What's your workflow?

[Thoth93]

Hi there. Your new-old Pal Thoth93 (aka Brian) with yet another annoying question!

When you sit down to write music, what do you generally do first? Do you play with a step sequencer? Do you sit down and strum or play a few chords? Work on a melody line?

For myself, I find that I can't just sit down and come up with some kind of tune. For it to be something I really like, have to actually sit down and play a while at my keyboard to get an idea of where I want to go.

I'm a middling piano player, and that's only when I'm very on. Totally self-taught, and I've been told by more than one "real" piano player that I taught myself wrong. But it works and sounds decent, so I am what I am.

I used to do some step sequencing with old-school trackers back in the day -- a little bit of ScreamTracker on my friend's Amiga back in high school, some FastTracker2 stuff on an ancient PC, so I know I can do this kind of stuff if I have to. But it was a long, long, long process, and I always thought it would be so much better if I could just play my musical thoughts.

That said, I did come up with some interesting stuff by accident. I'd input a "wrong" note or rhythm that was actually better than what I planned, for example.

So for me, it's usually a combination of a neat initial sound and a surprising little riff on the keyboard that gives me the first great musical idea that later becomes a song. In short, I tend to start with the melody line first.

I know other people start with backbeats or a bass line or a chord structure. Sometimes I'll come up with a chord progression, but that's somewhat rare.

I'd be curious to know how other people tend to build their music.

I find myself stymied some lately by just deciding what tool to use next.

I started this journey about 70+ posts ago asking for advice on which host to purchase. I settled on EnergyXT, but I do have a copy of Tracktion 2 coming via UPS today as well.

All that and quite a few VSTis, some commercial, some not, later, I find myself with almost an embarrassment of riches compared to the simple (very simple) MIDI software I used to play with when I was younger. Heck, I don't know how I'm ever going to go through all the patches (original and purchased) I have just for WusikStation, not to mention all the other synths and such I have access to.

I may have in some ways actually been counter-productive, because I have all this stuff now ... and it scares the hell out of me, even though I know it can help me finally realize some of my musical dreams.

Anyway, how do you do your work? Thanks in advance for any replies.

[tetraplan]

I experiment a lot. This can be because I'm looking into a certain technique, or I'm making somekind of "proof of concept". Most of these experiments are one-offs, sometimes they lead to a complete track.
I find that the more convoluted a track becomes, the worse it sucks, so the tracks i actually finish are usually rather simple setups, and the writing/constructing is just a matter of a few hours. Tweaking takes a bit more, up to a couple of days.

Groet, Erik

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I typically have a general concept/feel when I sit down.. am I writing "fast" or "slow", "dark" or "light", "genre" or "experimental". I then throw together a nice scratch drum track from loops that matches the initial concept (which sometimes changes the concept lol).

Once that's done, find a synth and/or patch that provides the "bed" - typically a pad - or maybe a bass. Track something in that matches the mood and the drums..

..layer on top of that. Usually after about 4-5 instruments, I've got something worth working with and off I go into editing, mixing, and finalization.

Repeat as necessary.

Sometimes I'll be dinking with a synth, come up with a mood, and then put drums underneath and work from there. This is a bit more rare than starting from something I hear in my head, but it happens!

Don't know if that's how anyone else works, but that's how it works for me!

[korgsp200]

Closed

[stanlea]

I sleep, I drink coffee, I drive my car and something is happening in my head : it may be a rhythm, a melody, words. I note it with my Olympus mini recorder and I forget it. One month later, I hear all the stuff and I begin to work.

[Hink]

what's my workflow? All i know is once the notes start flowing there is only play, play, play.

Seriously I have no fixed way of coming up with inspirations....sometimes they come from playing guitar or keyboards, sometimes it's a new vst, sometimes I write with the bass and I even have written songs with drums.

My work flow is usually between FL and AA...but which it starts with depends on how I came up with it. If I come up with a cool riff on my guitar I'll record it in AA, trim it up and import it into FL and then write drums, samples and synths for it...then back to AA...this is repeated often FL>AA AA>FL. However the one constant is I always save my final lead guitar track (I work with a rough draft) for last when all the elements of the song are there except for my lead track...the part I would play live...I find I can feed nicely off of the energy created in the song with all the parts there..

[adydub]

I've found that I simply get a lot more stuff done using Ableton Live than I ever have before! The workflow of using the 'session' view for getting grooves going quickly, then the linear arrange view for, well, arranging, works very well indeed for me.

The whole workflow of Live just seems so natural and easy compared to Cubase/Logic etc.

I find a tune can start from anything, and the way Live works means I can develop it quickly and powerfully, and this means I get lots more done!

I used to end up putting track stems into SX for 'final tarting up', but I haven't yet with Live5.

[robenestobenz]

Generally, I'll hear something in my head when I'm walking around outside (or very often, bizarrely, washing up) and then layer it a bit before mouthing a horrendously rough version into my phone.

Also sometimes I just play around on keyboard and guitar until I chance upon something. With drums, because I find them hard to play on keyboard, it's generally a vague idea combined with trial and error and a piano roll.

Interestingly, it's often mistakes which make for the best parts IMO. Probably because being accidents, they aren't as predictable as what you would otherwise put in.

[bluedad]

Lately it's been fire up Live 5 and load Reaktor. From there I choose among various instruments and experiment recording the output to audio. In no time at all, I've got quite a series of loops done and these are the basis for me to develope a track with.

[deleted]

DELETED

[Ildon]

I'm extremely goal oriented with my music. I first choose a concept (could be anything) and then decide what feelings are associated with that concept. Then I choose a tempo, scale and a chord or two to start with. From here, I almost always create a rhythm or harmony of some sort to work with and build the music around that, usually layering a melody over it and then adding onto it all as I go along. If I'm being paid for the work, I need to charge by the minute, so I also decide how many measures the song needs to be. When all is said and done, it usually takes me a few hours to come up with a 2 to 4 minute track that relies very heavily on arpeggiations and melodies.

[omicrom]

Sometimes I will have a complete song written down (lyrics) and work the tune from there. There are also times that I will randomly thumb thru my rhyming dictionary for song inspiration. Does'nt always work but it can lead to some laughs. Most of the time I start with Tracktion 2.0 and my guitar with the lyrics and go from there. I will then go to Reason to do the background stuff and rewire
into Tracktion.

[CypherOne]

open beer.
open sequencer.
noodle about for a bit.
go outside for a spliff, have an idea.
race back indoors, forget idea.
arse around some more with some drums or something.
give up and have some dinner instead.

[OzoneJunkie]

I dream music. (No lie - this is completely honest and possably a sign of some sort of mental illness?

Same here. Mental illness? heh, nah. btw, lucid dreaming is very cool for dreaming music - basically lets you have those music dreams more frequently...

[advaya]

open beer.
open sequencer.
noodle about for a bit.
go outside for a spliff, have an idea.
race back indoors, forget idea.
arse around some more with some drums or something.
give up and have some dinner instead.

You've just summarized my workflow to the letter! Though I usually repeat steps 1-6 a few times before the dinner part!