• Author / Uploaded
• EdwinMendozaG

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Part I: Producing Multiband compression ⁃ Combining with reverb and delay ⁃ Band-specific sidechain compression to avoid clashing ⁃ Compression ⁃ Basic taming on synths via compressors like C-3A, bouncing out tracks to see if they are tamed ⁃ Making kicks pop more with parallel compression ⁃ Sidechain compression ⁃ Using LFO Tool / Volume Shaper on synths ⁃ Doing 4/4 sidechain even when it the song is half-time ⁃ Upward compression to make synths’ attack stronger ⁃ Kick and Bass ⁃ The relationship of these two has a great impact on whether the song grooves correctly ⁃ EQ ⁃ Finding a good EQ for different purposes such as ⁃ Equality for opening high frequencies ⁃ Pro-Q 2 for almost everything else, ⁃

using its piano roll for tonal EQing; mid-side processing; and lastly, its linear phase ability. ⁃ Middle and side ⁃ Keeping a good mono translation by adjusting oscillators and being careful with processing ⁃ Creating more width using MSED and processing the sides separately ⁃ Creating width with Vitalizer and Ozone Imaging ⁃ Reverb & Delay ⁃ Putting these effects on a bus to process them in isolation ⁃ Timing for impact and movement ⁃ It’s important that synths, piano, etc. line up and that their timing is not tainted by processing for IMPACT ⁃ It is useful sometimes to add reversed chops of the synths / synth reverb to create MOVEMENT ⁃ It is often very useful to pitch bend your bass for movement ⁃ Imperfect drums are great for MOVEMENT (e.g. pre-shifted claps and top loops) ⁃ All of these things are important so that your melodies are EXPRESSIVE

Part II: Making good songs ⁃ Songs should tell a story ⁃ Music is story telling just like the movies and theatre ⁃ Much “EDM” music will not stand the test of time because it is made for live utility rather than for the soul ⁃ The soul listens best when being spoken to by a person ⁃ How do you make electronic music feel like a person is inside? How do you make it human? ⁃ Real instruments ⁃ Kontakt and EW Play (EW Play has a subscription service that’s legal, cheap) ⁃ They are more difficult to fit into dance music, but worth it ⁃ When necessary (almost always) you must compensate for: ⁃ Their relaxed timing - by printing the audio and shifting or using negative track delay

Their volume inconsistency - by using compression, limiting and sometimes compressing their left and right channels separately ⁃ Their lack of presence - by EQ’ing them and removing their reverb and replacing it with your own ⁃ Key switches ⁃ Key switches are notes you can add via MIDI in the lowest octaves (e.g. C0, D#0, etc). They don’t make any noise but they tell the instrument to switch to a different style. ⁃ For instance, maybe you want a violin to play 4 drawn out notes and then some staccato notes, like “Tremor” ⁃ Some keyswitch when velocity is maxed ⁃ Real melodies ⁃ Human musicians have a beauty to their play, which can get lost when using MIDI. You can get it back by using: ⁃ Different velocities - real musicians don’t hit every note with the same velocity ⁃ Pitch bends - real musicians are expressive through detuning and ⁃

vibrato, like with the Duduk ⁃ Chord theory ⁃ Get out of your usual cycle of chords by stealing chords - Secrets chords were from Heads Will Roll ⁃ The V always gets you back home ⁃ Vocals ⁃ The most obvious way to humanize music is through vocals, though getting a good toppling can be hard ⁃ Vocal chops are an easy way to humanize it, and I really recommend building a stash of vocals ⁃ EDM Voices by Nexus is really useful ⁃ Synths ⁃ Of course, synths are necessary as well to make a track sound big ⁃ IMO, presets are fine. Many times, they are just a tool to enhance the track. When you need a supersaw just grab one ⁃ Finally, good melodies ⁃ The goal, ultimately, is using all these tools to make good melodies that are expressive and sound the way they do in your head ⁃ Literally nothing matters except that you end up first with melodies, and then

ultimately a song that makes you feel something ⁃ This means using the right expression (pitch bend, velocity, etc) to give the melody the groove and drama it deserves ⁃ Layout ⁃ The layout of your song tells the complete story ⁃ A hard hitting drop is like the climax of the movie, and a climax of the movie feels so much more important when the rest of the film has set it up right ⁃ When all of these elements come together, you tell and a story and your music will have a soul

⁃ Part III: Artist / Success ⁃ Why I got into dance music ⁃ I think many people looked at dance music as an easy in ⁃ I actually felt like there were a lot of

things missing ⁃ Creating what you feel like is missing is the key ⁃ Honesty is the most important thing ⁃ I realized I wasn’t good at being a social media hype man ⁃ Social media is still important but you have to use it in a way that is honest, so you can do it sustainably ⁃ Bill Clinton - so long as you’re honest, people will forgive your mistakes ⁃ Individuality ⁃ When you’re first getting started, it’s like your playing music out of a laptop while the other guys have the studio speakers ⁃ You can’t get big just producing tropical house better than everyone else, etc ⁃ It is much better to be a “just ok” producer with a style of his own, using weird sounds, than an amazing producer who just kind of recreates what’s going on in dance music (I know lots of these) ⁃ Being palatable ⁃ I highly recommend against being an artist that is “for everybody” ⁃ Your favorite artists didn’t write lyrics by taking a survey asking people what the

next line should be ⁃ Being artist is not about figuring out what other people like, it’s an internal thing. It’s about gaining an understanding of what you like, what your tastes are, how to present that to the world in a way that hasn’t been broken down by the inevitable lack of success we all face early on ⁃ Mistakes can be good ⁃ Keeping one close friend around can be helpful, to tell you when an error you made actually sounds good ⁃ These mistakes can result in a unique sound - that makes you special ⁃ Basic philosophy ⁃ Bad: not attempting to do difficult things and keeping people around who tell you they sound good ⁃ Good: attempting to do difficult things and appreciating people’s criticism so that you are forced to make them better