Interacting Music Making Thread

[Otto Matta]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

Reason 3.0 exclusively, although I have Cubase 4 and hope to learn how to use it for production in the near future. Korg 01/Wfd as controller. AMD Athlon X2 3800+. M Audio Delta 1010LT soundcard.

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

At least two weeks, up to about two months.

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

Sometimes the perfect sound can be very elusive, which is frustrating. I also find the very end, rounding off all the edges and tweaking every little goddamn thing to make it perfect, very tedious.

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

My initial inspiration came from the pop synthesists of the 80s, the ones who were totally surrounded by gear on stage and on MTV, like Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, Rupert Greenall of The Fixx, and Thomas Dolby.

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

I like making upbeat, sentimental electronica with a sci-fi twist. I've been planning on taking some leaps into more experimental territory.

[Goa Bill]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

Current setup includes: AMD64 based PC with Audiophile2496 Sound Card, M-Audio BX8a monitors, M-Audio Oxygen Keyboard, Behringer Xenyx802 Mixer.

Software: Cubase SX3, Reaktor, Kontakt, Discovery DSP and Albino.

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

From 2 days to months.

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

Structure and Intros. I leave them for the end usually.

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

Mainly from the fact that i don't hear much stuff that I'd like to hear. So instead of whining about the past i try to create the future. Eh, that sounds pretentious.

 

5) AND Your favorite style to produce?

Anything that makes me move while i create basically.

[cronodevir]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

 

5) AND Your favorite style to produce?

1. Fruityloops Studio, Sound Recorder, My Radioshak brand midi keyboard, speakers headphones, etc....PC=2.5ghz,256MBDDR,onboard sound chip thing-a-ma-jig, Sytrus,Zeta,ts404, all the classic FX, and all the MG line effects. and i also use FM8

 

2.few days to a few weeks, it all depends on current mood.

 

3. SOund Desgine and Arrangement

 

4. I bought a childrens keyboard..i loved it...i later heard about fruityloops, hop skip jump, then i was here today.

 

5. Psy/Goa/Melodic [sad stuff..]

[tamlin]

I think it would be very interesting if some more well-known producers like Colin of OOOD and others that hang around on this forum would contribute to this thread.

 

Sorry guys, but i hardly recognize any names of the people who have answered this thread so far.. =P

 

 

As for me, in case anyone is interested:

 

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

Software:

FL Studio with a bunch of VSTi's for sequencing

Sound Forge for sample editing

 

Hardware:

Dell 2ghz Core2Duo laptop with 2 GB ram

M-Audio firewire 1814 soundcard

Genelec 8040A monitors

Evolution midi keyboard and usb controller

A couple of pretty good microphones

..also i have a Roland jv1080 digital synth, but i hardly ever use it nowadays.

 

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

Just counting the time that goes by from when i first start a track to when it's finished, it can be anything from a couple of days to a couple of years. If i work more or less non stop it can be anything from a couple of days to a month. However, it is extremely uncommon for me to finish a track in just a couple of days.

 

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

Getting the fatness and pressure of the kick & bass to feel just right

intro & outro

managing CPU load

 

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

So long ago i can't remember any explicit reason, except just for fun and being creative..

 

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

Anything, really... Also depends on the criteria for "favourite":

 

What feels most frictionless (least tedious) to produce?

Fast, melodic, monotonous hypnotrance.

 

What is the most fun to play around with?

Anything that doesn't sound like anything that has been heard before, i.e. more experimental stuff that usually never ends up as finished tracks.

 

What is the most rewarding in the end?

Taking into account only myself: Classic melodic psy/goa.

Taking others into account: whatever kills on the dancefloor, which often means twisted and/or funky stuff (depending on the crowd).

[slyman604]

What is the most fun to play around with?

Anything that doesn't sound like anything that has been heard before, i.e. more experimental stuff that usually never ends up as finished tracks.

 

hey Tamlin!! i forgot about your music. how come you have never put out an album? I remember Upside Out from years back, thats the craziest fucking track ive ever heard.

[tamlin]

hey Tamlin!! i forgot about your music. how come you have never put out an album?

I will.

[needle ninja]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

Just got SONAR 6 producer edition

Use FL studio 6; Sound forge; an old softsynth called VAZ modular; other vsts

Hardware: AMD 4400 X2 cpu, 2GB RAM 300GB Western digital SATA II hd in a custom built computer with a M-audio delta 66 (matching silver)

 

My lovely moog little fatty, an Edirol PCR-50 as a controller, iriver portable player for recording outdoors digitally

no longer have : Yamaha W7 workstation, Kurzweil K2000 rack, drum kat, Mackie VZR2601pro mixer Yamaha msp5 monitors

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

There is no average.

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

Perhaps final mixdown.

 

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

raves, djs, Front 242, cheap synthesizers

 

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

perhaps psytrance now

[acidkills]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

There has been a revolution for me in terms of audio production.. I abandoned Reason and Rebirth recently and centered in using Cubase as main sequencer.. I run it on Intel Prescott 3 GHz with 2 Gigs of DDR2 RAM with ESI Julia and SB Live soundcards and tons of PRO VSTs.. I use Audition for recording and mastering with many DX PRO FX. I have Alesis Micron synth Waveidea Bitstream 3X controller.. Output goes on 6 different speakers.. I have external mixer but lately I dont use it so often.. As for real instruments I have mrdanga, dholki, acoustic guitar and small tambourine(well not tambourine but picture it as string instument like smallest tambura u ever seen, its national instrument of my country) then I have 3 different bengali and calcutta flutes of different sizes..

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

Up to month.

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

I had idea block at half of the track.. I create proffesional intro but later on second half of the track I lack inspiration to do it pro till the end.. Now thats trouble is gone in my last two tracks..

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

Music has been in my life as long as I remember, always wanted to make something but lacked devices..

Started to dj and a natural progression is to make your stuff..

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

Deep progressive groovy sound but now Im working on acid trance album.. Some groovy deep acid I could call it..

After that Ill shift back to progressive..

[nzen]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

cubase, sound forge, axiom49 , 2.6ghz duo core, 1GB RAM.

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

to build, less than a week. but to finish the mix and effects and variations, 3 - 6 weeks

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

well, i like all the parts ;D specially the automation of the effects

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

a track called ''tell me why - paranormal attack''. I was falling in love for some one who didnt wanted me and this track came at the exact moment. So I felt that i could make tracks like this one to people who feels like i felt ( sry for the bad english xO)

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

hi tech with guitars and some crazy things like this xD

[atlas]

hardware-comp+korg em1+korg ms2000+korg es1+polymorph

soft-nuendo+audition3(great effects !)+vst

[Cynos]

1) FL Studio 10, no physical controllers/instruments. AMD Athlon 64 X2 with 1GB RAM (desktop PC), Intel Atom (netbook, I don't know about its RAM).

 

2) Make a psytrance song takes me generally 1 and a half months, due to the ideas "carency" and school.

 

3) Nothing.

 

4) Good music and experimentation.

 

5) Psytrance, principally, and dubstep. In a future, another genres like IDM (?)...

[killiksan]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

FL 10, Edirol PCR midi controler, a lame computer that could be way faster

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

usually 20-30 hours.

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

arrangement. glueing parts together. giving a track one topic instead of several

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

to be honest, i forgot why i started making music about 4 years ago. but its still fun nowaways

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

Melodic Full On i guess

[tulpa23]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

DAW:

Macbook Pro

Ableton Live

Motu 828 MkIII

Novation LaunchPad

Akai LPD 8

KRK rokit 5

Plug ins from D16 group, arturia, artificial audio, camel audio, smart electronixx, izotope and audio damage

 

 

Sources/SignalProcessing:

Vermona kick lancet

Vermona mono lancet

Doepfer Dark Energy

Doepfer MS 404

Mfb 522 - tr808 clone

E-Mu Xl7

Mattel Synsonics

DubReq Stylophone

DubReq Stylophone Beatbox

Tc Electronic M350

ProcoYouDirtyRat

Kenny's Death

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

It's difficult for me to define an average time; sometimes I've spent weeks to close a project, other times all was done in one day!

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

I feel sad when the disk and cpu usage monitor is blinking and i have to bounce the virtual synths tracks in order to reduce the load on the uP

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

i've started when i was 10 whit a guitar, music was magic form me, a kind of language without defined words

 

about these days I'm understanding in these days how a good and quite environment can help us to preserve and increase creativity, my ispiration came from my daily experience, as memories or all the music i listen to

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

since i've approached the electronic music production game my favourite style is underground tekno, but i've always felt a foreign, because i've always preferred psychedelic, acid sounds and long evolving synth/fm lines with a lot of sampling;

another question is the bpm, I rarely exceeded 160 bpm, when the average clock in the scene is 180, too much for me

 

 

Now i'm approaching the psy trance universe, I'll update this infos when i'll reach enough conscoiusness about it

 

see ya !

[Veracohr]

How's the Dark Energy? I've considered getting one of those.

[tulpa23]

i think is really a must have piece!

u can get an incredible range of timbres, sound is great, you can add in a modular environment and there's a midi interface that make you able to write automation in your sequencer or use weird software modulator to feed the dark energy modules!

 

now there's a 2.0 version with some mods!

 

the price is quite good for me

[Veracohr]

How is the filter? I think I read elsewhere that it's a little weak-sounding.

 

If I had the money, I'd go for a full-fledged Doepfer modular system.

[tulpa23]

in my little experience I can tell you that I really like it, u can bring it to feedback causing it to emit a perfect and really deep sine wave... i thought with the square and the saw reacts very well

 

I'm also waitin the right moment to start my modular system

 

have you ever heard about this ?

http://www.tiptopaudio.com/hek.php

 

149 euros and you got the case with power bus ! ! soon, very soon

[Veracohr]

That's cool.

[Guest neurogen]

1) What programs you use, and any hardware instruments, midi controllers, etc (PC Specs too)?

 

HW

Dual-Boot clean win7 32bit only for music production (using 32bit cus its best imo for making music, more compability)

2.8ghz core i5 (pretty lame for music making a full project with many tracks and many vsts running eats it up completely)

4gb ram

 

soundcard: Terratec Phase26 USB

midicontrol: m-audio O2

monitors: used to have KRK rokit5, but had to sell them due to money probs back in 2008

 

SW

Nuendo 4

Grew out of Reason.

 

Wavelab 6 for mastering

All Waves plugins

 

Rapture VST

Sylenth1 VST

Firebird VST

ABL2 VST

Z3ta VST

Alchemy VST

Nexus VST

Vanguard VST

 

 

 

Using only warez software cus im very very poor. Once I get rich I will buy the software I use the most and throw away the rest. I wanna be honest but if choose to not make music and be honest, or to be dishonest and be able to make music... i mean life is just too short to have those moral dilemmas :/

 

2) On average, how long does it take you to build and finish a Song?

 

have only completed 1 track ever. (in around 10 years) due to creativity stop, brain problems. this track i completed i was on speed that day, in 2005: /

that track took about 10 hours to complete.

 

3) Which parts do you find tedious when building your track (if any), if it pattern sequencing, automation, etc?

 

the arranging of the track, the actual build of the track. creating atmospheres, melodies, automation etc is the easy part... my brain gets overrun with ideas and shutdown when i try to think about building the full track.... i think i have ADD, really no joke...seeing as speed made me be able to focus and create a whole track from scratch in 10 hours. but i dont do drugs no more so........

 

4) Where did the inspiration come from to start producing music?

 

the inspiration came in 1998 when i heard Spiritual Healing remix. I wanted to be famous for creating such a genious track in the future, and here i am.. still struggling towards that goal

 

5) AND Your favourite style to produce?

 

goa. Pure and psychedelic.