Tip of the Day: How to get out of the Loop - 3 practical Tips
For most producers, musicians or beat makers creativity or coming up with ideas is no problem – but putting them in the right order in the right proportions can be sometimes.
Here are 3 easy and very practical tips:
Tip 1: create change
Duplicate the initial idea a number of times, so that you have lets say 4 identical copies. Edit the first duplicate until you have made one meaningful change, like modifying the lead sound. Now go to the next loop and change something else – this time we mute most of the tracks, to create a break part.
The next loop will be armed with a snare roll, to have the right material for a build up. In this loop we change the harmonies for a possible bridge.
You get the point – by moving forward loop by loop in a very playful way, you find enough material to arrange your complete track.
Tip 2: create patterns
Take your 4 or 8 bar loop and duplicate it once. Then apply a major change on one or two elements. Maybe change the sound of the pads together with the harmonies.
Then duplicate this modified loop and apply another change.
This time you could go for the rhythm, by leaving only the top loop active and mute our kick. The next loop will build up tension, by repeating one part of the melody and a swoosh effect made with white noise rising up. By applying change by change, you organically evolve your ideas and end up with a coherent change.
Tip 3: substraction
Arranging as a subtractive process - if the traditional arranging workflow is analogous to painting, the subtractive workflow is analogous to sculpting. Duplicate your 8 bar loop across the whole timeline. Now start to shape your song by deleting elements.
You can start doing this eratically and will figure out for every track, what is working and what just does not sound right.
Keywords:
Sound Design, How to create unique sounds, Learn Music Production, Improve Productivity, How to overcome Writers Block, Songwriting, How to write Songs, Arrangement, Arranging Songs