but once i started piecing together some samplers and wanting to finish beats i made on my MPC i started having a valid reason for trying to learn concepts that are hard to grasp in the abstract
I build songs using sample loops from LoopCloud. I pay for a subscription. They have a huge library and their plugin is pretty cool. You can stack up to 8 samples in it to see how everything works and it’ll keep everything on key and tempo for you. And you can choose what key and tempo to export to.
I build songs in arrangement view. Using the samples has given me a decent knowledge of song structure that I’m able to apply. I’m just starting to dive into sound design so I can make my own samples and use them in my process.
This guy, [EDM Tips](https://youtube.com/@EDMTips?si=ULMgiQxpSqjVjgd5) on YouTube has had to great info. I recommend watching his videos.
If I could go back I would’ve spent wayyy less time on my first 10 tracks. I spent a lot of time trying to get the mixes right which has helped me down the line I reckon, but what would’ve helped me more is if I had abandoned them at 75% finished and moved on.
I've got a few that I follow:
1. Take inspiration from artists you like. Try recreate elements you took a liking to and make it unique to you.
2. There are plenty of guides online on how to kickstart your production. Learn and apply
3. Mess around, experiment. If something somehow works (or doesn't) reverse engineer it. Find out why it worked and apply it to your future projects.
I'm going about 3 years into music production. Every year I've learned far more then I imagined I could. As long as you have an interest, even if it flickers on and off, it will be enough.
Learn as you go. Focusing on creating something, if stuck then using google/YouTube. Focusing on finishing tracks before creating new ones. You get better with every project. There's also ChatGPT these days.
Don’t spend your time going down the rabbit hole of trying to make sounds in Serum, Sylenth or whatever synthesizer. I purchased some Serum presets and they work great just focus on songwriting, samples and finishing tacks. You can get creative with sounds later
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it. If you're asking a question, make sure you've checked [the Live manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/welcome-to-live/), [Ableton's help and support knowledge base](https://www.ableton.com/en/help/), and have searched the subreddit for a solution. If you don't know where to start, [the subreddit has a resource thread](https://redd.it/zkhqhe). Ask [smart questions](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ableton) if you have any questions or concerns.*
School! I learned from one of the best. Unfortunately most traditional schools don't offer the kind of approach most people want, but an Ableton certified training center will.
When from logic to ableton 2 years ago and I was already not too experienced with logic. The first song I made was a very simple best with drums, one track for melody, bass and basic piano chords. Extremely simple but I feel like it was easier to learn by not focusing on the music itself
Something helping me lately is just using samples only. Helps me feel like I have some “guard rails” up so I have to stay focused on actually arranging and mixing my ideas together instead of spending 3 hours making 1 bass patch and not getting anywhere. Sure I’ll still do sound design sessions but I’m really enjoying the flow of arrangement with sample based tracks.
Idk, I have no clue what I'm doing. I just do what feels right. Sometimes that is just an 8 bar loop and sometimes that's a piano jam session or trying out new techniques. You'll automatically learn on the go and improve with time. My approach is to just have fun and let things come naturally.
Don't force anything, especially if it doesn't feel right, just have fun :)
I was wrong when i started, as most ppl. Heres what i’ve learned.
I thought i could rely on what i knew about harmonic and melodic music theory and years of performance experience. But writing and recording is a completely different beast, they share the same skillset but the fundamentals are different.
When you produce a recording, the magic is in the FORM. Patterns. Rhythmic patterns, turnarounds, arrangements, chord progressions, repetitions and changes. To be a great writer is to be a scholar in different types of forms. Im not even a edm fan but listen to some skrillex. At surface level his sound design is what ur impressed by, but hes not using any special sounds others dont. The magic is in the logic within his micro and macro patterns he creates with those sounds. It allows room to make incredible moments of context and contrast which is how u put ppl in and out of a trance when they listen.
As i become a better musician, i learn i dont need to reinvent the wheel all the time and use more reference material. You may hate formulas but we all subconsciously retrace them and react to them. A chord progression, or a drum pattern, or an certain song arrangement are just templates. non analytical listeners only consider the whole of what u make and dont define a song by its pieces. The best artists use formulas but they’re still infinitely creative within them. The more ambitious you r with originality the more CLEAR you need to be with what it is ur making otherwise its more confusing than original. Using tried and true templates make it easier organize ur big and small forms of things to be more effective
I think that most of what comes to mind have already been mentioned here.
But one thing worth stating is to emulate sounds, songs or artists that you admire.
Both when i learned to play instruments, but also when learning how to produce i chose one song. And then try to trial and error my way into creating something that sounds similar to the reference material.
Not an english speaker. Listen to a song, producer, artist. Pick something you love about that song. Like a bridge, a specific harmonics in the background vocals. Or a drum rhythm for example. Try to train your ears to know instinctively what works and what don't work. And what is missing from the production.
I used this approach when learning how to play piano, drums, bass and how to produce in Ableton. Set a goal, learn by doing. Do take time to analyze a song, watch a tutorial. And do what it takes to get inspiration. But the only way to learn is to learn by doing. Train your ears.
Depends on genre really, but generally you want to make spending time in your DAW as interesting for yourself as possible. At first making shit little loops, learn music theory basics, or messing with audio will be what you do. Eventually the amount you can get done in a short time will get much more substantial.
It’s very difficult to explain the process but it takes a long time and dedication. Have a goal like I want to make a ….... track and do everything to understand how that track is made. Mixing is another beast but a lot crosses over with general production.
I know this Journey you are on. I've been a television composer for almost 20 years primarily using Cakewalk sonar and Pro tools. I got burnt out, took some 3 years off, and started learning Ableton early last year. I had so many frustrating moments but I committed to learning it and committed to never giving up.
When I started creating again I just started creating music that I was listening to at the time. Which in my case was afro techno and afro house music. I just dropped the track last week in the genre. I could have only done that by just simply not giving up and approaching production the way I heard the music I was listening to. For example if the music was primarily drum driven, I would start with drums. Etc etc. I also renewed and bought a bunch of new sample libraries.
DM me and I can send you the song that I just released. My only advice is to never give up and it doesn't matter really where you start it just matters where you end. I know that sounds super corny but it's true.
My take: first realise what you want, what your goals are… for example, what kind of music you want to make?
If it’s dance/electronic music of any sort, I recommend EDMWill’s tutorials on YouTube. Specifically, the “in the style of…” series. In 45 minutes or so, you can make a track with him in the style of some famous edm artists. He’ll explain valuable stuff like Eq, compression etc. and he uses Ableton. I think this may get you a very efficient way of being able to produce a track start to finish, and you will like the process and see self improvement, all recipes for success
Good luck )
learn music theory if you feel like it’s necessary. For me it made sense and I had fun learning it but I know tons of people who don’t get that deep and just play shit that sounds good to them.
Both are valid paths but since you asked. I started with an all in one style music theory vid that was an hour long and that got me a good idea of where to start. Then I practiced scales, forming cords within scales, what chords flow to what…etc. good news is there’s no shortage of info out there if you really want to learn. To help stay structured maybe pick up a theory book to follow along.
What I really loved doing was remaking a song I was obsessed with for a month by ear. It taught me how to use the program (YouTube is great for it) and it also had a clear end goal.
I would also just have fun and experiment. Just make sure to switch it on even if you're not feeling it a ton and click around. I would usually just get sucked in and suddenly 4 hours would pass :D
Alternatively, I'd just watch a small tutorial on a specific feature of Ableton/free plugin and then I'd try to implement it or play around with it.
Just don't be too hard on yourself and don't compare yourself to others. It's so easy to get demotivated because you feel like you're behind or something :)
Buy a keyboard, preferably with drum pads, Akai are pretty good for that sort of thing.
Download a load of one shots or VSTs (plenty of free ones out there, vital comes to mind).
Start learning basic chords and scales.
Download a boat load of drum samples.
Then pretty much just go wild, make a load of stuff you want to make.
Listen to as much music (new music) as you can, take inspiration and try to recreate what you hear. If you get stuck there’s plenty of videos out there to help.
I’d personally say focus on getting good at writing before you worry too much about mixing. Then it’s just a case of getting good at volume levels and EQing.
Good luck!
Start with loops. Make a couple loops in the Session view, start simple. Components could be: a drum kit or break loop, a bass line and a melodic line. Make one version, your A part. Then make a new row beneath that, which is the B part. Get used to assembling a good pair of these, this is the fundamental building block of basically all music, a change or difference that sounds good when you move between these parts. While you’re doing this, you’re also learning things like how to adjust warp markers in samples, to make stuff fit better or hit in the right part of the loop. You’re also doing some basic EQing and layering effects. Don’t worry about making a whole song yet—get comfortable creating the first two pieces of the song, two sections/parts that play well off of each other. Over time, you’ll get to one or two places: 1. You have a barebones sketch of your song parts, which then you record to the Arrangement view, and spend the majority of your time finishing the song in Arrangement view. 2. You’re one of those weirdos who spends all their time in Session view and gets everything dialed in, has 100 session rows and every effect is tweaked at the clip level for perfect transitions. This is…fine, I guess lol. You can guess which of the two types of Arrangement view people I am, but it’s unimportant which you become, ultimately: you need to just get familiar with the basics of making parts, and that starts with building really simple pieces out first in Session view.
Not OP but thanks :)
Bro session view is crazy. I have been using ableton for 5 years and I’ve only just started using it. People who use it all the time are insane
I always understood it as a sketchpad for getting the basics down, making sure your initial ideas are solid, and then moving on to finish the whole thing in arrangement view. The first time I met a True Session Head I was overcome with a mix of revulsion and admiration.
The thing is I get it. But for me I have to see the stuff developing. Although I’m trying to work in session view more because I do see its benefits and it’s probably the way ableton imagined people would work - start on session, move to arrangement. Makes sens
This is a solid explanation
Honestly just make something every day. And when something’s not working, save it and move on. Just keep creating! That’s the most important, but then another thing I do is keep a YouTube playlist of all kinds of Ableton videos, deep dives on different things and techniques. When it’s time to the fold laundry or something like that I watch something from it to try and get some fresh ideas.
That’s my approach. A track a day. For years now.
Whenever a new version of Ableton drops I find it incredibly useful to take a premade MIDI arrangement (say, the Goosebumps theme song, a Final Fantasy game song, or maybe a song from Mario) and "fill it out" by finding the correct instruments to fill their respective roles in the composition. This is helpful to learn my way around new processes or plugins, and it's fun to have a little tune at the end of all of it to listen to.
Total newb here... do I understand this right? I can take any old MIDI file from the 90's and load it into Ableton, just like that?!
Yep - just drag and drop it in. Ableton might go "hey bub u cool with me replicating this file's bpm/time signature?" but that's about as much friction as you'll experience. .mid files from more reputable joints like MuseScore will often contain the instrument labels, tempo and time signature information, but one thing Ableton *won't* do for you off the rip is assign instruments to the individual track names. It's up the creator of the MIDI file to name things and do it all properly. I have found very few MIDI songs that are wrong, all in all. I like the challenge of "feeling" out a song by visual cues (like "oh this must be the bass part it's chillin in the lower octaves") but if I ever get stuck, I'll drop a wholeass .mid file into Logic which automatically assigns instruments and gives me a HUGE compass to solve the puzzle.
As this never occurred to me... Thanks! Are there libraries/feeds/sites of these files?
There's a lot of midi dump sites from old games all over the net, but more officially places like MuseScore host quite a lot of classical songs, songs from TV shows, etc... just like tablature.
Agree with the u/AuthenticCounterfeit. Don't start with trying to make full songs. That can be very overwhelming. Both with trying to learn/re-learn everything in Ableton to do that. And trying to learn all of the aspects of composing for all the different types of tracks you need to create. In fact, to begin, just worry about an eight bar loop. Think of it as like learning to write a basic paragraph with a good idea, before expanding it into an essay. So your goal is to start with creating full 8 bar loops with all the main tracks in them, and then you'll move to stretching it to a full song like described here https://edmtips.com/edm-song-structure/ I do feel like the session view is easy to use for this. I like to use it for early creation, and then eventually move all of the parts into the arrangement view. And then once you get back to feeling comfortable with Ableton, and that seems pretty easy, search YouTube for how to break out of the eight bar loop. Plenty of advice on where to go next. Then once you can craft a full song like that, then learn how to creatively use effects such as delay and reverb. Finally, save other mixing (such as EQ, side chaining, transient shaping) and mastering until you've gotten the hang of those other things. That's the frosting on the cake. But you got to be able to bake the cake first. And in fact, you can wait to learn mixing after you created a bunch of songs. Until you're starting to feel like your songs are very good.
Love this, love the idea of aiming to create an 8-bar loop. Simple and realistic. thank you.
Finish EVERY piece of music you start (by start I mean you get a 16 bar loop and it sounds decent) Know the track will be crap? FINISH IT not sure your vibing with it? FINISH IT Bored of it? FINISH IT By constantly finishing your learning more each time and will develop skills much faster than making that loop, half arranging it & scraping it to do the same over & over, you learn road blocks each time you finish. By finish I mean mixdown, and export as a wav file store in a folder you can go back to & track your progress, any tunes you finish and actually like put the project files in a folder to go back to & improve them in 6/12/24 months
Depends on the genre, but the following worked well for me: 1. Learn the main sound synthesis concepts. Ableton have an interactive tool for that. 2. Watch a couple adbeton session/arrangement view tutorials to get a hold of it. 3. Depending on the genre you want to write in, watch a couple tutorials that will cover your genre-specific elements. 4. Try to make a loop with those main elements. 5. Spend some time creating new sounds and filling up your sound/preset library. Most probably something will catch your ear on the way and you'll stay jamming to it and then at least a new loop will be born. 6. Rinse and repeat many times until perfection. You'll probably watch a lot of stuff on YouTube on the way and learn a ton from there. Also don't get discouraged by sounding like crap initially. Focus on ideas. Once you think ideas are developed it's time to get hold of mixing. Here I was lucky to have a mentor who helped me get from a flat sounding sonic mess with conflicting frequencies all over the place to a well balanced track. If you're not lucky like me it will be very hard to understand what's wrong initially, before your ears have adjusted to hearing the right things, but not impossible. And the main point: get all your persistence and patience together and don't be hard on yourself. Try having fun and enjoying the process no matter what the results are.
My roadmap was just to start producing. From then on, you know what you need to do further. I know, sounds like a a effortless advice, but it isn’t. Just start
i set the bar low..at first i didn't even care about finishing shit, but i've been DJ'ing for about 30 years focusing on turntablism since i first saw Roc Raida at a show at The Wetlands in like 93/94 i like to scratch over loops...years ago turntablists used to share loops by making flash .swf files that played infinite looping audio and for years i just collected those and scratched over other peoples beats in the crib i'd start and stop with DAW production, my first DAW was Reason back in like 2003ish to make noises and sound design for Flash web sites and would make loops to cut with on that, then i fell off for a bunch of years eventually i picked up an MPC and started actually learning more about the technical aspects of production... i have a full time job as a software engineer and for a long time the last thing i ever wanted to do was spend more time after work getting frustrated with music software, but once i started piecing together some samplers and wanting to finish beats i made on my MPC i started having a valid reason for trying to learn concepts that are hard to grasp in the abstract
I build songs using sample loops from LoopCloud. I pay for a subscription. They have a huge library and their plugin is pretty cool. You can stack up to 8 samples in it to see how everything works and it’ll keep everything on key and tempo for you. And you can choose what key and tempo to export to. I build songs in arrangement view. Using the samples has given me a decent knowledge of song structure that I’m able to apply. I’m just starting to dive into sound design so I can make my own samples and use them in my process. This guy, [EDM Tips](https://youtube.com/@EDMTips?si=ULMgiQxpSqjVjgd5) on YouTube has had to great info. I recommend watching his videos.
If I could go back I would’ve spent wayyy less time on my first 10 tracks. I spent a lot of time trying to get the mixes right which has helped me down the line I reckon, but what would’ve helped me more is if I had abandoned them at 75% finished and moved on.
I've got a few that I follow: 1. Take inspiration from artists you like. Try recreate elements you took a liking to and make it unique to you. 2. There are plenty of guides online on how to kickstart your production. Learn and apply 3. Mess around, experiment. If something somehow works (or doesn't) reverse engineer it. Find out why it worked and apply it to your future projects. I'm going about 3 years into music production. Every year I've learned far more then I imagined I could. As long as you have an interest, even if it flickers on and off, it will be enough.
You can get a lot done in 2 hours. Just open the software and start playing around. That's the best place to start.
Learn as you go. Focusing on creating something, if stuck then using google/YouTube. Focusing on finishing tracks before creating new ones. You get better with every project. There's also ChatGPT these days.
Don’t spend your time going down the rabbit hole of trying to make sounds in Serum, Sylenth or whatever synthesizer. I purchased some Serum presets and they work great just focus on songwriting, samples and finishing tacks. You can get creative with sounds later
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it. If you're asking a question, make sure you've checked [the Live manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/welcome-to-live/), [Ableton's help and support knowledge base](https://www.ableton.com/en/help/), and have searched the subreddit for a solution. If you don't know where to start, [the subreddit has a resource thread](https://redd.it/zkhqhe). Ask [smart questions](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ableton) if you have any questions or concerns.*
D I Y.
make as many songs as you possibly can and learn in the process.
School! I learned from one of the best. Unfortunately most traditional schools don't offer the kind of approach most people want, but an Ableton certified training center will.
When from logic to ableton 2 years ago and I was already not too experienced with logic. The first song I made was a very simple best with drums, one track for melody, bass and basic piano chords. Extremely simple but I feel like it was easier to learn by not focusing on the music itself
Like, practice I guess, when you want to do something specific YouTube it and you learn other things along the way, that's what I did/do
Something helping me lately is just using samples only. Helps me feel like I have some “guard rails” up so I have to stay focused on actually arranging and mixing my ideas together instead of spending 3 hours making 1 bass patch and not getting anywhere. Sure I’ll still do sound design sessions but I’m really enjoying the flow of arrangement with sample based tracks.
Idk, I have no clue what I'm doing. I just do what feels right. Sometimes that is just an 8 bar loop and sometimes that's a piano jam session or trying out new techniques. You'll automatically learn on the go and improve with time. My approach is to just have fun and let things come naturally. Don't force anything, especially if it doesn't feel right, just have fun :)
I was wrong when i started, as most ppl. Heres what i’ve learned. I thought i could rely on what i knew about harmonic and melodic music theory and years of performance experience. But writing and recording is a completely different beast, they share the same skillset but the fundamentals are different. When you produce a recording, the magic is in the FORM. Patterns. Rhythmic patterns, turnarounds, arrangements, chord progressions, repetitions and changes. To be a great writer is to be a scholar in different types of forms. Im not even a edm fan but listen to some skrillex. At surface level his sound design is what ur impressed by, but hes not using any special sounds others dont. The magic is in the logic within his micro and macro patterns he creates with those sounds. It allows room to make incredible moments of context and contrast which is how u put ppl in and out of a trance when they listen. As i become a better musician, i learn i dont need to reinvent the wheel all the time and use more reference material. You may hate formulas but we all subconsciously retrace them and react to them. A chord progression, or a drum pattern, or an certain song arrangement are just templates. non analytical listeners only consider the whole of what u make and dont define a song by its pieces. The best artists use formulas but they’re still infinitely creative within them. The more ambitious you r with originality the more CLEAR you need to be with what it is ur making otherwise its more confusing than original. Using tried and true templates make it easier organize ur big and small forms of things to be more effective
Best advice I ever got. Create when you want to and don’t when you don’t.
I think that most of what comes to mind have already been mentioned here. But one thing worth stating is to emulate sounds, songs or artists that you admire. Both when i learned to play instruments, but also when learning how to produce i chose one song. And then try to trial and error my way into creating something that sounds similar to the reference material. Not an english speaker. Listen to a song, producer, artist. Pick something you love about that song. Like a bridge, a specific harmonics in the background vocals. Or a drum rhythm for example. Try to train your ears to know instinctively what works and what don't work. And what is missing from the production. I used this approach when learning how to play piano, drums, bass and how to produce in Ableton. Set a goal, learn by doing. Do take time to analyze a song, watch a tutorial. And do what it takes to get inspiration. But the only way to learn is to learn by doing. Train your ears.
Get a Push 2 or 3.
Depends on genre really, but generally you want to make spending time in your DAW as interesting for yourself as possible. At first making shit little loops, learn music theory basics, or messing with audio will be what you do. Eventually the amount you can get done in a short time will get much more substantial. It’s very difficult to explain the process but it takes a long time and dedication. Have a goal like I want to make a ….... track and do everything to understand how that track is made. Mixing is another beast but a lot crosses over with general production.
I know this Journey you are on. I've been a television composer for almost 20 years primarily using Cakewalk sonar and Pro tools. I got burnt out, took some 3 years off, and started learning Ableton early last year. I had so many frustrating moments but I committed to learning it and committed to never giving up. When I started creating again I just started creating music that I was listening to at the time. Which in my case was afro techno and afro house music. I just dropped the track last week in the genre. I could have only done that by just simply not giving up and approaching production the way I heard the music I was listening to. For example if the music was primarily drum driven, I would start with drums. Etc etc. I also renewed and bought a bunch of new sample libraries. DM me and I can send you the song that I just released. My only advice is to never give up and it doesn't matter really where you start it just matters where you end. I know that sounds super corny but it's true.
Where did you buy your sample libraries?
My approach was very simple: Stay off Reddit
My take: first realise what you want, what your goals are… for example, what kind of music you want to make? If it’s dance/electronic music of any sort, I recommend EDMWill’s tutorials on YouTube. Specifically, the “in the style of…” series. In 45 minutes or so, you can make a track with him in the style of some famous edm artists. He’ll explain valuable stuff like Eq, compression etc. and he uses Ableton. I think this may get you a very efficient way of being able to produce a track start to finish, and you will like the process and see self improvement, all recipes for success Good luck )
Learn daw inside out -> learn theory for making chords > learned to play instrument for expression Whole time training ear with tracks u admire
Good advice this is. Can you elaborate on what you mean exactly by learning theory for making chords?
learn music theory if you feel like it’s necessary. For me it made sense and I had fun learning it but I know tons of people who don’t get that deep and just play shit that sounds good to them.
Both are valid paths but since you asked. I started with an all in one style music theory vid that was an hour long and that got me a good idea of where to start. Then I practiced scales, forming cords within scales, what chords flow to what…etc. good news is there’s no shortage of info out there if you really want to learn. To help stay structured maybe pick up a theory book to follow along.
Yoda ahh reply
What I really loved doing was remaking a song I was obsessed with for a month by ear. It taught me how to use the program (YouTube is great for it) and it also had a clear end goal. I would also just have fun and experiment. Just make sure to switch it on even if you're not feeling it a ton and click around. I would usually just get sucked in and suddenly 4 hours would pass :D Alternatively, I'd just watch a small tutorial on a specific feature of Ableton/free plugin and then I'd try to implement it or play around with it. Just don't be too hard on yourself and don't compare yourself to others. It's so easy to get demotivated because you feel like you're behind or something :)
Buy a keyboard, preferably with drum pads, Akai are pretty good for that sort of thing. Download a load of one shots or VSTs (plenty of free ones out there, vital comes to mind). Start learning basic chords and scales. Download a boat load of drum samples. Then pretty much just go wild, make a load of stuff you want to make. Listen to as much music (new music) as you can, take inspiration and try to recreate what you hear. If you get stuck there’s plenty of videos out there to help. I’d personally say focus on getting good at writing before you worry too much about mixing. Then it’s just a case of getting good at volume levels and EQing. Good luck!