Engineers Who Also Produce Enter!!

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Raydio

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We all understand that mixing is a big task alone, so I want to know how engineers who also produce use shortcut formulas to make hot music, but not taking away from your creative process. Heres an example of how I approach my music.

I honestly use FL Studio to do my drums. I then use it to maybe add a foundation of bass. I use Band In A Box for my melodies, change the MIDI instruments, then fix the MIDI to my liking using FL Studio's Piano Roll. I use FL Studio for almost everything because I feel using more than one program takes away from my creative process. I sometimes find myself stuck on trying to find a melody so I use Band In A Box. Some people recommend using chord progressions to advance to a melody, I just cant get with that because I do mostly hip hop and some songs dont use chords in this genre; just melodies and counters really. I have to also mix my songs so I find it time consuming to spend a lot of time on productioin when i have to also mix my full song. Even recording vocals is a hassle because I cant record vocals in Fruity Loops.

What kind of formulas do you use for production?
What software choices do you have?
How can you achieve good production without getting stressed about having to do all the work in your studio?
Any other tips?
Im exhausted so reply when you can.. ZZZZzzzz!!!
 
Raydio said:
What kind of formulas do you use for production?
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Well, first I get a band in here to work with. Preferably one that will pay me full hourly rate for my services.

I'll generally have the drummer, who will be bringing in his real drum kit, by the way, come at least an hour and a half before anyone else. We'll then map out a strategy together as to how we're going to mic up the drums so as to help get the sound we want without interfering with how he likes to play.

Then we'll work on tightening/tuning the heads and dealing with any stray squeaks and rattles.

After we're done, I'll have the guitarist come in with a real guitar and real amp, and we'll work on his/her sound before micing it with a real mic . . . then the bassist or anyone else who might be going direct last . . . because going direct is so easy a child could do it :D

Then I'll get everyone together for a headphone mix check. Once everyone is satisfied with what they hear, we'll go with a practice run . . . and then I'll hit record and have them go at it.
 
Thanks for the drop Chessrock, I see you are also from Chicago. What side? Im originally from the North side. What kind of facility do you do you work out of? Gear? Thanks!
 
I used to sequence the whole song in my MPC from my sound modules. Then dump the midi into Pro Tools and tweak it, then record the tracks as audio. I think what works for me is that since I record the midi into PT if I discover that my strings or horns or whatever are weak I just re-record that part using a different patch and layer the two.
 
heres a formula

one of the reasons that being a producer and an engineer is a pain in the ass is because your job is not finished once you come up with a good backdrop for an artist's or group's song.. you've gotta record, mix and pretty much master the song yourself.

But one thing i gotta say to you man

Badly mixed hits can be remedied

Incredibly mixed trash is unfixable

compare music to gymnastics and you get my drift

a greatly executed floor exercise that consists primarly of cartwheels and pushups is not gonna get you a perfect 10 or any respect

but a more difficult floor exercise that shows dazzle but at the same time is slightly beyond you will get you a better score and you can work at it and improve it

that other floor exercise is so simple however that nomatter what you do a cartwheels a cartwheel

so dont skimp on the actual production itself

and we are talking about hip hop here man maybe the kind of hip hop you make doesnt involve chords but just pay attention to whats getting peoples attention right now

hip hop was embracing music when it started in the 80s with songs like The Message and Childrens Story which both use chord progressions..they may not be complex but they definately are there....and then it went to noises and blips and samples
in the late 80s and 90s and then slowly

now thanks to people like Rza, Premier, The Neptunes and The Roots
people have once again realized that hip hop music is not just a title but instructions

Listen to any 50 cent song...most Jay Z songs produced by Pharell and Chad (The Neptunes), The Seed by the Roots..most of the songs on Rzas new album...chords chords chords chords...oodles and oodles of them

counters and melodies make you irv gotti...his music is so rinky dink and flat that you automatically know that chords are alien to him unless he samples them

but then by the same gesture..
R Kelly another Chicago native makes ALOT of r and b songs that could by the same gesture be the beats for most rappers albums..
and he mostly uses chords...
Im from New York and believe me that Step in the Name of Love remix is on all the mixtapes but with rappers on top of the instrumental rhyming . Why? cuz the chords make your music cinematic and spine tingling ...thats not to say that melodies dont hold their own weight sonically

but chords are the steak we all crave...and to me melodies are like some really nice asparagus you should really have both not one over the other and if you peeped those songs they have both which is why more people like them.

So in the long run put your ass into the music aspect the engineering can suffer a little bit only because much more so you can have someone else engineer your songs or you could take some time out to go back and remix your songs but if you really are more of a producer than a engineer and you cant handle double duties then just focus on the music

or if its the other way around...you might want to find a producer thats just starting out and see if they'll work for peanuts just because you're hookin em up

i mean realistically speaking if you make beats then over time you learn the engineering process so in all reality in hip hop engineering IS part of making the beat...which is why now that i think of it im confused about your situation..

You ever think that because you have so much software just to accomplish one beat might be why you get so worn out from production?

I would seriously check out a program like Cubase VST or SX...because i guarantee you ...you'll never want to mess with fruity loops again..

Check it out for real

If you want that whole interface thing goin

we all know reason is crushing fruity loops

reason integrates right into cubase they work hand in hand man

and reason has everything that fruity has and more and a hell of alot more people are using it that actually release commercial material...

I used to have fruitly loops and once i got cubase i went and told all my friends about it ... they didnt believe me till they heard the music i could make in cubase and how quick i could make it now they got cubase and laugh at the days of them being FL advocates

plus cubase lets you record audio and midi
and since you may or may not have the best computer one thing i absolutely love about cubase is how it optimizes itself based off the chip you have in your computer!
I absolutely love that.

Anyways the windbag has spoken
Peace

Illumination
CEO
Mt Olympus Records
 
Thanks for the drops, well Illacov I understand your point about Reason and Cubase. But!!!! If you really get info FL like I have, you'll see that you can do almost everything you'll ever need to do with your production in the program alone. MIDI, Sampling, Chopping, its all there and faster than Cubase SX. Cubase is just good for recording vocals, I find it kind of difficult doing fast chopping and vocal editing so I do all of that in Cool Edit Pro. Nice tips fa real, I just prefer FL cause Im old fashion, been using it since version 2.0 LOL.
 
Trying to write songs if you don't understand basic music theory is like trying to translate words into a language you don't speak.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Trying to write songs if you don't understand basic music theory is like trying to translate words into a language you don't speak.
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Totally not true. Before I knew a lick of music theory I was making songs just by pressing various keys that sounded right when played after one another. This tends to get time consuming so thats when I feel theory comes in. My opinion of theory is just knowing why things sound good; you dont need basic theory knowledge to learn how to write songs. If this held true Tex then a lot of songs wouldnt exist today. Some hits of our era were actually accidents. Language speaking and music are two totally different things, try another analogy. Besides, if I wanted to translate words into a language I dont speak ill go to Altavista's translator like some people on this BBS who dont speak certain languages, lol. Not trying to blast you or anything but just think about it for a minute. Thanks!
 
I can agree with that. If you have natural musical ability, good pitch and an ear for melody / harmony, then you can get by without theory.

Plenty of guitarists are completely self-taught. Some of the best ones I know, in fact.

Theory can certainly help, but then it can also lock you in to a particular mindset that everything has to follow certain rules . . . which can be both good and/or bad, depending on how you look at it.
 
oh dont get me wrong, i love FL studio, my midi life was born because of fruityloops, and i still use it constantly today. but once i got my hands on a korg triton, i use it for all my compositions and producing. it just has more of a realistic sound than a software synth. about theory. ive been in music since i was in elementry school (1st year in college now) and im taking theory right now. if you want to take theory classes and you know nothing about music (like reading sheet music and the technical side) then it will be a long ride. theory teaches you how music works. you study traditional classical music theory, and its suggested you know piano and choral singing. if you take theory 1, you wont even start on chords or progressions for at least 2 months. chessrock is right about being locked into rules, and sometimes it can be a huge pain in the ass. id like to hear some of your stuff. sorry if this is drawn out and boring.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Trying to write songs if you don't understand basic music theory is like trying to translate words into a language you don't speak.
Click to expand...

C'mon Tex.We all know thats a load of crap.That anaology doesnt make sense in the first place.LOL.Most of the greatest songwriters and players of all time never knew a lick of theory.......in fact,the guys that I know personally,who do know music theory,suck worse than any of my non music theory knowing pals.

It all boils down to natural talent/ear.
 
Tex is right, y'all.

Through extensive casual listening to popular music, most everybody has received an informal lesson in music theory.

Every time you hum along to the current #1, you're learning to resolve V to I, and not to III.

You get genre-specific lessons by listening to specific genres.

To apply Tex's analogy, if you were raised by English-speaking parents, but lived in Paris your whole life, chances are. . .
 
Good point Mallcore.

Somebody who has a natural ear for music doesn't need to study theory because after hearing music or playing an instrument they are able to translate the tunes in their head to the instrument.

Communication through music or speech is very similar and some people grasp it naturally and some need to work at it. If Raydio was the former than he wouldn't keep starting these 'help me write music without studying music' threads.

I'm not trying to be a dick but you either get it or you don't and if you don't then you need to study. I'm not saying he needs to learn all the modes by heart by if you can't play a scale over a given chord than you need to do some work.

As a 'Producer' you are required to communicate musical concepts to other performers and it helps if you all speak the same language.
 
Hey guys, well Im happy to say that Ive been a proud owner of a Korg Triton 61 key workstation for about 2 years now. Its a great board, but now Im getting more into programming it beyond the wonderful presets.

I use the Triton as my Midi controller and module along with FL Studio. The MIDI capabilities in FL are great and compete with the best of the best. Thats why I use it, it also saves me a lot of time because I know it like the back of my foot LOL.

Mallcore, I feel that if everyone learned an "informal" lesson in theory like you said, then there would be virtually no wack content being made. Also, people like myself wouldnt dream about reading the chapters in the theory books that talk about the I-IV-V and so on. AND!.. the authors wouldnt bother writing the chapter in the first place because they feel everyone gets this informal lesson when they dedicate more time to 103.5 FM than their wife. Theory and skill are two different things and are developed totally different from each other, its just that simple. Thats why some people really hate when they learn a lot of theory because their creative process becomes so focused on the do's and donts. Lets just use theory as our white out in life's musical term paper; use it when you need something corrected.... add too much and your paper will stay blank. Think about it!
 
Charlesthegreat, those three songs were "great"; you get it? LOL. *silence* Ummm, ok seriously the songs were very good. I am a fellow Triton user, but you have it all together. Wish I had those skills. Just letting you know I checked things out. Ill try to post something one day. God bless!
 
Raydio, of course not in the sense that if you listen to "03 Bonnie & Clyde" enough times on the radio, you can suddenly pick up a guitar and start playing the melody, without first knowing how to play guitar.

Or perhaps more appropriately, not in the sense that if you listen to "Shook Ones" enough times, you can suddenly sit at a Triton and start playing the melody and bassline, without knowing how to play keys first, despite the fact that the melody is only four notes, and the bassline is only three.

What I meant is that after years of listening to pop/rock, if you play an F, and then a G, there's a reason why you wanna play C next, and not C#. Or why you wanna play a Bb after G in a hip-hop bassline.

And there's a reason why casual listeners, with no formal training, will look up from their dinners if you do play C#.

It's the same reason your non-engineer friends can tell between a Dr. Dre track and yours right away, but they'll never say, "You need that ssl quad on the 2-bus. Did the mastering guy tell you to leave it off?"

After years of listening, people just know. But they don't know they know. The good self-taught people might not think so, but they know perfectly well what theory's about.

All theory does is describe what's going on. Theory doesn't tell you what to do, it doesn't want to tell you what to do, and it doesn't care if you apply it or not. No one says "c7sus or DIE!!" (well, c7sus might).
 
TexRoadkill said:
Good point Mallcore.

Somebody who has a natural ear for music doesn't need to study theory because after hearing music or playing an instrument they are able to translate the tunes in their head to the instrument.

Communication through music or speech is very similar and some people grasp it naturally and some need to work at it. If Raydio was the former than he wouldn't keep starting these 'help me write music without studying music' threads.

I'm not trying to be a dick but you either get it or you don't and if you don't then you need to study. I'm not saying he needs to learn all the modes by heart by if you can't play a scale over a given chord than you need to do some work.

As a 'Producer' you are required to communicate musical concepts to other performers and it helps if you all speak the same language.
Click to expand...

OK,NOW you decide to explain what you meant by the statement, after I've made an ass of myself.:D

I agree with.Your original post sounded like a blanket statement that everyone must study music theory to write good songs.I agree that listening to songs and learning the formulas is a lesson in music theory,but without knowing what the formal terms used in music theory are.

There are loads of great writers that dont have a clue what resolving V to I or the III means.They just know what works and what doesn't.

Kind of like learning the english language without ever taking a course in english.You can learn to speak the language by listening to other people and still not know the proper terms that are used for structuring sentences.It's not neccessary to know what pro-nouns,nouns,verbs,adjectives etc. are to speak the language.

Most people learn by habit.
 
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