What are your best & worst music skills?

I'm fucking shit at making kind of, happy - good melodies (think, chemical brothers - star guitar or some 'tacky' house)

However, I think I'm not too bad at doing sound quality, making unique sounds, drum tracks.

I'd love to know if there's any helpful tips you guys have towards the melody making side of things. I can make not too bad melodies, don't get me wrong but I want to make kind of, housy/pop orientated melodies that stick in your mind kind of thing.

So, what do you think you're bad & good at?

- Edit, some production tips from me:

If there's anything you love, or can't work how to sound like it or what makes a piece of music special - download the midi files, play over and over and eventually you'll understand what make sit so special. For example, leftfield put out music on rhythm and stealth, but it's full of groove and makes you want to dance because their production focuses on percussion a lot.. and I'm talking very subtle percussion in the mastering.

- You can download as many mastering books as you want to get better at it.. It's always a good idea to find out what instruments should be where in the frequency range to help seperate them (e.g. vocals, drums, hi hats etc)

For me, when doing a melody - I am usually far better at composing with midi notes - I'm actually pants when it comes to putting it out on the keyboard.

I think you mean mixing not mastering.

  scones to die for said:

I think you mean mixing not mastering.

Do you have anything to add to the discussion or just pointing out some inaccuracies?

  joshier said:

  scones to die for said:

I think you mean mixing not mastering.

Do you have anything to add to the discussion or just pointing out some inaccuracies?

Well one of his best skills is obviously correcting musical production nomenclature

i'm not that skilled at rhythm but most tracks i make have a funk rhythm to them which is good.

i love make harmonies, even if the melodies themselves aren't amazing

i'm quite good at writing daft patterns

going silly in the edits

mashing the stupid noises together

but i'm well shit at getting all those noises sounding great and professional like

i wish i had an anal partner who was all about the killer production

and i suck at bass

best:

- good at programming most anything (synths melodies drums software people)

- solid songwriting abilities

worst:

- even if i knew how to mix/master properly i'd probably be too lazy

- i don't finish stuff much

Good:

Melodies & Crazy Beats

Bad:

Standard Danceable 4/4 Beats, Punchy Basslines, Making Songs Under 7 Minutes

Best:

- Fairly good at programming in piano roll.

- I think I am good with mixing and EQing a bit.

- I like my melodies a lot.

- Fairly good with drum machine programming.

- I think I can dabble in a few different genres quite efficiently.

- I can use and splice samples in unique and creative ways

- I can make nice Synth patches.

- I can make catchy stuff.

- I think I use the stereo space nicely

Worst:

- I don't finish enough of my ideas, which I know have potential.

- I don't have a lot of confidence in my music, and tend to compare myself to my "idols" and then feel even more shit.

- I need to break out of the loop and copy and paste syndrome, I've been trying harder lately.

- I have problems fleshing out things which would rock if I could make them into songs.

- Writing awesome keyboard solos.

- Making the song hold ones attention by adding non repeating bits that are awesome and make the song feel alive and flow and interesting to hear on repeated listens.

- Too much repetition in my music.

- Can't play a real instrument for shit.

/confessional

You tell me.

i wouldn't be posting my tracks here if i had any goods skills.

Worst: BEats

Best: melodies

Incredible at :

Beats Melodies Mixing Mastering Remixing Masturbation Editing Wanking Singing Music Everything Dancing Football Snooker Chuckie Egg Scrabble Sequencing Scratching DJing Music Taste Darts Pool Drinking Taking Drugs Rubbing my Balls Fingering my Anus Chess

Rubbish at :

Working Getting Money Going Out HAving Sex with a Lady

One day I wish to play "fingering my anus chess" with you, Ludd.

I just can't keep my attention span to a single song idea when playing with the tracker in LSDJ. (all I've been experimenting with the last few weeks)

  LUDD said:

Incredible at :

 

Beats Melodies Mixing Mastering Remixing Masturbation Editing Wanking Singing Music Everything Dancing Football Snooker Chuckie Egg Scrabble Sequencing Scratching DJing Music Taste Darts Pool Drinking Taking Drugs Rubbing my Balls Fingering my Anus Chess

 

 

Rubbish at :

 

Working Getting Money Going Out HAving Sex with a Lady

Let me give you an ebook on body language and you'll get more women by reading their truthful body signals.

  Glass Plate said:

I just can't keep my attention span to a single song idea when playing with the tracker in LSDJ. (all I've been experimenting with the last few weeks)

What helps me is:

Working on multiple songs, each different to your own mood.. When you're in a certain mood, you'll have the perfect song prepared to carry progress on.

I have about 3 songs.. Experimental one, a housy one and a minimal one.

  G. I. Raffe said:

Worst: BEats

Best: melodies

As I say, doing midi editing does help me get the melody down I want..

  mrx said:

i wouldn't be posting my tracks here if i had any goods skills.

It's not about good skill when it comes down to it, if you love your own track, people will find your good skills within the track.

  Spore said:

Best:- I don't finish enough of my ideas, which I know have potential.

- I don't have a lot of confidence in my music, and tend to compare myself to my "idols" and then feel even more shit.

- I need to break out of the loop and copy and paste syndrome, I've been trying harder lately.

- I have problems fleshing out things which would rock if I could make them into songs.

- Writing awesome keyboard solos.

- Making the song hold ones attention by adding non repeating bits that are awesome and make the song feel alive and flow and interesting to hear on repeated listens.

- Too much repetition in my music.

- Can't play a real instrument for shit.

 

/confessional

I think mastering an instrument is a great idea, but I think sometimes working on say, a 5 second section of a song and making it exactly how you want so it sets the precedent to do the whole song like that - is not such a bad idea.

  autopilot said:

Standard Danceable 4/4 Beats, Punchy Basslines, Making Songs Under 7 Minutes

I think anaylzing a punch bass line is best for the bad point you mentioned.

Perhaps even ripping off a track with the good punchy baseline or standard 4/4 beats.. it doesn't matter after all, along as you get used to working with it you'll eventually build up the curiosity and think 'why' it's so different to your own.

  hahathhat said:

best:

worst:

- even if i knew how to mix/master properly i'd probably be too lazy

I think if you got some good headphones or good speakers it would push you into making a better sounding song.

It's not hard to do a spot of mastering.. There's some really simple general logistics of mastering and once you have even say 3 down and under yourbelt, it vastly improves your tracks.

Tips off the top of my head:

- Never raise an instrument to be louder in an already fairly sorted mix, always try and integrate it with the other instruments better with EQ-ing and simply lowering a few other instruments volume to make the one you want to focus on having more attention.

Pretend you have a physical room in which you will fill with furniture. You wouldn't have the furniture all in one corner, much like you wouldn't have the bass + drums and other synths all clashing within the same frequency range. If you have space between each instrument/sample, you are able to make each stand out very well and you'll like your mix much more.

Don't forget you can use certain plugins to help your instrument/overall mix have a better sonic sound by adding a chorus or phaser VST onto it, or even just some simple panning.

Use your visual tools to your own aid and pop on a frequency analyser on each track to find out what frequencies its using

Use mastering PDF's to your advantage and pick one you find the most easy to understand (link)

  joshier said:

  autopilot said:

Standard Danceable 4/4 Beats, Punchy Basslines, Making Songs Under 7 Minutes

I think anaylzing a punch bass line is best for the bad point you mentioned.

 

Perhaps even ripping off a track with the good punchy baseline or standard 4/4 beats.. it doesn't matter after all, along as you get used to working with it you'll eventually build up the curiosity and think 'why' it's so different to your own.

I dunno, I just think it's not my style. At the moment I'm content making 15 minute space rock epics than adding to the internet's plethora of me-too acid clones.

Thanks for your advice tho.

I'm good at layering and writing very short (often two tones) melodies :P

I suck at deleting stuff... I just wanna get all the good stuff I come up with in that one track, which often just doesn't work out.

  acridavid said:

I suck at deleting stuff... I just wanna get all the good stuff I come up with in that one track, which often just doesn't work out.

not only am i like that in music, i am like that posting on forums... writing elsewhere... programming... my life itself...

I think I'm pretty good at coming up with melodies and beats quite quickly, but I kind of suck at expanding on them so that it doesn't look like a crazy mess, I always end up putting all kinds of bits together, which makes my tracks sound kind of random now and then lol

don't really like mastering either

I can make a good groove, but my transitions suck.

Hence the best work of mine is decent, but it goes nowhere.