AW SH*T SON!, I had the whole god damn thread already written and the god damn motherf*cking browser crashed. Marvelous! I have to write it again, crap.. here we go. I warn you I may show my anger along the thread, so fasten your seat belts as you read along.

Oh, hey there audioz crew. How are you today?. I did a little research on the forums but I haven't found anything quite like the idea of this thread, so let's rock on. Alright, I thought it would be a good idea if we told each other those things you couldn't live without while making music and describing how you do it. I thought that sharing our tips would help some of the members that go here to look for answers. A reverb or an eq won't make music for you, but telling each other our tips would really help doing the job. Yeah, we won't talk about how to use a god damn reverb for christ's sake I was just throwing it all out, mmmkay.

How do you come up with music?

You heard me prick! So, how do you come up with music?. You know what... I'll tell you how I do it. Sometimes 'magically sounding' melodies come to my head at random times... (those random times use to be moments where I can't effing record that sh*t so I struggle not to forget the 'magically sounding' composition... Amen. Yeah, sometimes I also come up with ideas as most of us do while randomly jamming... however this is what works the least for me. I find I tend to need something to jam on... what I mean is, like imagine you have previously come up with a 2 bar melody... alright that would be enough for me to jam along but without it I'm kinda lost even though I use whatever scale you want.. it's just about inspiration. I try not to force it, exactly the over way around, I let things come... we are not professional musicians that need a record done by next month, I can spend a whole month composing a song. As chris cornell said, the initial inspiration is always the most honest. So I stick to that, yeah... I know, sounds crazy.
Another way I come up with music is by writing a lyric and adding melody to it by singing in falsetto. Yeah dude, if you know a thing or two about singing, you know that falsetto is the most effortless thing on earth (well, I kinda exaggerated but yeah, you got the idea). If I were singing it in full voice I would worry too much about the sound of my voice and the tune, while in falsetto it is the least of things you worry about. You know you can actually come up with good sh*t with this right?. Yeah, try it sometime. I even like to just jam with my voice and then I get those notes to an actual music sheet and begin from there. Yeah, sorry but you got to know a thing or two about scales. Without them, holy crap, I do believe 'awesome musically sounding mistakes' exist, but meh, music theory helps A LOT. For example I might just transcribe the notes I sing to a music sheet and then look for the right scale and just do the rest of the composing knowing what notes to play and what notes not to play. So yeah, last but not least is direct inspiration. Holy crap, yeah! direct inspiration. Yeah you are right, I just came up with the name for this sh*t. It's just... you base your whole composition on something like a song from other artist or a moment you are going through in your life (like this particular time where the browser crashed with 200000 characters already written... I feel like writing something like Seek and Destroy... you know what I mean?.
Oh one thing I forgot folks, if you are in a bad day when actually nothing but crap comes up. That's it bud, call it a day and spend the rest of your day doing other s*it. I guarantee you the next day you won't be composing the 5th symphony but man, you will be able to get at least a three bard riff. So yeah, I tend to keep things as simple as possible during this early stage so I can focus more on composing than on anything else.

THE FIRST SKETCH / PRIMARY ARRANGEMENT !

Alright my fellow composers, you got your god damn song on the tip of your tongue or on a piece of HYGIENIC PAPER you stole from the bathroom (remember to buy one next time you go by a supermarket otherwise don't think of composing the 5th symphony anymore). I tell you what I do to have that first sketch of the song down to earth. I use a little program called Guitar Pro (yeah, it sounds like sh*t, actually the old busted granny piano library sounds better than the piano on GP but whatever). I find GP to be a nice maximizing tool for your creativity. Most daw's arrangement views scare the sh*t out of me while I am in the very early stages of a song, they just are suitable for later stages. Believe me on this one, if you manage to get your song having a 'decent' sound on GP, I guarantee you.. again it will not be the 5th symphony maybe, but man, you have a good starting point. Here goes a TIP: Yeah, RED ALERT! Listen to me son, this is something that happens to all of us: it's called 'that incredibly sounding melody that never stops sounding good'. HOLY CRAP, HOLD ON THERE MATE, WHAT THE...? Yeah, haven't you ever come across while jamming a melody that 'never stops sounding good' so you just jam along but when you want to repeat what you have just played you don't even remember the first notes. That particular thing makes me quite like a spartan from 300 movie, angry... yeah, very angry. I may not roar like Leonidas but man, it sucks. GP has a recording functions but it sucks a lot, I use my DAW to record what I jam. GP is great for this early stage because I can focus just on writing music not adjusting VSTi and stuff. Also GP is great for sending your band mates what you have just written so they can jam along, yeah, if you can get them to a rehearsal it's better but when you got bandmates with lazy ass*s you may want to use GP or something similar.

So basically when I have an initial sketch of the whole song, I just export MIDI files to my DAW... I could also record some instruments, but since I tend to adjust songs for quite a long time I prefer to work with MIDI until I got a nice 'MIDI DEMO' of the song. Yeah, it makes your life a whole lot easier. There are parts where you just use softer notes, where you change endings, switch orders, add new parts, delete solos and compose new ones. I think I would go crazy and bomb my neighbors without MIDI.

What I couldn't live without

Alright, you are now standing in front of the finished demo of your brand new song. You have probably listened to it a hundred times or more, and you may go like 'this sh*t won't make it out of the hard drive'. Alright, let me tell you something, there are a great great great, I MEAN GREAT amount of songs that eventually turned out to be HITS. And guess what, their composers or the band where like 'I don't want that sh*t in the record MIKE!, I worked my as* for three months just to fill the sh*t with that piece of crap'. Yeah, the song turned out to be the main source of income for the band, so don't count anything out. Alright, I think I digress.... yeah, I found out a little too late.

This section is for listing things that are critical for writing/editing music.

1- Guitar Pro: As I said before, it sounds worse than a 8 bit sample library but if you get it to do its job with your song, get your bandmates and start rehearsing. TIP: You can export WAV files of each individual music sheet. So for example, if you wrote a solo for an electric guitar. You can export it as WAV and load it on your DAW and use Amplitube to find the right sound for it. Guitar Pro is great for emulating real playing guitars in case you have not got an interface to actually record a guitar. Yeah, I know most of us do but it is a nice tip to bear in mind. Sometimes it is not about not having the interface, you may be not an expert guitarist but you managed to find that 'epic sounding solo' and it is too hard for you too play but you want GP to play it for you, yeah, you may lose that Human thing, but it is a good starting point.
2- AP Tuner: Yeah, you may go like. WHAT THE F*CK DUDE. THIS GUY HAILS A GUITAR TUNER, CHECK THIS CLOWN OUT. Alright, hold on, I don't use it as a tuner. Yeah, AP Tuner has a feature that shows you the exact note you are playing/singing (as it is expected from a tuner) plus the octave of the note. So you think, what's new in all this?. Nothing really, I use it when I jam with my falsetto to get the notes I sing and then write them down. I could use my keyboards of course, but this way is faster and I can focus actually more on singing and jamming than on anything else.
3- Addictive Drums/Session Drummer/Toontrack/Drum Samples: If your drummer is gone or has been kidnapped by his girlfriend, you won't make it without one of these. They are glorious.
4- True Pianos/Synthology Yamaha C7: I have a 88 key digital piano that's not really expensive and doesn't sound good, so since I don't have a large budget. These two are great for me, I just plug in the MIDI cable and start playing.
5- Roland/Yamaha 80's keyboard samples: I used quite a lot of these sounds for background and for some ballads. Not great quality but useful, you can even try to emulate them using other synths.
6- Plug-in guru sh*t: Yeah, john 'skippy' is the man dude. He managed to get great sounding patches, I use to tweak them a lot to fit my music style but they are great.
7- Bass player: Yeah, it happens to me that my bass player is a friend that has taught me a lot about music and we got to the point where he would jam something and then send to me and viceversa. The results are quite a nice information flow and compositions. What I mean is, it is good to have someone to give you a hand on composing and exploring different perspectives. If I was to compose all by myself I would bomb my neighbors again, I mean... I may come up with good songs but two minds are better than one. It is not that you need a bass player, just that person that gives you another perspective on writing and composing.
8- VST Plugins: Yeah I finally got to this damn point, alright.. I'll get it straight. I am not master of this s*it. I am just a songwriter/singer that likes to create and record demos at his home studio. You read well, D E M O, yeah demos. So they don't need to be perfect. Alright, EQ's: Sonnox EQ, Equality, SSL Duende EQ, Waves SSL, that softube emulation of pultech I can't recall the name now, err and the EQ from Sonar X1 pro channel for HP and LP filters. Compressors: Oxford Dynamics, FET compressor, Massey, sonar x1 pro channel compresor the 76 actually, compassion from DMG, SSL stuff both form duende and waves, I may be forgetting some but well I wrote the whole thing twice so it is actually a miracle that I've got this far again.
Reverbs: redline, ir2, ofxord, waves impulse response, waves signature for each instrument, those are my main.. Delay: I'll be honest with you, I try out most delays I've got and find the one that suits best the track, I don't really have a fav. Limiter: oxford limiter is the man, i wouldn't change it. Other stuff: amplitube, studio devil stuff, oxford transmod for creating room mics, err.. well, I use a lot of other stuff but I wouldn't count them as things I couldn't live without. I will also add my DAW here, which is Sonar.
9- Keyboard/Guitar/Voice: Without an instrument I wouldn't be able to compose anything so yeah, I gotta take this sh*t into account.
10- Creativity: Without this sh*t I would play covers my whole life so gotta list this one.



Alright people, this took quite a long time. I enjoyed sharing this with you, I hope you have some good sh*t to share too!. I am by no means a pro or anything like that, just a normal guy that enjoys making rock music. So yeah, POST YOUR REPLY SON!

 

I'm always learning new ways to make things. I currently have no set method for banging things out, but I usually start with a simple idea I have, which could be anything from "make a really good breakbeat" to "make a nice sounding bass" to "find just the right vocal sample". Then I kind of just experiment with things. I find that I'll actually make a few "sets" in ableton filled with miscellaneous instruments I've tried to program/tweak, beats I've made, etc. This process is all about sound design, because I find that I'll eventually create a new set one day, take things from previous sets I like, and end up with a set of instruments and samples that all sound well together and add to the goal I have in mind. So I guess its important for me not to stick to any kind of midi arrangement at first, just a few quick ideas here and there, banging them out in session view. Once I bring all those elements together in one project I'll usually have to lay down a melody first. It usually determines the tone of the song. Then its right onto drum programming. Then who knows what happens after that, its all kind of chaotic.

 

Paper and pen. I can't live without paper & pen.

You like singing, well I like to compose in my head and scribble that down on paper, because in my head I can only hear max 3 lines at a time (it gets vague around there, and really, it's actually ONE line at a time, just if you switch your focus the other line gets blurred), and right now only a few phrases at a time. Normally I'd write the shit down after 2 phrases before I forget, because if I move on I WILL have a hard time going back to those previous phrases.

Writing in your head is really fast, however due to a limited memory and track count and phrase constraints, the addition of pencil/paper into really makes for the most efficient composing. Some people like to play at their piano/instrument and then write that shit down, or jam recording into daw. Both are much slower, I can 'hear' the music inside my head at a much faster speed and I will get my shit down before that keyboardist even finishes playing a phrase of the lead. Jam recording into daw only allows for one line at a time, and jamming longer vs deliberate composition. However I will say that I also cannot live without jamming, because I am not a genius, I still need to 'search' for my lines a few times before hitting the one I want. However consider what 'jamming' is AFTER you've done these vague sketches out on paper - it becomes specific, you're looking for a piece to fill the puzzle, you have purpose while 'jamming', it gets done FAST, rather than fucking around on a keyboard following vague ideas all day only to realize in frustration you completely changed the original idea.

Some people like to start off with things they can compose deliberately so as to have a base that won't deviate much once they start jamming the other lines in. In this case they would start off creating the drums/percussion/bassline. That works too, in fact many methods work and are efficient However, I like to build my track, not after the drums are created, because the drums should never be the focus EVER (no one besides us fellas listen to the drums, when you listen to music you don't even notice the drums, before you got into music you didn't even know what was what but it sounded good etc...). If I use pencil/paper I can envision many different productions, of different combinations of instruments, for the same song. I think about things like what I want to be most prominent in the track (besides the singer), what it'll be playing, etc. All this very quickly in the head => paper to support the brain in thinking => midi jam&record into daw instrument.

That brings me to my next point, PERSPECTIVE. I can't live without perspective to put me into place. As a songwriter/producer I gotta remember all the time that people only listen to the voice...no seriously they only ever notice the voice+the next most prominent sound (mostly whatever has the instrumental hook, in a hit song..eg. bassline in Just Dance, funk guitar/whistling when it comes up in Moves Like Jagger). No one hears what the drums are doing, the fx, the little fills you put in ... you get the point. However they WILL notice if something is 'not quite right', but they will NEVER notice when you've got everything right. You don't need perfection or many tracks (unless you want a lot of different sounds to make up the 'sound' of the record, I'm not talking about how it is mixed to create a 'sound', I'm talking about something far less subtle, and that is the combination of all the individual timbres to create the song's unique 'sound').
Also, if your song is great (or even better, a hit), whatever production is behind it will be loved by the public as long as it is halfway adequate. What am I saying? Your perspective should lead you to place the most importance on the song first, then the singer's voice. I just don't want anyone spending 30 mins creating a drum track, because those drums are not gonna get you anywhere (unless you're a metal/garage/dubstep/those kinds of producer).

This took a while too, but it was worth it as I just finished my high school exams!!! And now I am free to write music :dancing: :dancing: .

 

I couldn't live without.... Sex and good weed

 

thanks for the read/tips touma glad you took the time to re-type it

oh and i cant live with out inspiration (as far as composing goes)

 

+1 From me too :D

 

Ok I list up things, I couldn't live without (musically):

1. Cuabse !!! I tried so many DAW's but Cubase is the only DAW I'm comfortable with. I just love it's mass of features, it's mixer and you really appreciate how Cubase's GUI is built, as soon as your project gets bigger.
2. My Sennheiser HD-25.. Since I'm working a lot on my laptop, I couldn't live without them. Actually I use them very often, even on my PC. They just sound great.
3. MY Kickdrums..
4. VST-Instruments: Sylenth1 and Nexus. Sylenth1 is so powerful but at the same time so simple, I think everyone love this synth. And Nexus has such a great library of sounds, it has everything for every situation. And it's a great tool to look out for some inspiration, especially the Bass presets.
4. VST-Plugins: PAZ Analyzer, Waves Q8, iZotope Ozone, SSL Bus Compressor, Waves C1 and the Sonnox Limiter.
5. MIDI Keyboard

Well, I don't need so much stuff like producers of other genres do since I'm producing Electronic Music which doesn't require recording

 

I like your description of the process. Yeah, it's chaotic. You can tweak the song in eight thousand different ways. Actually, I just happen to tweak it quite a lot so yeah, if I listened the first sketch and then a quite advanced demo of the song... holy crap. was it the same song? So yeah, holy crap.
Thanks for sharing your insights, although it is quite different from what I do because of the different styles, it's good to share tips that are useful for us all.

I'll keep it short. HOLY CRAP DUDE. I really enjoyed reading your reply, it was great. Somehow it reminded me of an old quote from Lennon it goes like 'Technically I'm not good, but melodies flow inside my head'. I think it was like that. Yeah, good sh*t son. That's a great technique if you know how to use, but you've always got the danger of 'that magically sounding melody that never stops sounding good'. Yeah, that turns me into a spartan. But, I really appreciate all the time you took to write your insights on the subject.
Another thing I want to point out is that singer/drum thing. YOU ARE GOD DAMN RIGHT, You can work your ass off shooting and recording an incredible drum track, you later spend three hours adding samples to reinforce parts... and guess what?... they don't even give a shit for the drums except for those acquainted with music. It is like what you said, the average person just listens that everything sounds good but they may not look beyond the singers voice or the epic piano/guitar below the voice. Yeah, but there are those that take those in mind and it is important that they do. Even though most people don't take it so seriously and appreciate the job behind those, I bet my house (yeah twice) that they help a great deal in the final result of the song... yeah, they play a massive role along with the vocal but just to an unconscious level
Alright epic sh*t man what you posted, I hope to read some insights like that! and Keep Rocking!
PD What music style do you compose/produce?.

Come on people! I appreciate your time for checking out the thread, but we are talking about making music. I know you weed and sex can be useful, but I bet my house there are other stuff that you can't live without while making music!.

Hey bud, there's nothing to thank for. We are all here to learn, we never stop learning in fact... so I appreciate your time for posting. What kind of music do you compose/make?. How do you come up with your compositions?.
Cheers friends, and rock on!

Hey there bud, thanks for replying to the thread. It's great to take a look to those important things that matter a lot to you. You know what I forgot about the PAZ Analizer, yeah, it's great... I tend to use Equality analiser too along with the melda analiser included in autoeq or something like that. Yeah, I use those three analizers because I found that they don't measure though. I agree mostly with all the stuff you listed. Although we produce different genres, good sh*t man. Thanks and rock on!

 

Voxengo Transgainer (VST). Undoes the horrible dynamics compression that people put on so much these days.

 

I couldn't live without...nature, consciousness, love, hope, & ethnic SOUNDS!!!

 

Wow The typical live band and most recorded music instrumentation is Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keyboard and Vocal. This is the core of most music, The rhythm section with a vocal.

How could any of the core elements be "not important". There is an old saying "good drummer, good band - bad drummer, bad band".

It floors me when you say most people only listen to the vocal. Different people listen from different perspectives. The Magic of music is that you can listen to the same song and interpret it in many ways. example: when you are dancing you are feeling the beat, when you are just sitting around listening to the same song you might feel the meaning and lyrical content more.

I create 3 or 4 sections that compliment each other. Then I do the song structure. I put those parts together sometimes adding riffs and stops.

I almost always pin down the drums and bass first, then build on that. When the song is almost done I will go back and touch up the drums, sometimes redoing them with a part that is more cohesive with the full instrumentation and dynamics.

I choose to let my music inspire the vocals. Vocals and melodies are one of the last things that I create and track.

Just to be safe I assume everyone listens to everything in a song at some point in time.

Have you seen the commercial of the family driving in the car singing Crazy Train? It is like that. Everyone knows every instruments part in the intro of that song, exactly when they come in and exactly what they should sound like. Even you and me. We laugh because we all know those parts.

I think most people know most of the musical parts to famous songs we hear all the time. I think listening to music is multidimensional, and people will change their focus based upon what they doing or feeling or where they are at.

P.S. Please don't call me Son. I'm probably old enough to be your Dad.

 

I think you did not get the point of what we wanted to say. We were talking about the average listener that is not acquainted with music and we did not say that the backing instruments were not important. Those words are yours. Now, what we said was that an average person listening to the whole lot of instruments may put more focus on the vocals rather on the rest of the instruments. When there are stops in the vocal track, then the instruments take the center of the stage and are noticeable. That is, intros, solos, drum fills, etc.
For example: Stairway to Heaven... it was a famous.. almost notorious thing that everybody went to try out guitars to music stores and played the stairway to heaven intro, but very few actually went to play the chorus where there is a main vocal taking place. So, what I mean is, to those who are musically acquainted they do pay attention to mostly the whole lot of instruments, but those that are not just focus on the main instrument playing at a particular moment.
If you are that old to be my dad, then don't mislead my words I never said the rest of the instruments were not important. I spend a lot of time working on the whole lot of instruments and I know that very well.

P.S: The son thing was a joke, and everyone got it like that. Calm down.

 

I am not mad at all and I appreciate the thread. I do get the Son thing. My last comment was meant to be funny as well. Maybe it did not come off that way, Sorry if you took it wrong, Dad. LOL

Here are some excerpts from this thread NOT MY WORDS:

no one besides us fellas listen to the drums, when you listen to music you don't even notice the drums - No one hears what the drums are doing, the fx, the little fills you put in ... you get the point - because the drums should never be the focus EVER

more of OBSCURE's words: Also, if your song is great (or even better, a hit), whatever production is behind it will be loved by the public as long as it is halfway adequate. What am I saying? Your perspective should lead you to place the most importance on the song first, then the singer's voice. I just don't want anyone spending 30 mins creating a drum track, because those drums are not gonna get you anywhere (unless you're a metal/garage/dubstep/those kinds of producer).


I thought the point Obscure was trying to make is that Drum parts are not important, am I wrong? Prime Example: Santana, Soul Sacrifice, Woodstock The Drum solo enthralled thousands live, Helped launch Santana's career, and is still requested in DJ shows 42 years later. You know of course music started with drums and voice Listen to any Tribal chant Hundreds of years old or go to a Indian pow wow.

How many "halfway adequate" hits songs have you heard? How many Bad sounding songs do you hear on the radio? Do you think the pro's work this way, less than 30 mins on drums! Really?

Touma words: Another thing I want to point out is that singer/drum thing. YOU ARE GOD DAMN RIGHT

Don't hate the drums, and don't half-ass your music, be proud of your creation and do your best, even if you have to spend more than 30 min on drums.

Don't hate the drums, that is a joke, LOL

 

I am glad we now understand each other. What I meant to say was that it was true what he pointed out about the average music listener that is not acquainted with music. They listen to the whole thing and may not matter how much work you put creating it all, they may just focus on the vocal or the main instrument in the first dimension rather than on those on the back. I do not hate drums, actually I think you got to spend a considerable amount of time for creating good sounding drums, but those aren't something the average listener will bear in mind too much. It may depend on the music genre you make though. However, in my case, I compose 80's rock... I tend to look for vintage sounding drums that fit my song and spend quite a lot of time tweaking an re-recording parts. The same I do with the whole lot of instruments. But it is true that the average listener just focuses on the instrument that sounds on top of the song. That's what I meant with 'you are god damn right'. Because I've actually spent a week tweaking a piano I composed and they just complimented the vocals but did not pay attention to the piano that served as background. If I had the turned the vocal off and made the piano take the center of the stage I may have got different feedbacks... even though I admit that before I knew a thing or two about music I just paid the most of my attention to the instrument I had on top them all. So yeah, if you spend just 30 mins creating a drum track that will mostly sound like shit or be just a very basic thing. Anyways, I'm glad that we got it straight I thought you had taken it very seriously and I was wrong about that so, thank you for replying to the thread mate. I got one question for you, what kind of music do you compose and what instruments do you play?.

Thanks again bud!

 

I think in many ways you are right about the vocals. The lead singers voice defines a musical group more than anything else. Moat people do listen to the vocal mainly, how can you miss it.

However, In this day and age people are use to hearing pristine, highly polished ultra high quality productions as the norm. Almost every new song has rock solid tempo, even all analogue live bands use click tracks.

Because of this I believe the public listeners are spoiled. I think they analyze the production value very early in the song and if something is wrong or it sounds bad they are quick to classify it as garbage or inferior. usually before they even hear the vocals.

I have worked as a recording engineer and have had the challenge of making bad sounding drums sound amazing. I presented a drum tuning and production lecture at a recording school for several years. At the start of the lecture I always emphasize that the sound of the drums are very important to the overall production value of your work. They will define your production value more than any other instrument.

Cheezy sounding drums can not be counteracted with other high quality instrument sounds and forever your project will have a low production value. And vice versa. Great sounding drums increase the production value and even with a lot of poor sounding instruments it remains high.

I am making a lot of different styles of music as an experiment. I am trying to make in the box projects sound like real recorded players. I've composed a rock song based on electric guitar grooves, and an acoustic shuffle style, And now i'm working on R&B Soul number, a reggae song, & a power ballad. My goal is to be able to recreate almost any style of music in the box, and have it sound like a real band. If it is good enough I would like to release them.

I put together this for someone else who wondered about my background:
I Learned to play drums when I was a teen, I've played in everything from Rock bands to a 20 piece jazz orchestra, even a reggae band for a couple of years. Out of high school I started running sound out on the road full time. That led to learning at a recording school that I ended up teaching, engineering, and producing at. I worked there for 14 years. I was there when digital recording came along, and MIDI sequencing started. We had all the newest gear and had to stay current. During this time I also worked at about a dozen commercial studios doing Independent band projects, Radio commercials, and sound for video. I also worked for a small video studio for a couple of years doing everything from camera operation and 3D animation to producing and editing complete programs. I have also had a big hand in building and installing professional audio and video studios. I have done probably a thousand or more recording sessions ether as an engineer, producer or artist, I released my own album in 1985. Now, I record at home and run a successful entertainment business for the last 11 years, I have 4 people working for me doing DJ, Karaoke, live sound and video shows, We do an approximation of 15-20 shows a week. Why Karaoke and DJ shows? Because I make a better income with them than any of my other occupations.

Thanks for asking,

 

Well, I am honored that you, actually having such background, took the time to sit and discuss this with someone that has not nearly a quarter of your experience and mainly does this during free time. Thank you, and I mean it.

I agree with you on that. I might take one bad sounding instrument to sub rate a whole production, especially in drums case. If you have actually seen this along your years of experience I think you are very much sure of your words, you've been there you've done that. I'll take that advise in mind, because it is always good to learn from experienced people out there, so thanks for that one.

In all honesty I would love to listen to one of your tracks. If you have got any track uploaded on soundcloud or something similar, I'd be more than graceful to give a listen. I am currently working on a power ballad too, so after I'm done with it I'll post it so everyone can give a it a listen. I would also like your feedback if you feel like.

What kind of music do you play at shows, your own songs and covers?.

 

Because of the nature of my business, I am now doing mostly Karaoke and DJ shows, not much playing instruments, but I sing 6 nights a week. during the last 11 years I've helped a lot of singers become better and I have become quite a vocalist myself, when in full voice I have a 5 octave range and can sing about 250 cover tunes. The way things are going around here, there is not a lot of work for local bands, the club owners are afraid to take chances on live bands, they can't afford to loose any money. I miss playing, but when I can bring down the house singing an awesome song just right and the crowd response is there, It feels amazing!

What do you think is the best way to post songs? I can't post straight to the forum because the file size is to large. Is soundcloud the way to go? Several forum users want to here my work, I need to get a move on.

I have 1 song almost done, I am almost done mastering it. I have most of my songs in progress. I work on them when I find the time. It seems the older I become the less time I have to do what I really enjoy doing, making music.

Feel free to ask my advice, I have a shit load of old school experience. I miss teaching audio recording and will never steer you wrong or leave you misinformed.

It's nice to have a new friend on the forum. Thanks for your input, Pops! LOL

 

Right, hi guys

What I am trying to get at is that for top40 productions (TYPICALLY, MOST SITUATIONS) this is what the focus is on, and top40 is what the most people listen to (obviously). The reason I mentioned 'unless you do garage/dubstep/etc.' is because I want you to know that I KNOW not all music is like this - many genres have a massive focus on drums, etc. Of course you should follow the context of your music, but GENERALLY speaking, for MOST music, and for music that SELLS THE MOST, or makes up our culture, and therefore the music that matter most, the drums don't matter. Even musicians don't follow the drum beat of a pop song they're hearing on the radio, they just shake their body to the beat 4x.

And for the majority of the public who aren't musicians...they don't even listen to most of the lyrics ! Ask any of your friends what that dude on the radio is saying "oh iono man...love"

I hope you understand my point, even if I have a hard time getting it out

P.s - I like the genre 'top40', even if I only ever like a few from the top10, but that's what it's called. I also like everything else besides black metal, ambient, hard rock (sorry I never grew up with those famous rock bands).

 

Hi I am getting home from doing a 5 hour DJ gig and tonight I thought about what your point was about drums and music. I listened to all the songs a most of which were DJ requests from other people with what you said in mind. This was a peoples choice type of selection, all popular songs, nothing obscure. Most were Top 40, Dance, Country, Classic Rock, ect...

I came to this conclusion, These songs would not have their popularity if you would replace the drums with 8 bar basic beats. There was a lot of interaction between the drums and other instruments.

The drum part especially the fills, cue the other instruments and the unaware listeners that a change in the music is about to happen. If these cues are not there, or you use a fill that does not feel right, It becomes obvious there is no real drummer steering the band. It also shows that the production does not even warrant making the drums interact with the other instruments.

Another conclusion: The overall sound of the drums plays a huge part in the sound and feel of the song. Yes it is true, believe it or not. I listened to about 60 or so songs tonight and maybe 10 would still be popular with a different drum sound and texture.

When composing maybe you only need a time keeping drum part, that's cool. But if you want to enhance your project when all the tracks are laid, rework the drums.
Add dynamics, or have them follow a guitar riff, make sure the fills are appropriate and in the right spots, add more complexity as the song progresses, break it down or syncopate parts with the Bass, These are all things you can do to enhance the drums and your productions. Why settle for less?

Perhaps being a composer you dismiss the drums because they don't play tonal notes, can't change chords, or take a lead break. I don't know, but Drums do matter in almost all music, except Bluegrass, Scottish Bagpipe groups, Gregorian Chants, and a few others. LOL