What's your way ?

[Vin-iLL]

I'm wondering how people make their music ! :D

Are you a hardware freak ? What kind of gear do you use ?
Do you use a combination of software and hardware ?
Which programs do you prefer ?

I'm making music together with a friend (Carlos Rios).
During weekdays I make a bunch of loops, sound scapes and other weird sounds on my computer.
I'm using Fruity Loops, Ableton Live, WaveLab...
With Fruity Loops I use the export function to render wav's.

After a week of foolin' around I bring the stuff to Carlos.
The loops will be loaded into the Yamaha RS7000 to pump it up and make a good mix. The RS7000 (and the other midi gear) is sequenced by Cubase SX....

So what's your way ?

[damian]

Depends... I find I (frustratingly) compose entire tracks in my head as I'm walking home, only to forget them as I wait for my PC to boot :) I've taken to attempting to record myself attempting to vocalise what I'm hearing in my mind into my MD recorder as I walk.

If it's pure techno I'm creating then there's nothing like loading a whole bunch of totally random samples into a soft sampler and writing some random funky rhythm. (Aforementioned mouth noises, suitably pitch modified work nicely).

Otherwise I have a Korg MS2000 which I fiddle about with for a while and, if something good emerges, record that.

Perhaps the best thing I've learnt this far is that everything sounds crappy on its own, so I should just add stuff until there's enough layers for some interactions to start happening, then pick up on the interactions and attempt to bring them out, gradually stripping out the original layers. Or not, as the case may be :)

[acidhead]

I play with a nice trance lead or pad sound till i find a 8 bar riff that moves me -then i turn it to a wave
i then compose about 8 layers or so that will fit in with the main riff and turn them to wave then cut n paste it and add bits here n there to make a track

and i dont use software cos its a pain in the arse when u made a nice big softsynth/sample edit and your pc goes down

i think 1 day i may hire someone who actually has music ability to do it for me :)

[djTequila]

I'm a pure software boy - apart from the kit I can scrounge off friends, my trusty Bass-Station and MIDI controller keyboard. I'm running Logic, Cubase, Reason2.5 and a bunch of plug-ins, and using the M-Audio Delta 4/4 audio interface as a good compromise of price/quality.

I'm trying to phase out Cubase, but I like the Malstrom and the vocoder in Reason.

I normally start with beats - software sampler in Logic (these days), with a large collection of drum samples. I'll load in a few that sound good together, and tap out a rhythm on my keyboard. Normally I quantize that and slide the sequence delays around to get a groove, listening for the real start of each sample.

Then I'll run each sample out to a different channel, and apply whatever effects I need to improve the groove - gating is vital, I find, and separate reverb on the clap/snare.

After that, it's just playing with sounds really. No fixed method... Apart from trying to find sounds that 'fit' in the mix and don't clash. Maybe start with a bassline or two, arpeggios (played by hand for preference, as the automatic ones I find hard to work with - and usually uninspiring), pads, whatever.

Tequila

[timo]

well, I migrated to Fruity Loops Studio 4 which gives me all the power I need (tm) :D

seriously, for techno production I think that both Logic and Cubase are too complex, since we don't need melodies in the most cases for techno music. Instead, we need as-many-samplers-as-we-can-get (tm). I imagine if I would load up so many sample VSTi's I use in Fruity, my computer would've blown up itself.

But the most important thing is: Use the method which fits you best.

[karlo]

Uh..it was many posts with this topics....
Try to find in history mate!