Hi there.

I am using my Keyboard and some Midi Controllers, but all too often i am stuck and dont get results as fast as i´d desire. I think about getting a NI Komplete with Keyboard or switiching from Cubase to Ableton and use the Push2. What are most helpfull steps in setting up a software based Studio, from reading the Manual of your Midi Controller to make Presets in your DAW/your Plugins eg. to get the best experience? What are your Tips to get the quickest/most musical Workflow? A Setup where after some Days of preparation and setting up you have everything at your Fingertips. Plug-Ins, specific Controllers of any Kind, Sample Organization, a SSD for your Libraries, a AUDIO to MIDI Plugin that let you beatbox your Drums, whatever comes to your Mind. Please share your Hacks that help you get verything done quick and stay inspired.

 

I pick up my guitar and play.

 

I sure have to work on my Pianoskills too. :D

 

How to write freeform music like a Garbageman

Use something like Imageline Edison or a hardware solution to constantly record the master out as you're selecting sounds/playing around on your controllers. It will record tons of garbage for you, which you want to save. Go into the recordings and roam them, finding places that jump out to you as "hooky" somehow when looped, even though you didn't intend it or it was a software glitch it recorded there to begin with. You're looking for tiny 3-5 note segments that sound somehow hypnotic when you loop them.

Cut those bits of audio carefully out, and put them into your arrangements (make it a clean, separate project from the "play around" setup). If you're getting stuck a lot, this tells me that you're not taking advantage of repetition enough. Repetition justifies and ennobles whatever you are repeating, by itself. It's bad for your ego, but so good for the music.

After you set one of your favorite cuts into the arrangement and worked out how it should repeat for best results, it's all about support now. You may add a second and third pattern on top if you want to be fancy, but no more than that because it will become a mush that's impossible to cognize for casual listeners, which turns them off. The name of the game is all finding supporting tones and timbres that help the original cut sound good or "different" in different sections.

When working with those cutz you might be discouraged by the fact that you don't know the original key or tuning. Load any basic synth and switch it to sinewave, then find the tone that "lays really good" with the cut by ear. Just by poking around on the keyboard. Once you got something pretty close, adjust the fine-tune on the sine so that it's really spot on, and to your liking. This is base tuning to use for when you're creating supporting tones and flourishes for your cut. Go up from this base tone using a semitone or wholetone, or rarely semitone+wholetone in order to find the next degree of the scale that sounds good with the cut, until you have created an entirely unique scale that not only fits the cutz, but also fits your artistic intent and mood. Doing this by ear instead of with an exact tool like Melodyne ensures huge amounts of extra emotion can be put into your sound that is very unique to you and your ear for things.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2018

Here's my workflow improvements to 2017. Note these are MY improvements and may be completely irrelevant for YOU

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...O_oRLNOT3r6Y4O_7pfz0XMdWNdkRQxuvm1alg24f6/pub

Keep in mind switching from CB > AL will open some possibilties but close others.