Ok so I'll try to keep this short

All the tracks I've made, I always arranged them while applying FX and mixing them a little bit (leaving fine tuning of levels and reverbs for later, when track's finished). Because I always had a general idea of what I wanted.

Now I'm having a bit of a problem, I'm making some dance, hands up track: lot's of chops and samples everywhere. An insane amount of mixer tracks and channels, and I'm not even half way the songs: I'm like at 2 minutes for the arrangement.

I'm feeling like doing this takes way too much time, but I have a problem with the other method. If I don't care about the mixing or the rev/delays while I'm putting down stuff and chords, I fear one of the sounds or the samples is not gonna fit in the mix, and that would mean going back and do it all over again. That's why I usually make sure everything *CAN* fit first. When I make stuff, I always wanna hear how it sound with all fx applied. And I also try to keep an eye on levels in general, because this track is supposed to be I0ud (gotta get a new soundgoodizer), but it's getting frustrating because of all the channels. Should I resample a few of the chops and samples? (Quick question: when you resample stuff, do you do it with your fx on? how do you manage the tail later if you do so?)

To make it short: how's your process (for folks that work mainly in the electronic domain) of doing stuff?

Sorry for the beginner question but I'm trying to step it up and what other place to learn other than the audioseks ;) Oh and on a side note this is also my first track with vocals, which I'm having some trouble trying to make them standout

 

Compose the music with a basic piano, string or whatever patch.
Play it or humanize using velocities and start times, if you can't play.
Arrange/orchetrate it in the DAW.
Add fx like noises, background resonance, echo fx, distortion, whatever.
Mix it.
Master it.
This is the most efficient workflow that you will find for making real music.
If you want to make pseudo music, start backwards with mastering chain, mixing effects, echo etc, pre-programmed loops and in the end add 1 note bassline and nothing else passing as music = complete EDM masterpiece...

 

dang! I forgot I was making EDM and that arrangement and composition don't mean shit in this pseudo electronic music!!
thanks for reminding me what real music is, I almost lost myself there!

 

@Backtired
After you make a few dozen tracks you start to realize that they all start to look the same (the projects), just have different content. That best way is to make project templates, track templates and save your fx chains. I have a rock template, a hiphop template, and an EDM template, with all my fx and returns ready to go. But disabled until Im ready for them. I also have a couple mastering templates.
Once I finish a track and its 100% done. Ill strip all the audio and midi out of it turn off all the fx, synths, and samplers and save it as a template. It makes it so much easier to get going.
I also save the track fx chains. I got rock vox fx chains, FB vox chains, Bass chains etc too.

I had to reread your post, I went off on my own tangent as usual. Ill print tracks with modulation type fx on them, saturation and so on. I still like to keep my verbs and delays live, usually on returns and aux tracks. So the time-based fx are separate. Then if needed you can print/freeze/resample a track of just the verb type fx from the returns and aux tracks, like if your using cpu killer algo verbs for example. Then all you tails are on a separate track. Its the best way to stem it out too, in case a remix is down the road, so the remixer isnt stuck with your verbs.

Are you using ableton. I can send you a chain that might help your vox, mostly ableton plugs in it. Youll have to gain stage and re-eq it for your content like I do everytime I reuse it.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2017

So uncalled for.......
Its 2017 man, wake up and listen to the EDM masterpieces. Stop forcing yourself to be like that.

***Sorry for reposting these fellas, but he asked for it.***

BTW, I write and arrange my EDM on an acoustic gtr before I click it into the piano roll

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2017

Yeah like every EDM "producer" uses real instruments in 2017 funny.
If the typical hobby edm producers knows some chords and scales is surprising. Playing a real instrument ? yes sure its 2017 wake up all the EDM producers do!!

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 8, 2017

If possible @Backtired avoid mixing up the different stages of production, it's better to focus on each thing. Presets, templates and all are very valuable, they allow you to move fast on repetitive tasks and spend time where detailed work is necessary and can't be done ahead.
We are not like in orchestral music or old rock genres, where knowing a thing or two about music theory is enought, do a quick map of your song and you're done, we are fully capable producers when we produce modern music. We have a lot of complicated tasks to accomplish, you know that, you're in EDM.
We have to not only know music theory rules, arrangement secrets, and all those easy tasks, but we also have to be top notch regarding sound design, fx processing, and mixing stages.
It makes things easier if the work is ordered.

 

This is your rebuttal? Look at your own statement. The key word is hobby. There are also many instrument players that also suck and dont know any theory or have any talent. But Im better and smarter than to bash a whole genre of music because of having a narrow minded view. Im just making a point. There is ignorance in all genres of music I suppose, but I dont hate on music because of it. Why some selectively do is beyond me

Moral of this post is. Stop man.... spread some knowledge and love. Dont post stuff just to aggitate. School someone, like you just were.

This reminds me of the cliques in grade school. Where we segregated ourselves by the music we listened too and how we dressed. The surfers, the bassers, the goths, the punkers, the metal heads, etc. Im glad we left it there in grade school. Well most of us anyways. Some people never grow up I guess and still act like children....

 

Last edited: Jun 9, 2017

I try to be like that, I really do. But Im mixing as I go. The composition and mixing sessions are blurred together. The only thing that's separate is the mastering session and that's probably because I'm working on a stereo track. But if I had enough CPU it would probably all be one huge session.

 

Yeah I get it. Things are mix up on my side too, which is kind of not the way I would like it to be. It's also why I use several daws. The way I lay things out now it forces me to separate things a minimum.
My previous comment was also a bit ironic regarding TW comments, and others. It's obvious that any professional EDM producer knows music theory and a lot more - and I also think like you that anyway in any genres hobbyist don't have a high degree of knowledge about anything really not just theory, which is what makes them hobbyist - so its uncall for.
And making that comment in a thread where a guy asks for specific advices is also a bit trolling.
There is a squad of guys haunting different threads, just to express their hostility to en entire genre of music and never to be helpfull.
It's very strange, they should just pass their way or bring something positive. The EDM producers are not going to disappear, neither is this genre, and if they have questions they have every right to ask them here on AS.

 

You had such a tasteful comment until the last phrase. I don't know what you produce but many successful productions featuring a 1-note bass are filled with micro-tensions, texture changes and rhythm changes as often as every 4 bars - and this not to mention FX (swirls, white noise etc.). Usually in dance music when a song "sounds like" having few instruments, from the smallest percussion to bass & synths, they all evolve and change during the length of the song. Basically the producer "plays" every single instrument track and the drums are perceived as individual instruments rather than a simple drum kit.

Technically if you play too many tracks at a time, you will get a congested mix. If you do that kind of "complextro" with one instrument hitting just a note of two thus having the melody made from 4-12 instruments interplaying, you can render the notes and load everything intro a sampler. And using nested groups is mandatory (every daw have this option). You unfold a part, let's say drums arrange everything, you fold it back, then go to bass, synths etc.

Are you talking about "bells & whistles" FX (swoops, buildups, cooldowns). I found more easy to work with 4 FX until towards the end of the arrangement: 1x 1-bar white noise sweep up, 1x 1-bar white noise sweep down, 1x 2-4-bar (depending on the genre) white noise sweep up and 1x 2-4-bar white noise sweep down. I place the short ones every 4 bars, the long ones around the breakdowns and buildups, just to give me the sense of tension right from the begining. This way, even if I do just a drum loop, when I repeat the loop over let's say 3 minutes, I can "hear" the song unfolding by just listening drums. Same thing you can do with a crash reverse + crash combo. Whatever works for you!

 

Quick ideas to reduce tracks number :

-Freeze some tracks that sounds close (not talking about classic bass/drums here, it's for your multiple channels) into one unique track that is related to arrangement, or the global sound that is created by the layer, or the placement in the mix, whatever
-Try to "centralize" your FXs. You're probably using some multiple instance of some effect that may work as a global send
-When freezing/exporting split tracks, on relevant ones, do DRY/WET freeze, changed the game for me. Make sure disabling non-sound design automations like pans, maybe volume (tracks with fader volume variation may be hard to re-process in the fresh project)
-Keep trying to pre-mix multiple samples/sounds into one channel, based on sonic property/frequency matching.
-Avoid mix groups until mixing phase/project
-Use "Patcher" type plugin like Image-Line's Patcher or Blue Cat's Patchwork
-Use "Mixer" type plugin like Blue Cat's MB-7 Mixer
-The more you freeze the less problems you gonna have (careful if you're not doing multiple dry/wet versions of one track, it may become tricky)
-Avoid any kind of process that is by definition a pain in the *ss to use when froze, like panning, comp autos, temporal effects, to bypass the tricky part of this method. If whatever effect is doing some real sound design/sonical changes, remember the dry/wet way.

Edit : Of course this is the academic way of mixing (it try to get close to at least). The more "chaotic" way SubGenre mentioned is completley relevant but not everybody can work like this and you need to have the computer to do it.

 

Last edited: Jun 9, 2017

There is a lot of crap music in every genre.
Dave Pensado mentioned when his mixing skills feel stale, he listens to EDM specifically for FX inspiration. It's the 'backwards approach' that induces creativity.

 

Thanks everybody for taking your time to answer, some useful stuff in here