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go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:20 pm
by masla
hello everyone!

i use ableton live and i really think im doin some nice stuff(clips / ideas etc) in session view. But my biggest problem with my musicmaking is to make a whole finish song. I just sitting around playing with some ideas, clips and making drums / loops and synth riffs,fx etc and whats not. but it stays there. :roll: I can hear that it could be a realy nice song if i just come together in my head to arrange the clips and do all automation etc. to the arrangement view and finialy a finish song. Anyone out there understand my problem ? and got some tips or comments on this matter??

best regards!!/ Dopek Maslanka

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:38 pm
by Mslwte
you have to dive in. throw stuff down. keep repeating. force it a bit ;)

you might not make something you are happy with first time but you will get better the more times you do it.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:04 pm
by Esh
Session view is great for throwing down ideas. But it can lock you into a certain mentality which leads to a lot of unfinished tracks.....loops basically.

I tend to record from session view into arrangement and then I listen in arrangement view and find sections that i like. Turn them into scenes. Then re-records from session to arrangement

I try and avoid manually placing things in arrangement view as I find everything I do becomes predictable. Which means shit. Which means another unfinished project

key word: balance

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:12 pm
by disparate
What both the people above said is true and how I work in Ableton.

Yours is an extremely common problem for electronic music makers, especially those using computer software, and most of us would probably agree that getting a structure together is one of the less fun parts of production. Just gotta force yourself to get your head down and do it really! Maybe spend some time studying the structures of music that you like/that inspires you to get ideas of how they tend to be constructed.

Forcing yourself to finish tracks is great, if you're a serial loop maker it means you get pushed out of your comfort zone and inevitably come up with some ideas for the track that you wouldn't have thought of just staying in the 8 bars. Also you get more practice of arrangement and mixdowns which can't be a bad thing...

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:29 pm
by msl
You need to flesh out a rough arrangement quickly, while your still in the vibe. So just get into the habit otherwise you'll be stuck in loop mode forever. You just have to force yourself, no other way.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:43 pm
by SigEnt
msl wrote:You need to flesh out a rough arrangement quickly, while your still in the vibe. So just get into the habit otherwise you'll be stuck in loop mode forever. You just have to force yourself, no other way.
I wish I had took this advice a long time ago, I suffer for the "stuck in clean loop mentality" the problem is that I run out of time and steam and patience quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love messing about with this stuff but the end result is folders full of 40 second track ideas that I never want to hear again, let alone develop.

I think you have to get something going quickly in arrangement view and start thinking about how the track is gonna evolve and try and vibe off that, come back later when to have something that can run through (with changes) for about 3 mins that doesn't piss you off.

You can always return to it later to dick around with EQ, tweak FX and such like.

I have two tracks I have used this method with lately and I was surprised when I fired them up yesterday, I do want to finish them.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:44 pm
by Lost to the Void
Hit record, jam out in session view, fine tune in arrangement.

Play and perform your tune, rather than lay it out on a timeline, you get a much better feel for it.
This is the essence of ableton for me.
In fact i just had someone in the studio today, a lifetime cubase user, he was in for an ableton beginners lesson, the idea of jamming out his tunes got him very excited.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:01 pm
by ashley BORG
Lost to the Void wrote:Hit record, jam out in session view, fine tune in arrangement.

Play and perform your tune, rather than lay it out on a timeline, you get a much better feel for it.
This is the essence of ableton for me.
In fact i just had someone in the studio today, a lifetime cubase user, he was in for an ableton beginners lesson, the idea of jamming out his tunes got him very excited.

Agreed, my controller was on the blink for about 2 months before I replaced it at Xmas. It was painful going back to using the mouse!
Much happier with my new controller and jamming. Although did get myself stuff in serious Loop zone for the Xmas holiday and the first couple of weeks of Jan.
I think it was because I was trying to learn to much, and work out how best to configure the controller, and new plug ins, etc...

I dunno if I'm out of it. But what I've done is set myself the challenge of making something which is over 4mins long over the course of the weekend (6 hours max in my case).
Then upload it on here and let the bastards rip it to shreds :D

Last weekend I was too pissed to get any productive results out, but I'm taking a very cutthroat approach if I can't get decent sound design done by Saturday morning, and then arranged by Sunday morning, it get's trashed!
This helps for me because I know I can get too precious about stuff, and at this moment in my music education only "finishing" things will improve me

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:42 pm
by Planar
Jamming it live and editing it after is definitely the way forwards, a pad controller like an APC40 makes this more tactile and sometimes a mistake can sound really good. Experiment with the trigger quantisation of each clip and experiment with legato triggering and follow actions. Turn the screen off while you do this. Basically make it fun. Once you have something you like you can go in and perfect it in arrangement view. I tend to find when I do this I only jam out 3 or 4 minutes and tend to work around a breakdown section, once that's nailed I add an intro/outro for the DJ's.

It also helps me to break the track up into sections in my head and then make a scene for each section, I find this helps avoid only adding a single element every couple of bars in a predictable way. I don't go overboard, only 3 or 4 scenes with extra clips for variations below these. Often this leaves editing a subtractive process, which is easier than adding new stuff.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 10:42 pm
by Críoch
No need for a midi controller. Map scenes to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 - ghetto style haha.

Do multiple passes, tapping the up/down arrow keys. Jobs a good un, innit?

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 10:58 pm
by ashley BORG
ICN wrote:No need for a midi controller. Map scenes to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 - ghetto style haha.

Do multiple passes, tapping the up/down arrow keys. Jobs a good un, innit?

Fuck that!

:lol:

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:05 pm
by jordanneke
I never 'jam'.

I am a lot more methodical in my approach (probably cos I studied Chem at uni and am a chem teacher as my day job).

I won't detail my method because it's probably not interesting to anyone, besides I'm not excatly a techno powerhouse!.. anyway, it kinda works for me.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:10 pm
by rktic
Lost to the Void wrote:Hit record, jam out in session view, fine tune in arrangement.
Wildpitch, baby!!!
Way to go. 10 times faster than trying to imitate your personal flow by moving around blocks. Techno is spontaneous, the session view captures exactly that. Arrangement tends to make people overthink their stuff.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:51 pm
by Ttinga
jordanneke wrote:I never 'jam'.

I am a lot more methodical in my approach (probably cos I studied Chem at uni and am a chem teacher as my day job).

I won't detail my method because it's probably not interesting to anyone, besides I'm not excatly a techno powerhouse!.. anyway, it kinda works for me.
I'm the same way. Every once in a while I will try to tweak some knobs on my controller or something but I always come back to the mouse. I think I'm just lazy because for me it's more work to set up a system for jamming than it is to just drop the clips, notes, etc. in with a mouse.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:12 am
by Liquidbass
all I can say is to just throw yourself or if need Force yourself to sketch an outline. You don't need to make everything perfect, but just enough to make it more fun and enjoyable!

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 5:08 am
by Senko
It's the fear of failure. Every producer goes through it, and gets better because of it. It's just another stepping stone to get across, but a big one at that. You just have to treat every track like it's not the last.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:29 am
by UN!T
Basically all of the stuff I am doing is jamming out with my gear and record to audio straight away. I'll create a linear arrangement on my sequencer and then fuck that up as it plays along doing whatever I see fit at the moment. Never the same twice. Always fun.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 8:19 am
by Mslwte
Something I do (because I use bits of hardware) is record audio. 1 or 2 takes, but I'll record about 10 mins of me messing about. Then I'll chop and change sections and maybe process the audio more.

Track finished.

The key is to be happy with the initial groove and loop. I spend most of my time on that.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 12:20 pm
by ashley BORG
Further to all of this, I heard an interview with the Ableton lot who said they wanted to change the position in which people made music with Push. E.g. not looking at the screen and standing up.

I tried this last night. About an hour of jamming standing up. It actually felt really different from sitting down. Less like my job but using different software.
Sat down once I had a tea break but had the basis of the groove down.

It's quite good my controller is so big. I need to position it just off from the main working area which means I can't play the full range of keys sitting down.

Defo found what I started last night was more organic than if I'd sat clicking the mouse. I've generally been to lazy/conscious of crap keyboard playing meaning I've generally stuck to using my mouse and drawing things in.
Slowly getting myself out of that.

Re: go into arrangement!

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:33 pm
by Críoch
Yeah, standing up is the new sitting down.

I'm taking the piss, but I completely agree btw. Moving around a bit / being active makes a big difference & is a lot more fun 4 free tekno innit m8s :mrgreen: