Top 10 Edmproduction tips
If you tend to get distracted or frustrated by the mixdown while attempting to write out songs and ideas, try doing it listening on something crappy like a laptop speaker. You'll be able to focus on creating, and can then go back and mix it normally afterwards.
This has been pretty useful for me personally. When I try to do a drop, if I'm using my good stuff, I just get distracted with 'this lead is too thin' 'that bass needs more harmonics' and never make much progress with the composition. By forcing myself to write the song with such a shitty speaker, it's a lot easier to come up with a breakdown, plan out the drop, etc, since I can only hear the basics of the sound without being able to hear the issues that would distract me otherwise. Then when I'm ready to work on the mixdown, I can just go back to normal and do my thing.
Before you high pass unwanted frequencies, try using a low shelf filter to tame them a little bit. Otherwise you're losing potential warmth!
Want to drop a drum loop in pitch, but don't want a drop in quality? Layer your drum loop with the same drum loop pitched an octave up, and cut out its low end.
Your drum loop will sound lower pitched and slower, without that nasty noticeable drop in quality.EDIT also make sure you mess with the levels, the pitched up version should be quieter than the original loop. or not, don't let me tell you what to doEDIT 2 audio example
How to morph between two LFOs in Serum.
So I just posted this in another thread, figured I'd make a new one for more visibility, as some people might not have thought about this. It's quite simple:1) Have you starting shape on LFO 1, and your final shape on LFO 2. Put both on the parameter to be automated.2) Go to the matrix tab, and put Macro 1 as a Aux Source for both of them.3) In the Mod column, make the Mod of LFO 1 as inverse (set as "* (inv)").Now as you increase the Macro 1 knob, the LFO will morph from LFO 1 to LFO 2. Note that the LFOs have to have different shapes for you to hear the morphing.Things should look like this. That's it.
Use pen and paper.
Here's an article about how simple tools can help you optimize your production process: https://medium.com/@elennemusic/pen-paper-the-only-hardware-you-need-6f7bceaa5787#.7457jvqqbI hope this won't be taken down like my last article. Music production is more than the stuff that's going on in your DAW.
Create a scenario!.
In my experience a scenario has helped my creative process immensely! Here’s an example of the idea:Create a scenario and write a soundtrack to said scenario. In this case let’s say you’re alone in orbit around the earth. At the beginning, the music is very calm. You begin re-entry into the atmosphere and the music begins to pick up. As the hypothetical flames surround you and intensify, so does the music. Everything ends at splashdown with a bang.Just a thought. Hope it helps!
How to produce more freely.
I have always had trouble producing tracks that I think has a good melody or something because I think I might ruin something or the other when I experiment.Experimenting is really important(all the tracks I made are due to constant experimenting), so what I basically do is, make a duplicate of the DAW file and start working with the duplicate(copy) one. This tricks my mind into believing or thinking "This is the copy version, I can do whatever I want!". This really works for me. If you have your own method, please do share it! I hope this helps you!
Tighten up the sound of your breaks by using a multiband gate.
Drum Geek tip of the day: you can use a multiband dynamics such as Izotope Ozone as a gate to kind of tighten up the sound of your drum loop. You can sort of suck out the reverb and boominess to make it snappier.See and hear before/after here: https://instagram.com/p/8nKAxii8hs/?taken-by=fanufatgyverI also blog about this sort of things and collect all the music production related posts in my blog at http://fanumusic.com/music-production/
Turn off "Create Fades on Clip Edges" in Record/Warp/Launch settings.
It's ruining your transients.