How do you produce?

Hi,

i don't mean, how and when do you place your beats and sounds and basslines, because thats what music-making is about, but I mean some practical things, like:

How do you start, do you switch on the master compressor and eq pretty soon, to get that fat sound while working, or do you add this in the end, when the pure tracks and song are finished? do you use them at all? How do you rate their quality? What mistakes are to be avoided? Do some of you produce just in the mpc, record the track internally or do you mostly record the single tracks? Do you compress single tracks externally with different settings befor end-mixing? Do you eq your sounds in the mpc or before loading them to the mpc?

those of you who are into reduced repetitive music like house music: Do you add track after track in one single seq, and then mute some tracks and copy the seq to new ones, and chain them to a track, like I do, or are there different styles working?

How long do you work on a song, and how do you avoid that feeling of "over-hearing", that you have when having heard your own sound for hours, not being able to judge it anymore.

I think the big advantage over other sequencers I know including cubase is the intuitive flow while having your loop playing and playing, adding things, deleting things, and listening. It is so addictive.

There is no real way to answer this quesition but I'll give you my method, since I'll still new, this might be easier for you to understand. I always keep about 20 pre made drum loops that I create myself when I'm bored. Then when I start I listen through records for samples. Once I have something I run it though cool edit for noise and hiss reduction. I then chop it up into 1/4, 1/8 notes and I use the loop. I play the loop over some drums to see if I like it. Once I have a basic groove down I start to alter the sounds and filter them to get rid of the low's. I make about 4-4 bar loops with the chops. Then I arrange them. This is when I generally get lost and its hard for me to finish a song. Then I add some bass from a bass patch. Find the key of the sample, then turn off the sample to match the bass. Then I make a bassline to the drums, then turn back on the samples. I don't mess with effects of eq yet as I'm still new to this, but I think I'm headed in the right direction

my friend does what you were saying about having one sequence and muting orun-muting tracks, but i think you guys could do that cause your music is repepetitive or even just the same bpm throughout. i've tried it your way a few times, but for me most of the time my songs are a series of sequences partly because i can have a bunch of different bpms in a song. more than than anything it's about what works in conjunction with your music.

i listen to records for stuff then if i sample a loop i paly the drums over the loop. if i sample a hit ill sample one or more and alter them to a a coupple different hits. and try playign out something then putting durms over it or doing the drums then fitting the sounds over them. then ill filter something to a bass sound and play it over one of the hits or to the drums. but everyones got they methods and it cant be stressed enoguh who cares what you do what you use or how you do it as long as its hot right? but anyways thats how i do it but im new to the mpc like a month or something but ive been doing beats for like 6 months on liek reason, fl and stuff but in my eyes the mpc riens over all.

big_m wrote:i listen to records for stuff then if i sample a loop i paly the drums over the loop. if i sample a hit ill sample one or more and alter them to a a coupple different hits. and try playign out something then putting durms over it or doing the drums then fitting the sounds over them. then ill filter something to a bass sound and play it over one of the hits or to the drums. but everyones got they methods and it cant be stressed enoguh who cares what you do what you use or how you do it as long as its hot right? but anyways thats how i do it but im new to the mpc like a month or something but ive been doing beats for like 6 months on liek reason, fl and stuff but in my eyes the mpc riens over all.

ditto