Short Production Tips & Tricks

[Bocaj]

For Ableton-
Press shift+up to move selected notes a whole octave.
In arrangement view hold alt (cmd for mac) and click to minimize/expand all your tracks at once.
Press cntrl + L to loop clip(s) you've highlighted.

[Críoch]

Ableton Keyboard Shortcuts:

They're case sensitive. You can map stuff to your qwerty keyboard & toggle layers / mappings functions by using caps lock

[Stace]

I love this thread guys <3

[Hades]

something I only discovered last week, but it's extremely helpful (at least to me),
and I could kick myself for not hearing this sooner.

Now, I can only testify for a bpm between 125 and 130-132, because that's the bpm I usually dwell at when I make my non-ambient tracks :

If you go slower in bpm, a shorter kick will usually give the impression that your track is made at a faster bpm,
while a longer kick will do the opposite.
Obviously, this is only when you are using an average kick length, (let's say between approx. 400ms and 1000ms),
(of course this also depends on the kick sound itself, and for example the pitch envelope of the kick)
and not if you use extremely long or short kicks,
and it won't make a world of difference, but nonetheless,
I think it's still useful to know if you want to use a slower bpm but still prefer to not have your track sound like it's way too slow.

It makes total sense if you think about it : longer sounds will pretty much always make your track sound more slow than fast sounds,
but yeah, I guess I somehow always overlooked how much a little adjustment to the kick length could help to "speed up" the track...

[Lost to the Void]

That`s not strictly true, and psychoacoustics would disagree.

A long kick on a slow track reduces the amount of free space between kicks and can make the track seem faster and busier.
A short kick on a slow track really shows up the deep chasm of space to the next kick, thus making the tempo more clear.

Tempo perception is all about filling the space between the beats.

[Hades]

That`s not strictly true, and psychoacoustics would disagree.

A long kick on a slow track reduces the amount of free space between kicks and can make the track seem faster and busier.
A short kick on a slow track really shows up the deep chasm of space to the next kick, thus making the tempo more clear.

Tempo perception is all about filling the space between the beats.

Mind the word "strictly".

I don't claim this to be some sort of theoretical exact science,
I'm just saying how I feel this, adjusting the bpm and kick length.

But I'm very sure you know about 500% more about this than I do,
so forget I mentioned the tip.

[arkos]

Don't EQ your audio to death.

[Hades]

now I'm not sure if this has been said before or not,
but if it has (possibly even by me), I apologize upfront...

listen to your track while sitting in the next room.
(or even one floor down or up, but you might need to properly turn the volume up to do that)
the parts of the track that you really want to stick out,
are the parts you should be able to hear clear enough.
Now of course, bass will always travel way better to the next room than other sounds,
so you'll always hear your kick/sub/... more clearly than most other sounds,
try to ignore that if you can.
But if what you hear in the next room doesn't make you interested enough into hearing the whole track properly,
then you might as well call it quits...

Again, this one is just a "feeling" kind of thing,
not some kind of exact science.

It works for me, but I'm by all means not saying this would work for everyone.

[Will Frances]

When programming high hat type sounds, use mute groups aka choke groups, so as when one high hat plays and another is triggered the hit preceding it is muted, this brings a nice bit of 'live' behavior to your programming. Can be done in kontakt, ableton's drum rack, and most decent samplers.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fuYiHtmnNqs

[Dussle]

I like to occasionally break out the instruction book for a piece of kit that I use a lot but that i know has functions or areas I've never used before. Its lead me many a time to areas that create really interesting sounds, manipulation abilities or effects. Or even just checking out all the inputs and outputs on various bits of kits and seeing what can feed into somewhere else. My ego often tells me I know everything about all my kit but that's a load of old bollocks, so when I can get past him, I've often found there are really useful things I've had right under my nose that I've never realised.

Also, this thread is incredibly useful!

[Lost to the Void]

now I'm not sure if this has been said before or not,
but if it has (possibly even by me), I apologize upfront...

listen to your track while sitting in the next room.
(or even one floor down or up, but you might need to properly turn the volume up to do that)
the parts of the track that you really want to stick out,
are the parts you should be able to hear clear enough.
Now of course, bass will always travel way better to the next room than other sounds,
so you'll always hear your kick/sub/... more clearly than most other sounds,
try to ignore that if you can.
But if what you hear in the next room doesn't make you interested enough into hearing the whole track properly,
then you might as well call it quits...

Again, this one is just a "feeling" kind of thing,
not some kind of exact science.

It works for me, but I'm by all means not saying this would work for everyone.

Thats a good one. I do that a lot. Thats one of my mix checks I do at several points in the process. I walk around from room to room and look for consistency in the mix. Its a very good test for the latter stages of the mix.

[Hades]

Do yourselves a favor and don't render your kick down to audio just because your CPU can't handle your project any more.
Do it with all the rest first and keep your kick for last (and only if you really have to)
Your kick is the heartbeat of your track, and it should be, at all times, the one element that you can always adjust/change at any given time.

And if I can add another one :
get yourselves a decent transient designer.
I just got the SPL transient designer about a year ago, and I'm totally happy with it and unfamiliar with others, though I'm sure there are many other good ones alike.
I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for ways to bring out certain elements more and make others simply groove better with the rest of the track,
and adjusting the EQ just wasn't making things work, no matter what I tried.

Yes, the "turn up the attack knob" saved my ass quite a few times,
but the "turn down the sustain" knob worked an impressive amount of other times as well.

[Dust Layer]

now I'm not sure if this has been said before or not,
but if it has (possibly even by me), I apologize upfront...

listen to your track while sitting in the next room.
(or even one floor down or up, but you might need to properly turn the volume up to do that)
the parts of the track that you really want to stick out,
are the parts you should be able to hear clear enough.
Now of course, bass will always travel way better to the next room than other sounds,
so you'll always hear your kick/sub/... more clearly than most other sounds,
try to ignore that if you can.
But if what you hear in the next room doesn't make you interested enough into hearing the whole track properly,
then you might as well call it quits...

Again, this one is just a "feeling" kind of thing,
not some kind of exact science.

It works for me, but I'm by all means not saying this would work for everyone.

It would be constructive to mix your track from the next room, what do you think?
I want to mix a project in a car since a long time too, i think the result can be interesting.

[Hades]

now I'm not sure if this has been said before or not,
but if it has (possibly even by me), I apologize upfront...

listen to your track while sitting in the next room.
(or even one floor down or up, but you might need to properly turn the volume up to do that)
the parts of the track that you really want to stick out,
are the parts you should be able to hear clear enough.
Now of course, bass will always travel way better to the next room than other sounds,
so you'll always hear your kick/sub/... more clearly than most other sounds,
try to ignore that if you can.
But if what you hear in the next room doesn't make you interested enough into hearing the whole track properly,
then you might as well call it quits...

Again, this one is just a "feeling" kind of thing,
not some kind of exact science.

It works for me, but I'm by all means not saying this would work for everyone.

It would be constructive to mix your track from the next room, what do you think?
I want to mix a project in a car since a long time too, i think the result can be interesting.

the car thing might have its advantages, but I seriously doubt mixing a whole track from the next room would.
you just don't hear enough details to do a thing like that.
wouldn't work for me anyway.

[Dust Layer]

the car thing might have its advantages, but I seriously doubt mixing a whole track from the next room would.
you just don't hear enough details to do a thing like that.
wouldn't work for me anyway.

Well not doing the whole mix from the next room of course but adjusting it at a certain point?
For the car idea it could be helpful i think yes, will try one day.

[Merah]

When mixing in headphones, set a consistent level, not too loud. Imagine your playing a live jam in front of friends, in some kind of space.

[Merah]

Work quickly

[Hades]

Work quickly

owwwwwww,
how I only wish I could do that.

the creative process always goes quick with me,
but then if I decide to finish it...

[Merah]

Work quickly

owwwwwww,
how I only wish I could do that.

the creative process always goes quick with me,
but then if I decide to finish it...

If you have the time, why not try finish it in one go? I can find it hard to work quickly, but it stops you from getting stuck in the details too much.

[Alume]

A way to keep your shit clean:


If you have the problem of stacked up projects, take the time of going through them. Bounce out the clips with potential to build up a library and delete the project that you've cleaned out.



If you make a habit out of this you find that the only projects that are around are actually worth making a track of and as a bonus your library of loops and clips will grow as well.