For a long time I've been observing how all the people have very different tastes when it comes to creating music. Everyone seems to have that "special sound" in their minds which they try to achieve and choose synths & effects & working methods according to it. Because of this "special sound", they tend to like quite different synths that, for example, I do. I'd really like to know about people's tastes on synths/effects/hardware and why they suit their style of music and working methods so well...
Requirements. Needs. Goals. What is it that matters to you in music production? If I hear these things from many different people, I believe that I will learn lots of new things/ideas/"ways of thinking and working" about music production. So here's a short note list about things I'd like to know from you people:
- What kind of music do you make?
- What do you want from a synth? Features/sound quality/ease of use/what?
- What are your trusted plugins/software/hardware that you turn to all the time? Why? For what purpose? (do NOT list all your plugins. just mention the really close ones to your heart, you couldn't survive without)
- How do you work on your music? What are your most common working methods? How do you get started when creating a new song?
...and everything else that matters to you so your music sounds like it does today.
To get this thread started, I'll go first:
"What kind of music do you make?"
Even though my music is almost purely instrumental, I do almost all kinds of music you can do with synths. I've done classical music, industrial, pop, house, 70's disco etc... The list goes on and on. Right now I seem to have somekind of "dark sounding house type music" season going on. I believe this is because I wanted to go fully software and got rid of all my hardware synths, thus selling my trusted K2000, which I used regularly for orchestral compositions and sounds. So now I don't have any orchestral sounds in my repertoire
My music did have lot's of melodies but that has changed since my views have now switched from song structure & melodies to the sound itself... I still do some melodical stuff, but not very often. I will, again, once I get orchestral sounds from somewhere.
"What do you want from a synth? Features/sound quality/ease of use/what?"
I don't want features. I just want a very good sound with lot's of character to it. The more nyances the sound has, the better. Somehow the nyances of the sound get my creative juices flowing. They inspire my music making alot and most of the time dictate the direction the song is developing to...
I also want great variety of sounds from my synth arsenal, but I don't want complex synths (or lot's of synths), only very simple ones that do only what they're supposed to do and do it really well. I try to own as few synths as possible, but at the same time I try to cover as large soundscapes with them as possible. This way I can really learn the synths inside out and get the most out of them. Right now I'm lacking FM synthesis, but I think I'll cover that up with Sytrus in the future.
I almost never use preset sounds, so I create my sounds from scratch, except when it comes to orchestral sounds and acoustic drum kits, then I'll use presets
Because of this, the synths need to be quick and easy to use. When I have some specific sound in my head, I want to know which synth to use for it and get it done before my creative flow stops. Sometimes I have a very clear idea what kind of sound I want to create. If I'm not able to create it with the synths I own, I feel very frustrated.CPU cost is never an issue. I don't do freezing or bouncing, though. If some synth or effect eats up lots of CPU, I take it as an interesting restriction in music making. This forces me to be more creative because I can't have all the sounds and effects I would otherwise use for my tune.
I very rarely use any samples, except maybe some drum kits (but usually no drum loop samples).
"What are your trusted plugins/software/hardware that you turn to all the time? Why? For what purpose? (do NOT list all your plugins. just mention the really close ones to your heart, you wouldn't survive without)"
1) impOSCar. This has become my trusted workhorse in creating all kinds of sounds. As I mentioned earlier, I'm having kind of a dancefloor season in my music making and this synth seems to fit the bill very well. It's quick and easy to use and doesn't sound like some mathematical prototype of a subtractive synth (meaning it has lots of balls and character). I use it for the bass, leads and sometimes even for pads (I rarely use pads nowadays...). It doens't have oscillator sync though, so in those cases I must turn to either V-Station or Albino 2, depending on if I want more colder and crisp sound or a warmer sound. I haven't used much arpeggiators in my sounds, even though I love rythmic sound. But this might change in the future (at least I have plans to force myself to it).
Before I bought impOSCar, I used to use Logic Audio's ES M for the dancefloor bass sounds. It was very full sounding bass synth indeed, but now I don't use it anymore.
2) DR-008. Since I now do drum heavy tracks, I do need a capable drum machine. The funny thing is, I don't use nearly as much realtime synthesized drum sounds as I used to. DR-008 certainly is well equipped in the synthesis department, but I find myself using more and more sounds from Dance Megadrums 2 sample library these days and then running them through different busses and effecting them separately. Before I run them through any effects, I usually try to choose and tweak the sounds as close as possible to the final sound that I want. Usually this involves just amp envelope twiddling and some pitch adjustment. When there is absolutely nothing more I can do to improve the sound in the drum machine department, then it's time to run the sound through the effects. I always try to use as few effects as possible (this applies not just to drum sounds, but all the sounds in my music). This is because if I get the sound right in the beginning, it tends to sound more clear and defined and sits much better in the mix and doesn't eat up all the frequency space.
3) GCO-1. This is probably my most used sound processor. Even though I try to use compressors as rarely as possible, when I look at my mixes, there seems to be a GCO-1 on almost every other track. I use it mostly to compress the drum sounds. I use it for both gentle and heavy compression duties. Usually the individual drum sounds need only slight compression, because I try to tweak the envelopes right in the drum machine. I almost never compress the submix of the drums, though. This is because somehow I just don't like the sound of compressed drum submixes. Go figure...
I rarely compress any bass synth sounds, but when I do, it's usually a submix of two different synths playing the same midi data. By compressing the two bass sounds in a submix the sounds blend nicely together to form a new and more complex and "demanding" bass synth sound. I sometimes use the same technique to combine a bass with some higher sounding instrument, for example a rhodes like sound (for 70's disco funk). I haven't used this technique to combine two different pad sounds together, however. This is because (the rare times when I use them) I like my pads to have lots of dynamics and the whole idea of compression is to kill those dynamics. So compression on pad sounds doens't fit my music... Oh. And I occationally use this same technique with some other VST than compressor. For example a flanger or phaser blends two sounds together very nicely, creating one single, complex sound.
4) GEQ-7. I usually mix while creating the sounds for my music. This means that I use as little EQ as possible. Usually instead of using the EQ, I tweak the cutoff of the synth's filter, or maybe the resonance, or oscillator mixer, etc... But still there are lots of situations when I just have to grab the EQ and cut/boost some frequencies (I usually try to cut, since that way the mix sounds better). When this happens, I always trust the GEQ-7. When I compared it's sound to probably it's most serious competitor (which I won't name here), I found that GEQ-7's bass was a bit more punchier and defined, even though it used less decibels to achieve this sound. This made it more suitable for my use than the competitor's compressor (not to mention how much cheaper the GEQ-7 was!). The higher frequencies were also excellent sounding, making it very suitable for every job I could think of.
Most of the time I use this plugin to cut the lower end of the synth bass sounds (around 75-85 Hz to give the kick drum some room) and to boost the compressed kicks lower frequencies (usually around 100 Hz or so).
"How do you work on your music? What are your most common working methods? How do you get started when creating a new song?"
Before, when I did more of that melodical stuff, it was quite simple. I usually just got a melody in my head which I quickly wrote down in the sequencer. After that I did lots of sound tweaking and tried to figure out what kind of percussion parts the song needed.
Nowadays it's quite different. There are now two ways I approach a new piece of music:
1) I just start fiddling with synth or drum machine (software versions) and just see what happens when I draw notes in the piano roll. If I get a bassline/drumloop running which I really like.
2) I already have some nice bassline with/without drum part playing in my mind and I just try to realize it as closely as possible. The results aren't usually near the sound I had in my head, but usually I get something quite different with the same idea which still sounds nice. This approach works best when the piece of music is well on it's way in production. Then it's much easier to get the sound I want for the new synth parts.
When creating a tune, I try to imagine being someone else and hearing it for the first time. Then I try to imagine what "that person" would expect to be the next nice addition to that song. This way I try to think of the sounds and song structures for the songs I make.
When I'm creating new sounds for the song, I try to get the sound as close to the final sound as possible. Ofcourse eventually I have to make some changes to the sounds I first created, but most often they aren't any major changes. I try to preserve the sounds that are already in the song and design the new sounds to fit the mix as it is. As I've mentioned before, when it really comes time to mix the song, I do some more of that careful sound tweaking and try to avoid using any effects.
I like quite dry sounds so I only use effects if I have to, and usually they're just to make the sounds sit in the mix. I don't, for example, very often use reverb/delay as an effect. I only very slightly add them to blend the sound to the background.
On drum programming:
First I listen to the possibly up and running bassline and try to imagine what should be the general feel of the drums. What the bass and snare should be doing and is there some other important sound in the drum part that should definitely be added? When I hear the important parts in my mind, I quickly write them down in the piano roll. Usually at this point there isn't any drum synth on the track, so I don't hear anything while I'm writing those drum hits down. I find this easier, because now the unfinished drum track doesn't confuse me in any way. When the notes are written down, I load DR-008 and either start tweaking the synth sounds or select the first bass and snare sounds in my drum sample library and start going through all of them. Eventually I run into something I really like and then it's time to do some careful tweaking. Usually this sound selection takes quite a lot of time, but it's worth it in the end
I usually add hihat parts when I've first found some bass and snare sounds that sound even remotely the way I want them to.If the drums need compression, I first try to see if I can fix it with the drum synth's envelopes. If I can't, I'll turn to GCO-1. I always try to get the snares finished and polished before I work on the kick drum. This is because the kick can be more easily ignored in the mix, but snare usually demands more attention (at least in my music).
So to fix the snare drum, I usually dial the attack somewhere around 10-20 ms (using Classic envelope) and start lowering the threshold. Usually this is enough to fix the snare, but sometimes I want to change the snare's timber/character. I've found that a good way to do this is to slightly add some short reverb to the snare before the compressor. This makes the snare sound more like a *snap!* than *spaf!* Another nice addition before the compressor is distortion. This I also use to just slightly color the sound. Ofcourse it plays with the dynamics of the snare, but that's another story... When I try to fit the snare in the mix, I usually do it with short amount of reverb or delay. They're usually never noticable, but you would notice the lack of them.
Kick drums are a bit more simple. I dial something like 30-60 ms attack to the GCO-1 (with Classic or Opto envelope) and fiddle with the threshold. When I get the initial snap/crackle/pop I like, I then add some GEQ-7 and boost the frequencies around 100 Hz or so, to give the "oomph" back to the kick. I haven't experimented with layered kick drums yet, but I think it might give me a much more broader sound palette. If some nice person has experience and neat tricks & tips on kick drum layering, please enlighten me and the others in this thread
On synth programming:
Not really sure what else I could say here that I haven't mentioned already. If I can think of something, I'll mention it later.
On automation and knob twiddling:
I don't do knob twiddling to open and close the filters etc. in the song. I intend to, however, since the mailman brought my new Ableton Live 4 just few days ago. I bought it for this reason, since I found the demo to feel much like an instrument in itself. Another reason I'm quite excited about Live 4 is that I finally get to quickly experiment the song structures and such in the session view. This has always been the hardest area for me in the music making, because if I don't get some idea done quickly, I lose interest, energy and vision on it and start doing something else. This has lead me to have huge amount of unfinished songs and ideas without much of a structure...
Also with Live 4 I'm interested to try sample loop based music (I've never really tried it before).On other tools and such:
I don't have any sample editor software at the moment. I'd like to have Sound Forge or such, but they're just too expensive for what I need them to do. All I need the software to do is to cut/crop a 24bit sample. That's all! If it could do a volume fade in the beginning/end of the sample, that would be a bonus, not a requirement for me... Actually I don't even use much samples. The only ones I can really think of are the single drum hit samples I use in my drum synth, but that's usually it.
My Audio interface doesn't need to have several inputs. About four is enough and they're just in case I ever need to do some session recording with some of my friends. Lot's of outputs aren't required either. Only two to get the stereo sound out of my computer
The sound quality is essential, though, so good quality DA's are a must.So. That's it from my part. It was quite a long explanation and I don't expect anyone to write even half as much, but the more you can explain your stuff, the more I (and others) might learn from it. Please tell about your views on music production.
One of the most important things about the guitar (to me) is to play without massive amounts of distortion (me is many times guilty of this though 
) and to let the raw emotion of your blistered and ripped fingers come through. Mostly I love anything NEW 
