My Favorite Producer “Hacks” (Patreon)

As producers, we all have similar goals. Whether it’s producing just one track, or a full album, or something in between, there are certain milestones in music production that we’re all trying to reach. Along my journey with ambient over the past 12 years, there have been several things along the way which have accelerated my progress, so much so that you might even call them “hacks” for getting results faster than not using them at all. Some of these were discovered accidentally, and some of them were intentional that were only achieved through trial and error and a willingness to “figure it out.” After all, we all know that when you’re on your own you’re going to reach for any and every advantage you can to help you reach the desired destination.

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When I was first starting out, one of the most elusive parts of producing that I was desperate to figure out was “glitch” percussion - I spent years researching where it came from, how it was made, sequenced, you name it - a lot of time spent researching this very specific aspect that I felt was important to my sound. It wasn’t until I started diving into sound design, on a professional level that I realized that any sound, no matter how small or minute can be synthesized if you use the right tools and waveforms! That’s when I learned how to “synthesize” my own glitch percussion and it became impossibly easy to produce my own glitch percussion sounds from scratch.

Hack #1: Synthesize your own glitch percussion

Use a wavetable synthesizer (Vital, Serum, Surge XT, etc) and utilize the random functions or random LFOs on the envelope decay, wavetable position, spectral distortion modes, filter position, downsample, bitcrush or any other parts of the synth that would make an impact on an extremely short waveform. Draw in 8-16 1/4 notes it a MIDI clip and press play. Notice how each hit sounds different or has a different timbre than the one before it. If you record these samples you are essentially building your own “kit” and can how use this in any drum sampler of your choice! I use Ableton’s Drum rack, but anything that holds multiple samples will do (Bitwig, Kontakt, Microtonic, etc.)

Another elusive aspect of music production was the “extra sounds” or detailed sounds that usually go at the beginning and end of a track. In film they call them “foley” or sounds that are either sound effects or part of the environment itself. This was a point of frustration as I was always searching for samples to use in this situation but in an electronic music track, often times samples can sound unnatural and have too much of a juxtaposition to the electronic nature of the sound itself. It wasn’t until I really learned to “let go” and just create these sounds from scratch that I was able to embrace the process rather than dreading it.

Hack #2: Create your own sounds from scratch

I recently came across a little plugin called the “Rolling Sampler” which is a very simple little plugin that does a whole lot. Keep in mind you don’t need this plugin for this hack, but it is very convenient. What the rolling sampler does is continually “record” whatever sound source, or track you have it attached to. Not only this, but it records to RAM rather than taking up space on your hard drive! Magic, right? What would you do with this? Let me tell you. Say for example you place the Rolling sampler on your Master Track and go into a sound design session playing with sounds. Every sound that you make during that session is going to be recorded, as long as the rolling sampler is “rolling.” This allows you to process and design sounds with ease without fearing that the moment will be lost. You can even add effects and those will be recorded too, as long as it’s at the end of your chain! Twist knobs, explore new textures, try adding 5-10 plugins on a track and go crazy. If you have any of those “a ha!” moments then all you need to do is roll back the playhead of the rolling sampler and chop out and slice that part to track. Nothing is lost, everything is saved and you can choose the best parts of your experimental sound design session and build a library of unique sounds all on your own. Neat huh? So you see, there’s always more than one way to do something, and it’s hacks like this that not only enhance our workflow and productivity, but they accelerate our progress and allow us to get more done in a short amount of time.

What are your favorite producer hacks? Do you have something that you learned along the way that saves you a ton of time and you wish you knew earlier? Let me know in the comments below!