Category Archives for Music Production

Music Production for DJs – Making Edits and Remixes

How to Make Your Own DJ Edits and Remixes

Making your own DJ edits and remixes is a great way to start learning production.  Why? Because you're not starting completely from scratch your adding your own sound and personality to something that's already done. 

To do this you'll want to identify a song to work with. Maybe an old classic or something current.  From there you'll want to start layering in your own sounds and samples.  Which is where samples, drum machines and samplers come into play.

OK so I'm a long time user of sample libraries and I got to the point where it was time to start making some sense of my collection. 

Somehow in the process I discovered a hidden feature in Pioneer Rekordbox that allows you to export loops of your tracks as wav files. 

This is a win because Rekordbox is free and exporting these loops right from Rekordbox is a lot faster than finding loops in a DAW and exporting them.  Plus Rekordbox tells you what key the song is in and DAW's don't really do that.

Having this ability to export loops is big especially for you more creative DJs. Maybe you just want to play loops of a track to tease the audience, or perhaps you want to go further and start making your own edits and remixes. 

Now I'm a big fan of proper progressive house from the early 2000s, the problem is that tempos were faster back then and today's music just hits in a different way compared to the past.  Part if it is louder masters but mainly everyone's mixing and sound has evolved for the better in the past 15 years or so. 

Anyhow, this feature of Rekordbox is awesome and it's worth using Rekordbox (the free version) if you don't have it. (link)

If you have a sampler you can have a ton of fun taking your favorite tracks, cutting them up and making your own edits and what not.  Again, just use Rekordbox to identify what track you'd want to remix, find parts of the song you'd want to use and quickly export them so they can be loaded in your sampler of choice.  HINT - you want to find songs that have break downs or parts with a key musical or vocal riff that have little or ideally no music or percussion playing in the background.  You may also want to work with the intro drum section to grab a top loop or something like that. 

This brings me back to sample libraries. It's a good idea to have a process for organizing your library.  In terms of this specific example you'll want to have your samples key labeled. So if you're going to edit or remix existing music you're using samples in the same key.

Remember - no amount of EQ can fix samples that don't match sonically.  Particularly with kick and bass. 

Check out the video above - and for more tips on organizing your sample library I wrote this post last week.

advice to newer producers

This video is kind of a track review but also advice to newer producers. Anyone in a new endeavor who's willing to work has the opportunity to make big gains during the early phases.

Gains take longer as you get to intermediate and more advanced stages.

I don't run much but if I work at it I can run a mile in 8 minutes. It's quite easy for me to run for a couple weeks and move my time down from 9 minutes towards 8. But going to 7:30 - that's not as easy.

If you lift it's pretty easy to lift your body weight. Lifting 1.5X your body weight is harder, and people with advanced levels of strength can do things like squat 2x their body weight.

It's similar to production.

Those newer to production have the opportunity to make a lot of gains in their first 6-12 months. That is if they are willing to work on the right things and not get distracted by all the noise and fluff.

This new student wrote in with a question about an idea - mainly if the levels of his kick and bass are OK.

I love the low end action in this track, the level of the bass is a bit too loud but nothing a little movement of the fader can't work out.

Sure some compression and enhancements can be done but it's too early for that.

For now, my advice to Conor and others at this stage is to work on structure as much as they work on making ideas.

Better to be able to make a decent full track using mainly samples and a little of your own programming/synth work than to make loops that sound great but never get finished.

He has a rather long nearly 6 minute idea, there's no breaks and it's all rather similar in energy levels.

Some ride/cymbal patters are introduced which is good...and do roll off low end that's not needed for tracks like rides as well as supporting percussion, but no when to use these parts in your track.

Typically rides are used to increase energy signaling a decrease in energy so it's typical for rides to start and be followed by a decrease in energy. Study up on other producer's tracks to get a better handle on this.

Learn when and where you should place cymbals and percussion, then go back and add riffs/catchy melodic elements where it makes sense.

All these tracks have 3 main components. A beginning, middle, and ending section.

Appetizer, main course, dessert.

Use the first 2 minutes to build things up, have a short break, begin middle section, break, ending section. At a macro level this is the gist of a track. Sure there are other more micro moments and little details, but it's better to nail the big picture before getting into the weeds.


Get the details on my course here - 20 videos over 4 sections, 5 hours of content, lots of cool bonuses.

NY Muscle production templates and samples

2 Templates in this package I've named "NY Muscle" which also includes a smattering of samples influenced by records I bought in New York City.

These are 2 chugging subterranean cuts ready to rumble a warehouse.

All that's required is Ableton Live 9.7.  These were made to be low on CPU and friendly on your bank account as no purchase of 3rd party plugins or VSTs are required.

Listen to the tracks and get more info here. 

playing fair

stop f*cking playing fair.

It will get you no where.

It will bring you debt and wasted months and years.

Go for it. Just do it. Get f*king fired up.

What does this mean?

Stop playing fair and following "the rules"

What does this have to do with production?

Everything.

Because rules are set up to fleece you of your resources (time and money)

Wanna produce? sign up for this "certificate" program that costs thousands.  Because certificates sound proper and official but in reality it's 2 cent paper.

Gimme a break.

Production is like skateboarding.  Skateboards don't cost that much.  But what the skater does with it is what makes all the difference.  You don't need a silly certificate to skateboard.

The costs of production are a lot lower these days in-terms of gear and software.

But there's an abundance of content (tutorials, blogs, samples)

So while costs to produce are lower, the overload factor is HIGHER.

If you play by the rules you "load up" on low cost and free content

Or maybe you shell out big bucks for instruction.

Playing by the rules is very taxing on resources (time/money)

If you wanna get fit and play by the rules you "load up" on low cost/free calories like carbs.

You also do easy low risk stuff like "jogging/walking" or shell out big bucks for fancy over priced personal training - where most trainer are better at sales than delivering good programs.

This shit doesn't work, it's a hamster wheel.

Barbell lifting compared to jogging takes the same amount of time, doesn't cost much more, but the risk factor is far greater than mindless treadmill walking.

The stress is greater, but where there is risk there's also reward.

Where there is stress, there's opportunity for growth.

The same applies to production.

A lot of people "think they are producing" but there's really just doing mindelss treadmill walking.

Learning tips and tricks here and there, but very little music finished.  Lots of generic, formulaic tactics.  Little to no emphasis on foundational strategy.

Fuck that.

The end user doesn't benefit from the "wanna-producer hamster wheel"

You know who benefits from this?

Tutorial makers who make money from YouTube ad revenue, who like having eyeballs on their sites so they get fancy gear they can be the first to review.

Makers of software who wanna sell you yet another plugin.

Instructors who just churn out tutorial videos who sell membership sites.

If you play by the rules, you end up being more of a docile consumer of content

and not a producer of music.

Ready to flick the finger to all this noise and walk away?

If so, good. 

Because I'm never one to just "follow the rules" I like to play the game to win.

This never helped me in school and on the job.

Cuz school teaches you to follow the rules and most jobs hire people who can follow rules.

But breaking away from the rules and challenging conventional wisdom never failed me with making music.  Same for fitness, which is why I made the analogy above.

If you've been a sucker playing by the rules, it's OK. I been there and done that too.

But if you're ready to move on and be a Rebel stay tuned.

Secrets of the Rebel Producer is coming soon.

"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist" Pablo Picasso.

 

Production Workflow – The extra bit of punch and polish

Techno Production - The Last Bit of Punch and Polish

In this video you'll see me dive in and put the last finishing touches on a track that's nearly done.  I've already played in the car and listened critically so when I go in I know exactly what I want to do.

Tape saturation to give the low end and drums more ooomph.  Reverb because the drums are quite dry and want them to sound cohesive.  Reverb is a good way to do that.  I also recap checking your mix in mono, my mix bus compressor settings which I use the Fatso by UAD for. 

Hope you learn something - the next step for this tune is to be sent to labels as a demo.  This is one track in 4 part EP.  

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Tech Production – Workflow, Arranging, Mixing, & Sneak Look/Listen at a Work in Progress

Here's a track that's 80% done. I quickly go over some minor mix tweaks I do on my groups so I can export out of Maschine and then give it the final treatment in Ableton Live. While I work in Maschine and you may not, the take away is committing your material to audio and then approaching the next stage of production. For me it's tweaking the arrangement, recording some new takes of the synth, adding swooshes and FX, and lastly I'll polish up the mix. The mix as it is is "good enough" to move along to these next parts of the process.  So when I start working on the arrangement, I know my mix is up to snuff so I no longer fiddle w/ EQ, compression and shit like that. Stay tuned for more videos as I complete this. If you want to go deeper into things with me check out my course.
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