I usually sit down to make a beat most days after work
Often it’s just hash spliff, mint tea, go bitch
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Or five beers depend what’s going on the next day
Smething I’ve done a bit recently is sampling dialog from tv and movies, and using that as a song-starter, and it’s helped a lot, and also changed my workflow - I always used to start with drums and bass; but the last tune started with a speech sample that I chopped and pitched, and took snatches of the background ambience/music and turned them into my own pads and atmos. It was good to do something different. It’s also inspired me to rewatch favourite movies and telly shows for sample opportunities.
Oh, and I think this is my first post after lurking for a bit. Hi 
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I rarely watch anything now without a pen nearby to note down times of cool bits of audio or sounds in whatever im watching for sampling purposes.
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Hey I did the exact same thing like a week ago… ha
I listen to a lot of tecnho, and try my best to replicate/get inspired from what I hear. What’s been bugging me is that even tho I have a lot of preset packs for the synths I’m using (Diva a lot lately), but can’t really seem to find the kind of sounds I’m hearing in the tracks I’m listening to.
So I deicided to not work on a track, but try to replicate some resonant bass-ish kind of sounds instead. Was heaps of fun, and learned more about Diva. And even though I didn’t copy w/e sounds I was inspired by, I ended up being inspired by the presets I made. This in turn is making me even more inspired to keep fiddling with synths to “make that sound in my head”, even though I know it won’t be exactly what I’m looking for.
edit:
Also started watching in-depth “how to produce X genre” tutorials again. Even though I skim through them mostly for the main parts, i.e how to create a bassline/rumble etc, I still find it useful and inspiring to see what each producer does differently with the different stages of a track.
Edit 2:
Also, I took some time off producing for a small day or two. Holy sh*t how good it felt not to feel the need that I “have” to be productive and make/work on a tune every day.
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Lately I’ve been punishing myself for how much my mixdowns suck by trying to go back and cram and try to re-learn (again) what I’m doing wrong and it’s fucking me up, don’t even wanna touch the DAW now.
The Optical masterclass that @hubb posted was great for filling in the gaps but also gave me a whole new set of hangups (Like bass key being limited to F, F#, or G.)
Ideally I could just take a class or sth w someone who knows this stuff really well but that won’t be an option until this covid shit lets up a little.
Also been dealing w TMJ which affects my ability to monitor in cans (already not ideal) so switching back to real monitors is probably in order but gonna be a nightmare w proximity to other human ears.
Irony is I feel pretty good about life in general but musical self esteem is not so good rn.
Thanks for listening to my whiny badfeels.
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its more about those being the lowest possible notes in a ‘safe for old club PA’ - kinda way
mixed with the notion that the most pronounced bass note is one that overlaps/utilizes the rumble/weight below 100hz and the audible tonality above 100hz
you could also go for slightly pitched up/higher kicks and snares like moving the whole thing up a notch - - - because its in relation to breakbeats and not just the speakers
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optical is almost like one of those modern architects like that ericsson guy who uses everything from a tree to make a tree house inside the forrest
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I’m halfway considering just downloading a Reaper mixing template (with all the VCAs and send/returns already configured) and forcing myself to use it just to break out of this analysis paralysis of trying to come up with one myself.
It was interesting that Optical kept referencing Break’s masterclass and saying “I know he said to do it this way but I never do that…”
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Re: monitoring - my old Alesis MKII’s are buried deep in the closet (with the Mackie 1202 lol) so it’s gonna have to be my little Roland desktop near-fields.
@cyclopian you still have that interface for me by chance?
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yeah i didnt catch Audios either
i’ll post it if i run into it somewhere
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but here is the first part of breaks
(i think we talked about this before … dunno)
no this one
hes very clinical tho, maybe too sterile in his sound too, but deffo knows his stuff
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REAPER stuff
(I’m always on the verge of trying to use reaper or ableton, i just dont feel any limitations with OLD-ass logic yet)
https://www.helgoboss.org/projects/playtime/
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All good stuff man. Cheers - appreciate it.
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here’s a something
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Curious as to whose masterclasses actually improved y’allz tunes and why. Everybody has different needs, but some things are objectively true too.
yeah seen that too
cheers
They made me realise i am not good at making tunes.
Dom & Roland talking about “amalgamating a reverse trombone phasing filtration pass if you’re subsequenting the EQ parameter matrix, but only if is above 100 decibel parsecs… but i dont know the technical terms im not an expert”*
*(something like that)
the alix perez one is good because its very onpoint and not program specific but more like a recipe
in general they do the opposite of what they intend to do
the optical one is good because its aspirational
usually they are not technical enough or they are half adverts for a certain program -but then again if you happen to use the same prog, its nice to see someone fuck around
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Samples:
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