Coming Up With New Ideas (Patreon)

For some people, coming up with the foundation for their track is the most difficult part of the process. It’s not that starting tracks is necessarily difficult, but coming up with musical ideas and phrases instead of just using just your standard pad actually is! Even someone like me, I still find myself “searching” for new inspirations in the oddest of places, and I’ve learned through experience that those spaces are often the best! It’s through this process that we’re able to “dig up” those gems that we’re searching for and reach new musical horizons. The question still remains, what strategies can you develop to help you along with this process? Are some more useful than others? Is there a “go-to” secret that you can use everytime? Actually all of the above! Let’s discuss…

Learn to Love Experimentation

One of the more difficult parts of the creation process is learning to love to experiment. It’s not that experimentation is hard, but as we become better producers, we begin to condition ourselves to positive outcomes and results. Whether we’re consciously focusing on it or not, with each successful track our subconscious mind is being “programmed” by positive outcomes. Not that this is a bad thing, but when it comes to completely mangling audio - often to disastrous ends, that might end up working against us rather than for us! The key is to fall in love with the experimental phase. Learn to try new things without any care of it’s going to sound “good” or even pleasing to the ear. The truth is, filters exist for a reason. Even if something sounds aweful, you can still filter parts of it and get something totally useable. My time spent as a professional sound designer has taught me this! Learn to fall in love with just making “noise” for noise’s sake and you might even pull out some gems along the way.

Same Tool, Different Use

Another way we can start tracks is by using the same tools we usually go to, but use them in different ways that we have in the past. By doing this, we are setting ourselves up for a different and less predictable outcome that could lead to something unexpected or pleasant. For example, the other day I really needed an intro for one of my tracks so I took the plugin “Infiltrator 2” and placed it on a pad and started scrolling through the presets. I found that even though the presets I was using were for more percussive material, through a pad they sounded amazing! They were filtered in a unique way that created this unpredictable atmosphere that struck a chord and I ended up using it in my track without hesitation. It’s things like this that can really start to break us out of our conventional mindset and start moving us into new territory.

Trying New Things

When we don’t have much time to make music, the last thing you usually want to do is learn a new tool. However, sometimes this can be the best thing because tools allow us to “rewire” our brain to think differently and use audio in unique ways. One of the tools that really struck a chord with me last year was VCV Rack and it helped me think about my process completely differently. I realized I was stuck in a “linear” mindset when it came to my own productions and needed to break out and think about music more organically and more like a living “thing” rather than something that has a beginning and ending. It’s things like these that can elevate our production process and really help us see beyond what our mind tells us is possible, and brings us into a whole new world of possibility and understanding.