every morning i wake up at 4:20 a.m. and eat one slice of uncooked white bread slathered with a full stick of butter. i then pace the living room counter-clockwise while chanting “here is my handle, here is my spout” 37 times. as i do this, i reflect upon each and every one of my filthy sins, begging forgiveness from the Great Trout™ above. finally, i proceed directly to the toilet, where the music comes right ou
*cough* excuse me! well, i could swear i’ve answered this question in some capacity before, but i can’t find the old ask. SO! consider this your official:
[depicted: red and yellow comic sans text over a gaudy pink and blue background, which reads: “how BEATRIX makes MUS-ATR-ICS post!!!(™)”]
[depicted: one of my projects in REAPER]
for all my music, i use REAPER for production. it is absolutely an oddball choice, and when i tell other music producers that they sort of do a double-take. that said, of all the programs i’ve tried, i just happened to end up using this one so much that i got really proficient with it. it’s not shiny, it’s DEFINITELY not the most user-intuitive in many ways, and it honestly isn’t even really built for the kind of music i make—but it’s hella cheap, flexible, and gets the job done. so there we are!
if i had to make any recommendation for any other program, it’d easily be Ableton Live. it’s quite a bit more expensive than REAPER, but its workflow is heavenly and it has phenomenal built-in effects. plus, it is built with live performance in mind, through and through, so it’s great if you’re the type who wants to DJ or do anything similar.
about 95% of my music is made “in the box,” meaning i don’t record any physical sound, with the exception of vocals and the occasional guitar bit. the rest is all either A) synthesizers, B) samples, or C) virtual (sampled) instruments. let’s break that down!
[depicted: a collage of my go-to synthesizers, listed below]
aka, them things what make the bleeps ‘n’ bloops. i have several go-tos, most of which are free, and one of which is very much not but is TOTALLY worth the money. they are:
MASSIVE. this is the big one that costs money ($150), but it is also my favorite synth, bar none. while it historically has a reputation of being “For Dubstep™” (remember that genre?), it is way more versatile than that; i’ve used it to make everything from your typical pads and chiptune bleeps to stuff like drum hits, sound effects like thunder and birds tweeting, and even realistic guitars (!!!). i can’t recommend it more.
Synth1. this is my favorite freebie! it’s a rather utilitarian looking thing, and it isn’t particularly flexible, but it has a wonderful analog sound. i find myself using it for pads and strings all the time because its detuning is delicious.
T-Force Alpha Plus. another great free one. this one is specifically designed with trance music in mind, but like Massive it’s more versatile than it lets on. i mostly use this one for pads and plucks.
FAMISYNTH-II. chip(tune)s ahoy! i love, love, LOVE this synth. it’s meant to mimic the synth sounds of the NES (aka FAMICOM, hence the name). it’s absolutely perfect for making classic early 90s style 8-bit (and 4-bit!) sounds. i would say at least 75% of the synths you hear in my tracks for SLARPG are made with this lil guy.
tweakbench peach. of course, when FAMISYNTH doesn’t cut it, peach saves the day. this teensy plugin goes even more retro with arcade sounds that could have come from the late 70s/early 80s. it’s not quite as flexible, but most of its sounds are perfect on their own. tweakbench also has quite a few other synths that do a great job filling weird niches, so be sure to check them out!
Drumatic 4. this is a super intuitive, relatively inexpensive drum synthesizer! you won’t get modern EDM sounds out of this, but it’s great for old Casio-like analog sounds. this is what i used for the “cymbal” sounds in my tracks for SLARPG.
honorable mentions: Bleep’, MiniMogueVA, Lokomotiv, and DSK ChoirZ. these are all free, and i have used all of them in my published songs—they simply either aren’t my crutches or have very specific uses for me. still, all great and worth checking out!
[depicted: a closeup of drum tracks from SLARPG’s Main Battle Theme]
while i synthesize my own drums and fill effects once in a blue moon, these things are not my strong suit, and that is where pre-made samples come into play. the good news is that free sample packs are E V E R Y W H E R E. while i have a gazillion samples that come from all over the place, here are some resources to get you started:
http://www.drumsamples.org/
Attack Magazine (check their “Beat Dissected” section under Technique for tutorials with free samples!)
and if you’re interested, here are some packs that are staples of mine, in no particular order:
JM Epic Drum Sample Library
MusicRadar 1,000 Drum Samples
MusicRadar “Real World” Drum Samples
—used HEAVILY in my cover of “Love Like You.”
Roland TR-606, TR-808 and TR-909 sample packs (classic!)
Commodore 64 samples
—these are all over SLARPG!
Markus Hakala’s All-In-One Kicks
—i literally use these in every kick drum i build.
—i’m not kidding. every. single. one.
JayB’s Effects and Electro Toms
ATOM SPLITTER AUDIO Games and 8-bit Kit Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
Henry Homesweet’s Essential Chip Sounds
of course, there’s samples, and then there’s sampled instruments—virtual instruments that work by playing from a huge selection of recorded samples. that brings us to:
here’s where, unfortunately, we get into stuff that costs money. of course, there are *ahem* other ways of obtaining these instruments, but i wouldn’t know anything about that… *eyes dart back and forth shiftily*
at any rate, there’s not much to say about these—they pretty much do what you would expect them to. here are my go-to virtual instruments!
Piano: Native Instruments’ The Giant, The Gentleman, The Grandeur
Bass: Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass, Scarbee Pre-Bass, Orangetree Cherry Electric Bass
Chimes: Orangetree Grand Kalimba, SonicCouture Array Mbira, 8dio Music Box, 8dio Seahorse
Guitar: Orangetree Evolution Strawberry (electric)
Drums: Superior Drummer 2.0, Addictive Drums
with all of these resources combined, all that’s left is putting everything together! which leaves us with…
…alright, so actually going into my process for arranging/mixing tracks could easily take not one, but DOZENS of separate posts if you really wanted me to break it down. instead, here are some general tips based on things that help me when taking on a project:
LISTEN AT MODERATE VOLUMES. seriously. this is like, Rule Number One. there are two big reasons for this:
1. the Fletcher-Munson effect. in short, the louder a sound source is, the more our ears perceive all the frequencies of that sound as equal. this is why music sounds better louder. but that’s just the problem! if you’re mixing your song at a loud volume, A) it’s going to sound better than it actually is and B) you’re not going to have the most accurate idea of how your mix is sounding.
2. your poor ears! ears fatigue really easily, and listening at high volumes for extended periods of time contributes to hearing loss. our ears naturally lose hearing with age, and hearing loss of any kind is generally permanent, so protect your ears and turn! that! shit! down!
listen to music like what you want to make. a LOT. i can’t stress this enough. you won’t get far with music operating in a bubble! whatever your style, listen to artists who are making the kind of music you want to make, as much as possible. have a song idea that’s reminiscent of someone else’s song that you like? use that as a reference as you work on your mix! stuck on what to do with an arrangement? listen to other artists and figure out what worked for them!
the key here is listening critically: don’t just listen for enjoyment, really pay attention to what went into the production of that song. what makes that bass line so funky? how are the drums defining the song’s groove? how is the arrangement supporting the lead vocal/instrument? by listening critically to other peoples’ work, you will be able in turn to apply those critical skills to your own work, which is CRUCIAL to improving yourself.
split your project into organized sections. for me, i almost always group my arrangements the same way: drums/percussion, vocals, lead instruments, rhythm section, sound effects, send effects (e.g. reverb, delay, etc) — in that order.
sometimes that varies depending on the style or arrangement of the song, and you may find that a different scheme works better for you. what’s important is that you find a setup that allows you to easily manage and navigate your projects so that you don’t get lost when you rack up dozens of tracks (or, in my case, up to 100).
keep each instrument in its own distinct range of notes. one of my biggest mistakes when i first started arranging music was having too many parts playing in the same range of notes. this makes it really difficult to distinguish one instrument from another and leads to a lot of headaches when the time comes to mix the track.
you can avoid this by keeping your bass line well below the rhythm instruments, having each rhythm instrument playing a different and relatively narrow range of notes, and arranging your rhythm tracks around the lead vocal/instrument so that the melody isn’t overpowered by other elements of the song.
there are exceptions to this rule, of course, like when you’re layering or blending different sounds together—but until you’re proficient enough with arranging and mixing to be really conscientious about it, it’s best to stray away from this.
don’t get too wrapped up in mixing before the arrangement is done. of all the traps i’ve fallen into, this is one i still need to work on. if you can, try to arrange your songs completely—start to finish—BEFORE you touch effects like EQ, compression, reverb, etc. once everything is laid out, then move on to mixing.
for one thing, this helps motivate you to finish writing the whole track, instead of procrastinating by working on the mix when you get stuck (guilty, constantly). for another, this prevents the massive headache that is “mixing yourself into a corner.”
in short, mixing as you go, you can easily make choices that don’t end up working for the full arrangement, because—well, you weren’t done arranging the song yet! this leads to a lot of backtracking and undoing things and just makes everything take longer. believe me, i’ve done this more times than i can count. just… don’t.
when it comes to effects, less is more. always ask yourself: why am i adding this effect? does this track need it? will it work with the rest of the mix? not every single thing needs EQ and compression, and when they do, they don’t always need to be slammed with it. likewise, effects like chorus and reverb can really drown out a mix if they’re used overzealously.
always A/B (toggle on and off) the effects you add to a track in context with the rest of the tracks, so you have a sense of the difference it’s making on your mix. if you turn the effect off and find out that the mix sounds better without it, then it’s time to ditch that effect or tweak it so that it fits better!
TRUST YOUR EARS. above everything else. don’t trust advice articles telling you to use These Exact Settings on your compressors, or Boost These Frequencies And Cut Those Frequencies on your piano/guitar/vocals/cowbell, because shut up Becky, this stuff all depends on the song and how the tracks were recorded and how they’re going to fit in the mix and what you want the song to sound like and and and and!
it’s great to look toward tutorials and the like for tips on EQ/compression/reverb/etc, but always take them with a grain of salt, and use them as guidelines to be altered in whatever way suits your needs. rather than taking the word of someone who hasn’t even heard YOUR song, trust your own ears. if you do something to your mix and a little voice tells you that it makes the song sound worse, listen to that voice!
TAKE BREAKS. like i mentioned earlier: ears fatigue fast. just an hour or two of listening, even at a low volume, is enough to tire out your poor lil’ hearing holes. tired ears are much worse at hearing things accurately, meaning that the mix decisions you make in this state will be based off a faulty idea of how your track is sounding. plus, over-listening is another contributing factor to hearing loss. give yourself some time to sit in silence periodically! your ears and your music will thank you for it.
and lastly, in the words of one of my former professors:
“these are tools, not rules… fools!” in other words, just as there are no “rules” to making art, there are no “rules” in making audio either! sure, there are definitely standard techniques and conventions that are ubiquitous in music production (having the kick, bass, and vocals all centered, for example). but ultimately, how do YOU want your music to sound? when you have the answer to that question, don’t feel wrong for breaking the conventions to make your vision a reality.
does making this instrument clip until it distorts give it a wicked sound? go for it! does this drum kit sound killer when you absolutely squash its dynamic range? why not! as long as it benefits your overall sound, anything goes. just, you know, don’t go breaking anything expensive. ;^)
PHEW! that took longer than i expected. this is an awful lot to digest, but i hope it helps! if you have any follow-up questions, don’t hesitate to ask—i can gladly go into more detail on any of this. good luck friend <3
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