When you write a song, do you more often make beats first or melodies first?

I know that this poll can be Not Applicable a lot of times to a lot of people on here, but in general, when you are approaching a new song in your head, are you thinking more often about the beats or the melody first? I think I'm a beat-centric producer but when I make beats first the melody tends to be lacking and mixed down too softly for whatever reason, because I just want to hear those beats. When I force myself to write melodies first, the song tends to get better feedback from people, and the beats ended up being more of a supporting roll and taking wayyyy less time to make. So in short, I most often make beats first, but my better songs are always the ones where I made the melodies first.

For the sake of academics, here is a song for which I recorded all of the melody first, like an acapella. Then I pasted in the percussion. Song literally took me a day, maybe two to make. The response to it was generally pretty good.

http://soundcloud.com/futonic/mtk180-beak-03-bugg-ride

On the other hand, I did all the beats for this song first. Just worked through each measure painstakingly tweaking and cutting and pasting. The melody was secondary... and based on the feedback that I got or didn't get, it seemed kind of like a flop. It took me about a month to make, which is more standard for how I work, and incidentally was the last original song I made as Beak.

http://soundcloud.com/futonic/05-essines-hair

Generally for electronic stuff I get the atmosphere (synth patches, weird noises, effects) or the over-all emotion (tuning, chord progression, tempo) down first. I don't really differentiate much between melodic lines & beats because I usually try to put rhythm in the the former & a specific pitch in the latter.

For non-electronic stuff I usually just improvise.

I definitely start with melodies first 90% of the time.

However, often as a stress release I'll work on just drums, but these songs never typically manifest into anything, rather minute long drumcapellas.

These times I start with the beat because I already have the melody idea in my head and it's good to get the basic backing beat over with, but over the course of my music endeavours I've started with the melodies 99% of the time.

I never think about this when I sit down and I'm afraid that if I start doing this there will be all these weird thoughts going through my head that don't have anything to do with making a track. I dunno I just start laying down the first thing that's interesting to me and go from there.

I put melodies, because I'm all about the melody, but to be honest I think usually I make the beat and melody separately, and then combine them at some later date when I realize they'd go well together.

It's about half and half for me. Of the 2 tracks you posted, essines's hair is mo bettuh. The 1st one didn't really hold my interest as well, despite still being decent. Since it seems you seem to have figured yourself out to an extent, you more or less know what you have to do. You said you're beat centric, so if I were you, I'd start a beat centric song, then when it comes melody time, don't half step man, turn off the drums for a bit and know that with good mixing, you can have the 2 ideologies meet in the middle. Look less at what you've done in the past, and concentrate on how you'd like to sound. It sounds trite, but I think it's true to an extent.

As far as myself, I do both. Sometimes I get a new vst or something, and when I try it out, I'll be fiddling with the keyboard and come up with either a chord progression or melody that I like, and boom, it's the start of something. Other times, I'll have collected some drum hits that I've made, and I'll load them up into battery or whatever, and the percussion takes precedence during the early stage of song writing. Every track is different. Using ableton live could be an advantage for you, since with its session view, you can "jam" out your patterns, so you can try different arrangements on the fly.

yep , a basic beat

i agree with the first post but would add that often (a long time ago) i would come up with melodic parts and basslines first - then program the whole drum track (with an overall arrangement in mind) then record the rest of the tracks along to the drum track... so starting with a drum track but keeping in mind the melodic bits which preceded it and how they wil fit over it has been very "succesful" for me. though i probaby haven't really done this since i started using a computer and not having to draw out song maps and individual track parts in a notebook first (rather like zoe b's steppingfilter 101 diagram in the analord thread)

for what it's worth - buggy ride is my favourite beak song

Pretty much completely agree with sneaksta's thoughts on your tracks. They're both well done but the changes in the second track definitely keeps me more interested throughout.

I also used to start off with just melodies, or just a beat. These days I guess I kind of mix it up a lot, one or the other.. Often it's a matter of limitations, it might take most of my cpu and/or available inputs to work on one or the other (software/outboard).. However sometimes I like to build beats and melodies around each other, start with a simple melody and simple rhythm on 2-3 tracks right from the get go and play with how they relate to each other, see where my ears lead me.. then go from there.

These days I tend to play a lot with pitched percussion, anything from tonal kick drums to metallic percussion, or synth stabs in place of percussion, so I'm not sure where that fits in. I'm typically more beat and texture oriented, left to my own devices.

I use psycho-acoustics first

get outta here u friggin troller

my opinion is that i dont start with melodies OR beats first i start with a sound and then i make it into whatever it wants to be made into and some times ill start with a melodic sound that ends up being rhymatic or ill start with a sound that ends up being melodic or what ever it doesnt make a difference

its not about where u start or where u journey its about the destination okay , and the journey a little bit but still makin music should be a un expected adventure and u should be able to go whatever direction u want instead of just thinkin about MELODIES and BEATS i mean come on u guys its 2012 get used to it we are in the future we dont need to hold on to these old ways

thanks for reading my post have a nice day

  On 12/15/2011 at 11:38 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

get outta here u friggin troller

Oh Max, don't hate cause you aint.

Chord progressions usually come first for this here princess. Then a beat, then melody.

Related idea - post a finished track along with the initial sketch/oldest version you have of it. For example:

http://tindeck.com/listen/kcqi - version saved after ~30 minutes work.

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/indigo-eye-beams

^Version after adding/removing bits off & on for a couple of weeks

edit - wait, we may have had a thread specifically for that. If so SORRY YOU GUYS

melodies, with a simple beat. There's always an interplay though. each feeding the other. And once you get deeper into building the track, this only increases.

  On 12/15/2011 at 2:20 PM, delet... said:

There's always an interplay though. each feeding the other. And once you get deeper into building the track, this only increases.

Yeah, I think a lot of people who never finish tracks don't get that. You need to get some mediocre/decent bits down first to act as a bedrock for the big stuff. If you try to make a really fancy melody or something right off the bat, a lot of times it seems like nothing you add to it after really fits.

Chord progressions & synth patches are kinda like that, I guess. They set the mood of the track & give a framework to go off of without painting you into a corner.

I write the Grammy Awards thank you speech first.

I start a track by letting my cat walk on the keyboard. Then I build a rhythm off of that.

no you don't

  On 12/15/2011 at 2:25 PM, psn said:

I write the Grammy Awards thank you speech first.

Crikey, you're on fire today.

Beak fuckin wails, and I definitely like essines' hair better out of those 2. Maybe that's because I'm more beat-centric as well.

Nowadays I almost always start by jamming out beats in Max. Usually these have some pitch content, especially the synthesized drum sounds, and whatever tone(s) are suggested by the beat become the root of the melody.

Also I like to listen for the gesture a beat is making and try to match that gesture with a melody. Not necessarily matching the tone, but more the velocity and direction.

Beats almost every time. I mean I need some kind of rhythm to get the tempo to record my chords and stuff. Anyway often it happens that in the end the original beat is gone completeley.

i made a 350 track shufflemode playlist for xmas day today. buggy ride came on first. people asked "what is this?". everybody loved it.