That’s what I say to my wife. Every time she criticises my musical shit nuggets I tell her that she’s right, something’s missing. The answer? I’ll have to buy more gear to achieve what you want…
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Haha!
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great thread which inspired m to take closer look at how I was using octatrack. i ‘finished’ an album this month, partly of field recorded harp in Iceland (obviously), and then sampling bits of the harp to make soundscape tracks to go with. i haven’t been happy with how it turned out and reading this thread i resolved to find out what was going on with the OT. last night i sent the OT outputs through duet to ipad pro running auria and used the fabfilter eq as an analyser to see what was what. eye opener. the level of the samples were so low that, when boosted for mixing / mastering, all the crap was becoming evident. pretty obvious but now i have an ‘aha’ where i sample much more carefully and use the eq analyser as i sample to ensure i get things as good as possible in the original sample. i suppose my takeaway in terms of my process is to control when to be chaotic and random (how i like to work) and when to be methodical (how i need to work in some parts of the process).
grateful to all the posts on space, lees is more, getting things right etc.
cheers!
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This is so spot on! I was struggling to get my drum machine to work with some stuff I made with my sampler today. After a while I realised why, there just is no space left for the sounds I was trying to use. Sure they are great sounds, but the composition doesnt need them.
The ability to fully realise what needs to be there is crucial.
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chord changes, and key changes, which are really just fancy chord changes.
What do you mean by chord changes? I’m not an English native speaker and not the best in music theory. Do you mean chord progression? Or changing the key during a track?
Chord progressions.
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Probably the best first post I’ve read on here. Welcome to the forum!
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I’m not on the next level yet, but I feel like I’m on the verge of having one of these ‘aha moments’ about arranging stuff (because I can find the same ideas in the previous comments). My typical workflow is that I build up a loop adding sounds which I think are missing until I got something which sounds good together (usually a bit of everything: bass, drums, lead, pad, some weird stuff). And this is usually where the journey ends 
. This is a bit frustrating, because no matter how fresh the loop is, after a very short time it gets pretty old. Which typically leads me to mess around with the loop (which was perfectly fine) until its not recognizable anymore and I scrap it. Of course arranging the things to a track helps. But, how? Leave away stuff and build up the loop? How would that work? After all I spend a lot of time adding sounds where I thought something is missing, such that if I leave something out, something would be missing. And what parts would I add and leave away in which order? I guess the answer here is progression (as many in this thread mentioned already). But, progression is not simply change. If you want to have progress you have to have changes which are recognizable, so contrast is the magic word here. Contrast can be created in different ways: using melody (for example chord progressions), using sound (for example filter sweeps), using rhythm (for example killing certain drum parts).
So, great, now I know I just need to create as much contrast as possible and then I can make a very interesting track. Wrong. The tricky part is that despite the need to create contrast to have a progression, it still needs to be recognizable as a whole. And this is where I’m stuck right now. One thing that helps is to use only elements of the finished whole loop, but it still often feels a bit too disconnected. I guess this is why it’s called an art.
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Absolutely, I’m there with you. My best music doesn’t have loops, because I have the same problem. When I start from a loop and try to expand or contrast it, things get stale or less cohesive quickly.
I echo the things said about less is more. My latest revelation is realizing that I need to be really inspired by every sound that I add. Even one or two parts can feel complete.
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live recording p locks and actually using the transpose button on the a4. after about a month of love/hate with this machine all of a sudden i realize how insanely powerful it is
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not aha moments, but things I’ve learned for myself:
- Chord progression changes are great (but not easy, at least for me),
but you can create great variety over the same chord progression just by muting/unmuting, fading stuff in and out.
Reducing the drums, muting some sounds while bringing in a new sound, with a new vibe and different melody e.g. can change the whole feeling. Changing groove and notes of a bassline can have huge impact on the feel. You can play 100s of different melodies, happy, mysertriously or melancholic over the same old chord progression - no need to put eq and compression on every single stem, better to record only sounds that complement each other in the first place
- playing in a band, the most important thing is to learn when NOT TO PLAY (shout out to Ed O’Brien)
- don’t compare yourself to Aphex and the like
aha moment:
- my first clean barre chords on guitar many moons ago
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Many “aha moments” I have experienced have already mentioned a couple of times. Seems we share many insights …
The following “aha moment” did not take me to the next level, but made me see things from a different perspective.
When I bought my very first synthesizers in the 80-ies, it was a MS-20 and a MS-50, I did it because I wanted to play saxophone, but had none and was a keyboard player. I thought synthesizers were supposed to be imitators of other instruments, if only set up accordingly. Well, I failed dramatically to imitate a sax with my synths …
But from this experience I learned:
- to love synths for what they really are, fascinating instruments with many visible and hidden treasures for sound desing and performance
- after learning the real sax I understood, why I had to fail almost logically and technically with my very first synth setup, and that sometimes it’s better to know at least some basics and have some practical skills rather than try to “program” something without knowing, what I am doing … this said, learning the basics of real drumming improved my drum programming significantly
- last but not least … that it’s always a good idea to leave my comfort zones and try something totally new, be it a new instrument, a new scale, a new chord progression, a new method of applying tools, to divert something from its intended use and use it creatively …
- and … be yourself
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That’s funny, I’m a saxophonist who drifted over to synths! My happiest moments are when I stumble on a patch that remind me of my old tone. 
Learning some songs of my idols on guitar. Makes you realize some things are just simple and wonderful and hit that sweet spot pleasure button in the brain. Not everything needs to be super complex. Also buying a huge book of chord progressions that are used in famous songs brings this point home as well.
I think my music will get more and more minimal as time goes on.
Nothing wrong with loops either as far as I am concerned. If it’s good enough for Moritz, it’s good enough for me.
Moritz von Oswald: “As far as I am concerned, I find rest in loops. Whenever and wherever there are loops, I am happy with it. I would extend this even beyond techno music: I also like loops in human relationships. I like the daily business. I like repetition. I accept everydayness.”
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The arrangement is complete not when you can’t add any more elements, but when you cannot take any away.
Something like that^^
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- Getting a real sense for the rhythm of a song before worrying too much about the melody. I learned this when I used to cover songs to improve guitar skills.
- Reading an interview with Ed DMX where he stressed the importance of having fun when making music and creating “mini-studios” for use outside the studio.
- Learning the redundancy of gear, how to leverage it, how to work in different environments (e.g., software, hardware, modular, acoustic/non-electronic) to keep workflow from getting stale.
- Learning intimidating gear (e.g., Octatrack) a little at a time and letting that knowledge simmer for a while before coming back to the gear. This applies outside of music too. I often greatly improve at something if I practice it for a while, then spend a few weeks away from it.
- Learning to admit when a piece of gear doesn’t fit my needs and selling it without regret.
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I want permission to buy better studio monitors for Christmas. Hmmm…
Better to ask forgiveness than permission…
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My earliest (and probably biggest) ‘aha moment’ happened back in high school jazz band around 1990. I was learning how to play jazz drums & really struggled, it made absolutely no sense to me.
Then we had a Christmas concert and one of the songs was Sleigh Ride. I knew the song but had never heard it jazzed up. All of a sudden everything clicked! And because the melody was familiar I was able to “play along” in a style that was new to me.
A few months later I learned how to play 3/4 time by listening to Manic Depression by Jimi Hendrix w/ Mitch Mitchell on drums.
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Accepting that I’m not a baritone like Scott Walker. Nothing wrong with being a tenor.
Learning to ‘kill my darlings’. Accepting that a track or idea which has something cool about it often just doesn’t work well enough as a whole to be kept. 90% of ideas aren’t worth keeping.
The first time I played a filter-sweep-of-noise solo.
Playing 3 over 4.
Playing sets that are 80% instrumental, and having to accept that it’s the few vocal tracks that most people will remember and most enjoy. It’s just how the majority experience music - I like instrumental music myself…
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