next »

[TonyManfredonia]

Hello, audio creatives! As the topic states, I'm curious about your workflow. How do you approach your music making?

Open up the DAW and see what happens? Write it down through notation first?

I'm very curious! I recently wrote an article about my own workflow, and after hearing some comments and feedback with various other methods it's incredible to see how many different approaches there are.

What's yours?

[zminusone]

I guess my workflow is wildly different project to project.

If I'm writing something solo piano or for a live trio: bass + drums, it'll be based on improvisation and scribbled out on some staff paper; if it's not done in about 10-30 minutes I'm usually not happy with it.

Anything else that is relatively straight forward but requires more arrangement and orchestration will usually start with improvising at the piano/keyboard directly into Live 9, then edit as needed.

I also do lots of sound design based music where I compile hundreds of sounds that I've worked on for weeks or months into a project and get to slicing, but this is more of an electronic music approach.

When I was younger and more uptight, I used to swear by writing scores by hand. Alternatively, I've punched them directly into Finale as well. I also recently started singing into my voice recorder a lot while I'm driving

Personally, the coolest thing I've done as far as workflow was this:

https://zminus1.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-my-computer-makes-first-words

In the above I built a bunch of algorithms in Reaktor to generate musical patterns based on shaping random numbers and harmonic progressions that use pedal point... either recorded it and arranged or just let it roam free. For a little while I made music using just that stuff. That was a time when I was obsessed with Aphex Twin and would only make music using synthesizers I designed myself, from the ground-up, in Reaktor.

I guess I like to think mixing it up is good for me. The stuff I put on my "official" demo reel though is probably 95% the second method though... and maybe less interesting. I don't know.

[Yellowjacket]

This is totally a question of what one is trying to accomplish.  I think I've done many different things:  Humming melodies and strumming chords on guitar, improvising my Cello, recording and splicing recordings, writing in finale, clicking notes into my DAW or playing parts with a midi keyboard.  It entirely depends what I wish to create.

You can write down on paper and edit in Finale, or write in finale and edit at the piano.  Singing parts helps too. 
Recording and editing cool sounds.  Basically all of the above.  The approach and recipe that is used is entirely dependent on the end result which is desired. 

I have spent a significant amount of time transcribing and analyzing music as well, and I practice multiple instruments per day.  Just throwing that out there. 

[zminusone]

I have spent a significant amount of time transcribing and analyzing music as well, and I practice multiple instruments per day.  Just throwing that out there. 

This. Transcription is so helpful for me as well.  Also, I think a lot of composers aren't practicing musicians. I played with John Williams brother a couple times, this was a number of years ago and all he did was talk about John, but he told me that he, at least at the time, practiced piano three to four hours a day because it was so important for his ability to not only use the piano as a tool for composition but to explore other great music.

[TonyManfredonia]

Awesome to hear all of your responses. I am a big fan of audio recording voice while on the go. Which, by the way, also relates to playing/practicing a musical instrument. My voice has always been my instrument  . In college I practiced classical singing, and I try to keep up with singing wherever I can. Even if I'm not singing solos or performing, I do keep my voice --- which is essentially "my instrument" --- in check.

Regarding the transcribing/analyzing music, I could not agree more. Every morning over breakfast/coffee, I spend time listening to a single movement of a long work or a short work focusing on a single element. E.g. - Today I focused on the relationship between the Woodwinds and Strings in Movement II of Prokofiev's 7th symphony. Tomorrow I have lined up to see how the Brass works in conjunction with the surrounding voices in the same movement.

P.S. - I highly recommend workflowy, just in general. Heck, I use it for things outside of music. It's a great way to stay organized!

[Yellowjacket]

It's also important to listen for different things.  Like it or not, timbre, texture, and mix are very important elements of media composition. 
I found with studying composition, there is such an emphasis on either pitch content and gesture OR timbre and texture in lieu of pitch content.  Composers think more about certain musical structures while neglecting other, more important ones.

Like for creating film scores and games, the music serves a certain function so the notion of narrative and 'development' don't necessarily come to bear within media composition.  When speaking about transcription, I spent a significant amount of time transcribing and analyzing videogame tracks. 
I'm not saying that studying concert music is not applicable at all, but these two approaches to music are definitely quite different.

[TonyManfredonia]

Indeed, two very different things. I also transcribe when I can. A new tutorial series that I started essentially pertains to constant transcription of various game tunes. But yes, I agree --- two very different scenarios! Both great additions to anyone's workflow.

[ZackParrish]

Sit down. Do stuff. Get up. The end.

[alaicc37]

Start up my Electribe. Design a patch. Choose a fitting scale. Make great motive with the patch. Add more patches.

[Lazarus]

I'm still a novice composer and as someone with no musical background other than appreciation I'm teaching myself as I go, but how it usually goes for me right now is any time I get an idea or some kind of tune in my head I use my phone to record myself whistling or humming it.  I'll have a theme in mind and try to think of melodies that fit the mood I want, then I'll whistle them into a continuous recording named something like "spooky" or "intense," for example.  This is my version of an audio sketchpad.  So far this method hasn't failed me as far as brainstorming goes!  I really like it.

After that I will either take the time to write out the notes of the melodies that pass the quality check on a staff or just hop straight into the tracker and jot them down there with whatever default instruments I have.  When the initial melody is in motion everything else just kind of comes out from there - percussion, bass line, supporting instruments all form from those first few steps as I keep working on the piece.  I primarily work with chiptunes right now out of necessity since my only laptop is an ancient POS, but I really want to try this with modern VSTs and even my own guitar sometime when I have a computer from the last decade, haha.

[GalaxyComputer3000]

I've been working 2 years now on composition, and I've always had a hard time being consistent with my creative flow.

In my free time, I usually have the problem that I can't think of anything when I want to do something. And then a week or two passes by, and boom, I sat down for hours and made something that was coherent and pleasing to the ears. That's usually how my workflow is; random energy spikes.

Sometimes I hum randomly, and I realize that's a pretty catchy melody, and I keep humming that melody until I get home to write that song down.

But that's usually not the case when I'm composing for other people/projects.

When I'm composing music for someone else, I'm usually a lot more structured. First I think of the ambiance of the game; what kind of sounds are geared towards this setting? Are orchestral instruments an appropriate choice or are VST plugins a more suitable choice? What kind of mood do I want to set for the game?

Usually when I analyze the game, and exactly know what I want, I can produce a lot of tracks from that idea. Of course, at some point one gets exhausted, and the creative flow stops and so does the quality. At least in my case!

[Jason S. Longia]

Hmm,

Well I try many different methods, but with my latest song, the thing I did was to "imitate the style by ear", find the rhythm and
hone in the finer details. I didnt want to write down how the structure of the melody or the timing of when certain phrases come in, that seemed to not click with me. I am a visual learner but when it comes to music, "hearing" seems to help me visualize what I want. But basically after hearing a piece I wanted to imitate I essentially start "sketching the rhythm and try to find similar instruments" etc etc. I made sure that all my instruments were chorused, EQ, reverbed and in their own seperate channels so they sound "crisp and clean" then I went at it. But I find that imitating and then sketching what you want, seems to work the best for me. 

[Bakuda]

For me, it always starts first thing in the morning in the shower.  There's something about standing there under a stream of hot water that just gets my mind going.  Before showering I listen to / look at all of my references to get an idea of what I need to write.  Then I hop in the shower and let my mind go to work, doing a lot of vocalizing, dancing around, and air drumming XD.  Once I've got the basics worked out in my mind I hop out quickly, grab my phone, and voice record all of my notes, including vocalizing.  Later that day when I sit down to actually record, I'll play it back and get to work.

[Michael Klier]

For me, it always starts first thing in the morning in the shower.  There's something about standing there under a stream of hot water that just gets my mind going.  Before showering I listen to / look at all of my references to get an idea of what I need to write.  Then I hop in the shower and let my mind go to work, doing a lot of vocalizing, dancing around, and air drumming XD.  Once I've got the basics worked out in my mind I hop out quickly, grab my phone, and voice record all of my notes, including vocalizing.  Later that day when I sit down to actually record, I'll play it back and get to work.

I'm totally going to steal this workflow :] (or at least try).

[JWK5]

Early morning is idea time. That means no working on projects (i.e. actual construction of it) just brainstorming ideas. Nothing is off the table, there is no such thing as feature creep, and everything is valuable. It doesn't matter if I am working on ideas for a project or not, or which project if any. All that matters is that I open the floodgates and let the ideas pour.

Once I've got all the ideas out and I don't have any more light bulbs dinging over my head distracting me then I am ready to work on my project. I have the attention span of a cocaine-fueled squirrel with ADD so work on the project is interspersed with random excuses to get up and walk around. I've got it down to a fine art now to where I work on my project until I feel antsy or the onset of brain fatigue creeping in and then I get up and wander around until I am intentionally not thinking about my project and fully distracted and from there I give it a good 10 to 15 minutes or so my brain can recuperate from the tedium before I get back to work, and thereafter I repeat the process.

By mid afternoon to evening I let go of my projects altogether and spend time with my family (and give myself a nice long break from it all). I am done with them for the day, at least until everyone else has gone to bed (which if I am up at night with insomnia, which is often, I will usually continue to work on my projects).



My brain and body work the way they work, trying to make them work with a routine designed for someone else's brain and body is borderline torture. I can't move forward with a project if the work feels like torture. I have to know my quirks, accept my quirks, and either work with them or work around them. I've failed a lot in the past because I swung too far to one extreme or the other, either trying to hard to work in a constricting routine that seems to work for others or convincing myself no routine at all is best and never fully wrangling my mind in for the task. What I have now is the middle ground, time committed but without a rigid framework, something that flexes and bends with the turbulent mind and chaotic life that I have.

[Zencha]

Recently its been rough. I went to PAX East and Dreamhack for work so a song I started almost a month ago is still churning.

As structured as I'd love to be, I find the best workflow is to just give yourself the space and time to make something and generally something comes out.

[TonyManfredonia]

I'm loving all of the replies! It always amazes me to see how people work differently. Kudos to those who threw in their daily routine, as well (breakfast, exercise, etc.). For me, morning is prime time. Fortunately, my fiancé is a night person while I'm a morning person, so it works in my favor to make all my music and business things in the early hours. That way, we can spend relaxing time together at night

[ashtonmorris]

I am a huge fan of walking around in circles like a weirdo while humming.  Eventually I hum something good and record it with my phone and start the track from there.  Listen to the beginning of this to hear the magic

https://soundcloud.com/ashtonmorris/how-most-of-my-tracks-start-secret-track-for-arcade-game-to-be-disclosed?in=ashtonmorris/sets/electronic-beats

Honestly though I have done it every way and I think the more ways you have to come at it the more chances you have to get a good idea out. Here are some ways that I will start

-Playing around with guitar
-Playing around with an instrument on the keyboard controller
-Humming and walking around
-Bouncing a bunch of good ambient sources and them rearranging them in your daw until they start to spark more ideas
-Playing random chord pattens through a vst like Cthulhu https://www.xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu
-Setting up an arpeggiator and hitting random keys
-I have a midi pickup on my guitar and sometimes I will record the midi of me just playing around with chords and strumming to no tempo then quantize the whole thing and see how that sounds

I am a big fan of purposely making mistakes and weird noises or anything and seeing where things go from there. If I get stuck on a piece for music I will drop it until the next day. Unless I have a tight deadline I will touch that music each morning for 20 minutes no matter what until something happens and I get an a ha moment. Also I have finally learned that sometimes when its not working its best just to erase the whole damn thing and start from scratch. I have done that more and more since I started doing it and that really does help. Sometimes working really hard on something that just doesn't work is like frantically fixing the breaks on a car where the engine is broke and wont start.

I think that what you start out with is not how it ends up, but one idea is a path leads you down another and another until something cohesive comes out. Personally I working from around 8am-1pm and them my brain dies and I am not too creative after that until 4pm. I'd love to also write after dinner but thats when I spend time with my wife who works normal hours.

I mix the music while I am writing and recording it and I am probably horrible at mixing to be honest. Lots of good comments in here :D

[Silkworm]

It probably depends on the project but I'll talk specifically about game music and my current project (OST here).

1)The setup
For this soundtrack I have a core setup of instruments that I rarely stray too far from. This means I can just open a template project and start working immediately.   

2)The motif
This is where 90% of my compositions start, not sitting by an instrument but literally anywhere. I'm constantly humming so I just pick up my phone and make a voice recording whenever I get something in my head. Sometimes I have an idea where it's gonna be used but often I don't. I have hundreds of these voice clips so ideas are never really a problem. Sometimes I build a composition from a single one, other times several.

3)DAW time
I can play a few instruments but none of them good because I never practice enough. Everything I do is MIDI so I use a keyboard and record the motif half assed just to get something down. I don't really care that much about mistakes because I clean up and rearrange A LOT with the mouse anyway, draging, dropping copying, pasting into what I hear in my head. If I really want a more natural sound for something I will make an effort and learn to play my own music . If I don't have a drum and baseline in my head I'll just put down something very simple and return to it later.

4)Harmony
I use a lot of counterpoint and arpeggios. I often play along to what I have at this point, improvise and then clean up like before. I like to make my own arpeggios but often I get lazy and just use a plugin. If I think the sound is too thin I'll add chords of strings or whatever. I usually focus on one section of the track at a time before moving to the next part or motif. Also since I'm thinking about theming, if I have an existing motif that somehow connects to the narrative of the track I try to work it in there.

5)Mixing and mastering
This I postpone and... never get back to . I wish I had as much passion for production as I have for composing and arranging.


I work pretty intensive and non-stop once I start and usually finish up a track in a single session or two. I do return to tracks sometimes, especially if I didn't have a clear idea where I was gonna use it when I first made it.

I am a huge fan of walking around in circles like a weirdo while humming.  Eventually I hum something good and record it with my phone and start the track from there.  Listen to the beginning of this to hear the magic

https://soundcloud.com/ashtonmorris/how-most-of-my-tracks-start-secret-track-for-arcade-game-to-be-disclosed?in=ashtonmorris/sets/electronic-beats

Haha this is great so I'll share some too.  My voice doesn't always do my brain justice but it's usually a good enough reminder.
Voice recordings and how they ended up:
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5-Used my ukulele for this one. For some reason that usually leads to something oriental sounding
#6

And as a special bonus, this is what can happen when you fail to turn off the voice recording. Not sure why I even felt the need to voice record since I was already at the computer and starting up anyway. It's both kinda interesting and awkward for me to listen to, not sure what I'm even doing at points. Anyway: just a 40 minute sound recording of me working (it's not very exciting).