Your Typical Track Layout

Just curious as to what kind of tracks your songs generally consist of. Do you use one track for drums or have the pieces on separate tracks? Do you use sends? How many things do you generally have playing at once (in a pattern of course, not on one beat)? How many percussion sounds do you use?

I'll start.

I use separate tracks for drums in Renoise and one track in Ableton (because you can use chains for effects and stuff).

Always

kick

snare

hat/cymbal(s)

bass

melody

Usually

harmony/countermelody

chords/pad

drum master (send)

another section-specific lead/bass sound or two

Sometimes

break

sample(s) (birds, doors, etc)

reverb (send)

most common:

- sometimes i do everything in cubase.

- sometimes i do most everything in cubase, but record myself playing sh101 or whatever to get some noises. 9 out of 10 times recorded dry. sometimes i will bounce a noise through hardware fx, but that's rare.

- sometimes i do a track entirely with hardware, in which i case i use anything and everything, and all the aux's i have.

- sometimes i do tracks with hardware + reaktor.

there are plenty of one-offs: for "clavinova carbomb" i spent 10 minutes abusing a piano any way i could think of. light playing, elbowing it, sliding around... recorded the midi. bounced the best bits to audio. collaged them for the effect i wanted. went offline and sampled parts from "casino" for the intro and outro. went back to cubase and massaged them in. then took all i had and arranged it into a sensible track.

Depends whether I'm writing for a pop band, or whether I'm doing mine own stuffs for fun.

Pop band, I'll do the sequencing in Reason and the live recording in Cubase (I'll be upgrading to Reason + Record soon so I can do it all in one package.)

Basic stuff:

-Sequenced drums

(if run through Cubase, I'll do kick and snares separated into different channels from the rest of the drums)

-Looped drums (sometimes)

-Bass

-Extra bass (sometimes - either sub bass range or whooping bits)

-"Wub"

-Melody line

-Counterpoint

-Accent texture

-Percussion

If recording for the pop band, will add the following, almost always double tracked in stereo (I'll usually do 3 takes of each and select the best 2)

-Lead vocals

-2 tracks for verse

-2 tracks for chorus

-Up to 3 backing/harmony vocals

-Guitars and stuff (not so much any more post wrist operation)

Always use sends. Generally set up a couple of flavours of step delay (most important!) and compression and reverb and route the signal through that. (At which point depends again on what I'm writing for - usually favour Cubase effects over Reason because they're more editable and I'm in love with the Cubase double delay)

It can get very busy very quickly but I just love a dense, dense wall of sound effect, especially on the pop stuffs.

you know that you can rewire reason into cubase right? so they stay in sync, can compose in reason in the middle of recording on cubase, control reason as a separate channel and bounce them out together or separate etc.

and you also know that Record doesn't have any VST?

Load wav files into Renoise

make some instruments that do things

make a little sequence or two

do some render to sample-ing

doors etc

call it a day after 30 minutes

ha.

ya I normally start with drums and build up from there. I don't really have any set types of instrumentation unless I'm making a track for a specific alias. Acid booty funk always has 303 808 + gnarly effects, foozle stuff always has a certain kit I built for Ultrabeat.

Also. call it a day after 30 minutes

  On 6/15/2010 at 9:01 PM, slightlydrybeans said:

call it a day after 30 minutes

O.o Yeah, I'd probably get 8-16 bars of half-baked material out in that time.

  On 6/15/2010 at 6:49 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

you know that you can rewire reason into cubase right? so they stay in sync, can compose in reason in the middle of recording on cubase, control reason as a separate channel and bounce them out together or separate etc.

 

and you also know that Record doesn't have any VST?

Yeah, I know. But my biggest problem is that I was running Cubase/Reason thing on my old Mactop, where it all worked fine. But the new Mactop simply refuses to run Cubase at all. (Yeah, it was a cracked copy, but I got a proper full demo version off a friend, and even that wouldn't load.) So I have been effectively running only Reason since I got this new computer over a year ago.

I've heard nothing but good things about Record, and I don't really use VST anyway except for a few plug-in effects. I'm happy to do all my sequencing in Reason anyway. I just want the ability to record live instruments - and more importantly vocals, vocals, and more vocals - into Reason without having to open Cubase and go through all the hassle of rewiring them together. I'm happy to sacrifice the few things that Cubase did better (like that double delay effect) for the ability to do live recording and actual audio editing in Reason using Record. I just like Propellerhead stuff.

No real order or reason, aside from I'll usually have somewhere between 6 & 15 tracks in a song (though in the days before I embraced minimalism it wasn't uncommon for me to reach 150 tracks).

  On 6/15/2010 at 9:30 PM, Masonic Boom said:

  On 6/15/2010 at 6:49 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

you know that you can rewire reason into cubase right? so they stay in sync, can compose in reason in the middle of recording on cubase, control reason as a separate channel and bounce them out together or separate etc.

 

and you also know that Record doesn't have any VST?

 

I'm happy to sacrifice the few things that Cubase did better (like that double delay effect) for the ability to do live recording and actual audio editing in Reason using Record. I just like Propellerhead stuff.

its extremely easy to make a double delay in reason or most programs for that matter, just make two delays, or two echo's and pan them hard left/hard right and change tweak em separately to your hearts delight.

I like to pretend that rewiring reason is some huge technological feat when I first told my buddies I figured out how to do but.....

To rewire reason through cubase all you have to do... dunn dunn dunnnn is.... go to the devices tab in cubase, click where it says reason, click the 1/2 out and it activates the 1/2 to out of reason into cubase as a separate channel... walla they are both synced together.. its pretty awesome and because of it I will never use record

I usually have 3-5 midi tracks with adjusted latency to trigger synths. 3-6 other tracks for vstis, samples, percussion. Once I have something decent going, then i'll open up reaper, arm a couple tracks for recording and record some sequences. Then i'll render all the tracks in renoise and import them into reaper.

A lot of workflows here which isn't exactly what I was going for, but still interesting.

I mostly just what to know what kind of pieces everyone puts in their songs and how they view them. It's a small part of my desire to open up everyone's heads and see how they work so I can decide which parts to eat to gain their strength.

i always use rhythm section, lead guitar and stevie wonder on vox.

me on clavinova.

sometimes i employ brass with a 3d micing setup.

i always call it a day after 30 minutes and compile it on floops 2.04

long boring ambient intro, swell, bring in beats, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, solo, bass solo, drum solo, handjob, verse, chorus, modulate, rinse, repeat, intro/outro/ modulation up a minor third, same chord prog, but major instead of the obvious minor, chorus, chorus, vocal break, gamelan, fade to end.

what a silly question.

(gloria gaynor on backing vox. i have her in the cupboard in my studio on standby, like, 24-7.)

1. bass

2. boom thing sound

3. weird arythmic metally grinding noise

4. rave stabs

5. vocal sample from tv recorded with shitty mic

6. crazy acid bass thats in background with highpass then filter is released to all the way open and volume envelope makes it loud and in the foreground. Faster tempo than what originally expected.

7. everything stops and quiet piano comes in, then just timestreched noise from cooledit is added in

PS I do other stuff to sometimes but this would be typical.

every song is different. The only constant is that it is MOST LIKELY going to have drums in it.

I sometimes throw in a banjo but this is my standard formula

1. Kazoo intro

2. Washboard solo

3. Triangle outro

program the 808

*patterns*

four bars per button for twelve buttons

fill 'em all up with funky patterns

basically jam on the 808 for weeks

maybe use a few patterns from last time or edit a few old patterns... some wicked effects can happen from this

then comes arrangement of the patterns, maybe some phrases already are obvious... maybe jam some other phrases... breakdowns... silence...

*track sequencing*

(old method)

then record sequence teh entire track in one go

(current method)

record 32 bar tracks into each section of the track sequencer... maybe for 4 different 32 bar tracks... then i can jam the different track sections... maybe pre record some shorter/variable phrase lengths for random breakdowns during playback of the full track... so i can basically jam on phrases... shit the 808 track sequencer kciks fucking punani... for years i was against it hehe but i was wrong

by now have a 808 track that could stand on its own as a finished song hehe

next comes the 303 to get all the iffy programmign out of the way

just jam random patterns entering differnt chords melodies or whatever then playing it against the 808 beats... feel what sounds good... use a lot of imagination during this stage as to how the song might evolve.... because the 808 phrases might be done... theres some train tracks for the 303 train to run on so you get some funky vibe off that... sometimes match the rhythms with some 808 patterns... maybe the hats or the snare drums... or whatever... on the 303 you want the same note to never sound the same twice... so a c becomes c+ or c- or accented or slided or different cutoff... to make it come alive in some 16th note madness... theres not much logic to 303 programming it:s more go with teh flow... the track sequencer is more logical and thats why i do the 808 first to amke it more musical

when the 808 and 303 is done then the bare bones of the track is there

what next is more free form here

maybe ill do a fenix 3 osc bassline and it will take a short time... now with midi it takes like 5 minutes to fill up the track but it sounds great

then onto the noise section with choice of analogue or digital or both noise... with 2 or 3 spare filters theres space for some FM madness but not always appropriate...

jump on the polysynth... before the 106, now the alpha juno... loads of spring reverb here or none at all

harmony prolly already decided on the 303 so a bit of melody jamming for a while.... this part is really easy if you have the right patch... otherwise you can spend hours on a patch and get frustrated.... if it doesnt work just leave it out

special effects

spring reverb/tape echo

tape echo might have a sh101 going through it with melody higher frequency maybe like 500 to 1000hz or even higher... maybe

at this point then you listen over the track and add some ostentatious stuff... weird bleeps noises or whatever

then the fun part is playing the track live... kicking the spring reverb... messing with the filters or envelopes... pushing the GATE buttion on the fenix to trigger the noise env... twiddling knobs on the echo box... jamming some little melody....talking crap on the microphone... switching phrase tracks on the 808... raising / lowering about 25 different volume knobs/sliders... really some quite interest effects can happen just while recording thte damn song and you try some experiment and it turns out to be a success... best thign is to record like 5 different versions of the same song... sometimes even with the same written pattern and track sequences they can end up like totally different songs. and theres about 1,000,000,000,000,000 other details that cant exactly be put into words.

oh yeahh hehe.. the alternative is to jump in front of my yamaha d65 organ that an old granny gave me for free

just turn it on, push record on the PC then just play and play for hours on all the buttons... pretty instant music right there... barely any programmnig you just make the song up as you go along... i wish i was better at playing piano because this organ smokes

one organ song is currently available in my sig below hehe

what a neat organ.

  On 6/16/2010 at 5:52 PM, sneaksta303 said:

what a neat organ.

That's what she said.

[fade in]

[pad(arp) + lead(sequenced) + Break(chopped)]

[fade out]

Seems to work.

I make a point to adjust my production method every three months, & begin utilizing a totally new process when I complete an album. Maybe after a certain number of years I'll try to totally change styles, going from electronic music to country or something.

Actually that's kind of a very good point. That if I find myself falling into patterns of *always* using certain set-ups and sounds, and I catch myself doing it, I will deliberately try to do something else, just to shake myself out of that pattern. Because it's easy to get to the point of self parody if you always go for exactly the same sounds (or even kinds of sounds.)

I've put myself on a wub-ban for a few months. And my god, I miss wub. But I'd become way too overly reliant on it.

^Yeah, lately I've been starting to feel that way about Sine/Triangle waveforms. I think I'm going to have to do a few songs with just saws & squares (or if I'm using computer synths, waves shaped like all sorts of crazy things).

Figure Eight?

*runs*