Welcome to Day 3 of my 30 Day Journal experiment. In this Video I was a victim to murphy’s Law and lost the whole video and had to redo it. Luckily I was able to redo it without too much trouble. This video finds me making a new melody part, constructing the loops into scenes, creating a sidechain track and beginning the song arrangement process.

Be aware that due to the volume of video material I’ve recorded (20 or more hours), there are no zooms or tricky video effects. I am also aware that there may be some imperfections & volumes may fluctuate with my voice from video to video. In this case I’m going for a wealth of content instead of perfection. It is recommended that you enlarge this video to fullscreen for best results. Enjoy and please share this with your friends through word of mouth, email, Twitter & Facebook. I’d like to share this free content with as many people as possible for the next 30 days. Understand that each video will only be available to stream for 48 hours or until the next video goes up. If you miss a video, the previous day’s Video/s will be at the end of this blog.

For those who are interested, I will be making all the songfiles, samples and final mixes of the songs available immediately if you decide to  Advance order this full collection   (you’ll need version 8.1.3). I will want to do some final work on these videos before sending them out. The full collection will likely be priced somewhere between $59-$79 but will be drastically reduced during the next 30 days.

I’ll also have all my collections available at a 20% discount through the duration of this Video Journal. Just use the discount code: 30DayDisc

* The comment section of my site is screwy at the moment but feel free to email me at MusicSoftwareTraining@gmail.com if you like.

I hope you enjoy this 30 day experiement. Happy Music Making

Jason

30 Day Music Production Video

If you've ever wanted to look over my shoulder while I make songs, THIS is the collection for you! In this collection you get me producing 2 full songs and a DJ mix from start to finish over a 30 day period. I take you through the good the bad and the ugly. It's the most honest video collection I've ever made. It includes every Ableton songfile for each day, every sample used and about 20 hours of Video. It also includes mixdowns of the 2 completed songs and DJ Mix.

Ultimate Ableton Collection 1

A must for anyone new to Ableton or wanting to dive deeper into the depth of this program. Over 4 hours of the most in depth yet easy to follow tutorials on the market!

Ultimate Ableton Collection 2

This collection makes an incredible companion to the first collection and gets into the newest features in Ableton. There are also 20 professional custom drum kits and a full Drum Racks replication of Roland's famous R-70 drum machine.

Advanced Warping Collection

This collection is a must for DJ's and remixers! If you find yourself warping full songs on a regular basis, you are going to run into warping issues that can really bring your production to a halt. These simple secrets will get you past that with ease and back to doing what you do best.

Dj'ing and Performance Collection

A must for anyone wanting to DJ or perform live in Ableton. Includes 17 in-depth Videos on Warping, Organizing files, Setting up midi controllers (including APC40) and lots more! As a Free bonus, it also includes my Ebook "Mixing with your Mind - Make your best DJ Mix".

Ableton Remixing Walkthrough

For those who want to see exactly how I approach a remix. From editing the original sounds, to dropping them into Ableton and building ideas. Then adding to these ideas to compliment the original material and finally working it all into a song. All edits, effect settings, automation, and arranging procedure is included in the information packed video collection.

Producer's Deluxe Collection

Get all 3 of my full video Collections (Ultimate Collections 1 and 2 and Advanced Warping Collection) Producers Deluxe Collection

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My 30 day video producing Journal

For those of you who are following me on Twitter over the last 30 days, you may have seen me tweet about an experiment I started on the 1st of August.  This idea has been running through my head all year and I kept putting it off because I was honestly a bit afraid of embarrassing myself publicly by agreeing to let you watch my songwriting process for 30 days straight.

One major hurdle was the fact that I have never produced music everyday for this length of time and wasn’t sure what the outcome would be if I forced myself to create when I wasn’t particularly inspired. Would inspiration show up or would I be left showing you 30 days worth of “go nowhere” ideas? That can’t be good for anyone’s ego.  :-)

Another fear was that you might not learn much from this process. I don’t purposely do complex things just for the sake of it, so most of my process is experimenting with layers of simple ideas until I find something that works. I didn’t want you watching me use the same techniques over and over and thinking “I thought he was gonna show me some crazy stuff” and being disappointed.

Then I had a thought…..

These excuses were the exact reason nobody else has done something like this before and if that’s the case, this must be common with most everyone that creates. Maybe by showing my strengths and weaknesses I might be able to pull others outside of their comfort zone. Maybe this will show you some of the essential things to learn instead of you feeling like you have to know everything before allowing yourself to start.

Through this process I’ve been motivated, unmotivated, grumpy, anxious, unorganized, inspired, bored, confused and slightly embarrassed at times. Despite all that I was able to complete 2 songs & a DJ mix I am pretty happy with. That has got to count for something. I’ve also become that much better at fighting through resistance and getting to the other side. I may talk more specifically about my struggles as I share this 30 day process. If I can create in the state of mind I was in on some days, you definitely can too!

So here’s how this is going to work…

At some point soon I will be posting 1 video on my blog a day for 30 days. Almost all the videos are 30 minutes of longer, while some are well over an hour. Each day 1 video will be up to watch for free for 24 hours (or until the next video takes it’s place). So for 30 days you will have a new video to watch. I’ve edited the videos a bit to keep them more focused so you don’t watch me go off on tangents that are unnecessary. You will however see me do some things that don’t get used at all in the final process. I figured it was important to include that so you can pretty much watch the whole creative process.

For those who find value in this collection, I will later make it available if you want to purchase it. It will include all the samples used and all the Ableton song files from each day as well as the 2 completed songs and DJ mix (obviously seperated tracks from my DJ mix will not be included).

Don’t call this a tutorial

Although there is alot to learn from this collection of videos, it was put together without any planning and therefore is not like any other collection I have made. This isn’t a “how to make a (choose your style) song” but rather an relatively honest approach to some ways I approach making music.  I do however limit myself to just Ableton’s internal effects and instruments. These limitations take me outside my comfort zone which I thought was a good challenge. I wanted to be working with tools that all Ableton users have access to so everyone can not only follow along but stop thinking they need more stuff before they can start creating professional sounding music. In another track I built the song just using samples and internal effects. I also go through the process of preparing a song to play live in Ableton and build a DJ mix.  Do to the 20ish hours of footage, I haven’t done the type of editing I usually do. Sometimes you’ll find me in the “zone” and I stop talking about what I’m doing and I just DO, although I try my best to fill you in or why I’m doing what I’m doing and what I am thinking at the time.

I hope this lets some of you inside my head creatively and shows you some building blocks, techniques and tools that you can apply to your work. I certainly didn’t invent any of the techniques, so it’s only fair that I pass along what I know so you can take it and figure out a way to do it better. … Then I can learn from you  :-)

Keep your eye on this blog and make sure to follow me on Twitter if you want up to the moment updates.

Til then,

Happy Music Making,

Jason

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Midi Controllers

Up to this point I’ve avoided writing much about midi controllers with Ableton. Don’t get me wrong, they can add a whole new world for live performance as well as producing but I hadn’t personally felt I had enough to say on the subject. You see, I don’t want to just jump on a hype bandwagon if I don’t actually have something important to contribute. My goal isn’t to turn you on to a bunch of extra gadgets for your studio, I want to help you actually make more music or perform more efficiently.

For the most part, the things that initially excite me about new midi gear don’t turn out to be incredibly practical.  Most of the neat midi controller templates lend themselves better to pre-prepared performance set ups and less of a spontaneous environment. On some youtube videos I’m really impressed with some of the chopping and remixing effects i see people do on the fly, but then realize that you wouldn’t be able to do most of that live to say, 100 song choices to mix and match. Instead you would pretty much have to have your whole setlist ready to go and just have the ability to tweak from within that template. This can be great if you are performing your own productions and remixes, but not as great for more of a DJ style set.

Lately, I often find myself asking “Is this piece of gear really serving me, or does it just look cooler”?

I haven’t forgot the beauty of simplicity in DJ performance. I still am blown away by DJ’s with no more than 3 CDJ’s and a mixer. Of course we all want to push things to the next level, but amazing things can still be done without a setup that would confused a rocket scientist. I am not attempting to make one setup wrong and another one right, I am simply trying to share what works for me.

Thusfar these are the midi controllers I have used:

M-Audio Ozone

Korg PadKontrol

Behringer BCR2000

Behringer BCF2000

Akai APC40

You can probably guess from that list that I really love the concept of the flexibility a midi controller can give you. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found that 1 piece of gear that works perfectly for my needs. Each piece of gear offers something special, but no single piece does it all. Most controllers are a bit too androgynous which can be a good thing when you want to re-invent it’s capabilities but not necessarily as straightforward as a DJ mixer. In many cases, I buy a piece of gear in order to do something a bit more outrageous and later realize it’s just not as practical in a live situation.

APC40

I was one of those guys who bought the APC40 the first day it came out and dove right into it. The plan was to be among the first to review how great it is on my blog but the longer I played with it, the more I felt hyping this controller wouldn’t have been authentic. I would simply have talked about how others use it when I hadn’t personally found an approach to using it that satisfied me. Everytime I used it in a live situation, I found the functions I wanted most were not at easy access.  I guess I was hoping the APC40 would be as straightforward as Sasha’s Maven controller. I like that each channel has volume, EQ and 6 clip launching buttons.

I realize that I like one knob or button to have only 1 function. I don’t like having to scroll for the right menu before I can make a particular tweak or find that one song or loop in my set. In that same amount of time I often find I could have more easily just used my mouse or qwerty keyboard.

Another thing that bugs me is multiple clip grids on the APC40. It’s a fantastic concept and I still get a lot of use out of it, but when you are adding and removing songs and loops, it’s easy to get confused with what is what.  I’m constantly checking to make sure I’m about to push the right clip.

With a standard DJ mixer you have less flexibility, but you always know where everything is. The faders will always be volume, the EQ’s will always be EQ. There is something comforting about that. Most controllers just aren’t sure exactly what they are. For example, the APC40 isn’t quite the perfect performance tool as it doesn’t have 3 EQ bands for each channel. It also isn’t quite the best studio controller as so much real estate is taken up with the clip pads which aren’t touch sensitive.

I know what you are thinking right now..”Well you can tweak it to do all sorts of things”! Of course you can if you want to learn a bit of programming and 3rd party software, but I’ve found, for myself, that the more software involved in a live situation, the more time it takes to set up and the more chances of your set not going smoothly.

iPhone/iPad as a controller

I love some of the aps for the iphone without a doubt. I particularly love Snatch, Mrmr, and Touch OSC . It feels very empowering to be able to control Ableton from your iPhone’s touchscreen however, after trying to work it into a live situation, I found it only satisfying as a gimmick. I can certainly see the iPad having many advantages to the iPhone versions but still question just how necessary it really is in a live situation. At the end of the day, for me personally, I prefer physical gear.

In a way, this realisation kinda bummed me out because I really liked the idea of the iPad replacing the need for physical gear. I also thought it looked cooler. I fought with this for a while and finally concluded that I got more enjoyment from physical gear that is set up in a simple fashion.  It just took too long to set up all the software and have the time to test the wifi network and 3rd party software to be sure it would work perfect everytime. I will likely incorporate the iPad in the future, but not for my most important controls.

Another thing to consider is that I set up and tear down my studio every time I DJ. This means I am hooking and unhooking different controllers, sound cards, hardware and templates. This can confuse things quite a bit when both your live setup and studio setup are complex.  This was never a problem when spinning vinyl or CD’s since there was no hardware/software setup process you had to dial in to get things working seamlessly. You simply plugged them into your DJ mixer and were ready to go. For this reason I don’t see myself abandoning my CDJ’s anytime soon. They have continued to be a lifesaver when my computer or controller glitches.

Don’t worry, I in no way plan to abandon Ableton or controller technology. I love technology! My goal is to use technology to have a balance between the most options possible and the most seamless performance experience.

Just because you can, does it mean you should?

For me, when I listen to my favorite DJ mixes, there isn’t a whole lot going on. Usually there are subtle hints of EQ, filters, chorus, delay, reverb and looping. A great mix doesn’t overuse any of these fx and doesn’t tend to scream “Hey look at me, I’m doing stuff”! I don’t know about you, but when I listen back to a Live DJ mix of mine at a small club, I give myself a headache with all the trickery I add to try to keep people interested.  The real trick is to find the right audience who will appreciate what you do musically, then most of the overused gimmicks become unnecessary.

I wish you good luck in finding your own perfect balance for performing.

happy music making,

Jason

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For those interested in DJ’ing and Performing live with Ableton, I’ve released my full DJ collection I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of.

You can check it out now here:    Ableton DJ’ing and Live Performance Video Series

Here is the Video List below:

1. DJ’ing live in the session window part 1

2. DJ’ing live in the session window part 2

3. DJ’ing live in the session window part 3

4. DJ’ing live in the session window part 4

5. Make a DJ mix in the Arrange window

6. Warping with Autowarp (version 7)

7. Warping the hard way (version 7)

8. Warping in Ableton 8

9. Warping songs with live drummers (version 8 )

10. Warpless mixing

11. Organizing files for DJ’ing

12. Launching Clips without a mouse

13. Macro Controls

14. Setting up controller Knobs and keys

15. Preparing your productions for Live performance

16. Syncing Ableton on 2 computers

17. APC40 setup

Also included is my Ebook:

Mixing with your Mind – How to make your Best DJ Mix

(This Ebook goes where other DJ related books don’t. This concentrates on ways to use your brain for the fastest, most creative and most enjoyable results!)

Get it here now! http://tinyurl.com/24oqo6u

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Essentials when making tracks for the Dancefloor

When it comes to writing electronic music for clubs,  it’s often a good idea to have a few things in mind before you tackle that track.

Who is this track for?

What DJ’s would I want playing this track?

What should I use as a reference to keep me on track?

Although plagarism is most likely going to make you look like a sad imitator, not knowing the proper structure and elements that make a track in a certain style work can also make you look pretty amateur.

Templates

For me, it’s not about plagarism or theft (unless you consider any type of sampling to be theft), it’s about understanding the template before you randomly bang out a few loops and expect a dancefloor hit to result. It’s like knowing which colors compliment eachother on canvas to get a certain result. As much as we would like to take credit for being the sole influence of every great piece of work we’ve done, every style of music has a template. Breaking rules can be pretty important in expanding a sound and pushing boundaries but push too far and you’re either in another subgenre of music or your song gives the impression that it has somehow missed the mark. This can be that either  too much is going on, not enough is going on, or that the structure leaves you feeling bored or overstimulated.

In business they say that if you want to be successful, you should model someone who is already successful in your field. I think the same goes for music.

For me, I’d be a bit like a train without a track without some sort of template. I usually don’t have a template when I am jamming ideas, but once I get into arrangement and mixing mode, I definitely have a reference, format or template in mind.

Usually I let templates assist me when it comes to figuring out the elements I need for a complete track. Without having something to reference, I can easily fill the song with too much in one area and not enough in another area. So I may listen to a track for guidance, even if it’s one of my own completed songs. I’ll map out the elements something like this:

*Kick

*Drums

*percussion

*crash

*drone

*Bass

*pads

*lead or hook

*cut up bits

*”build up” sounds

*fx

This, of course, is a very basic list off the top of my head, but it’s good enough for this example. With these I take a loose mental note of the basic frequency ranges of each part. This can expose holes in my frequency spectrum and lead me to know if I need to play that pad an octave higher or lower etc.

It’s important to not try to fill up all the frequencies at all times. Without some gaps, it’ll be difficult to build excitement. It’s important to know how few elements the track can run on and stay sonically interesting. Leaving a hole in the high frequencies, for example, can make room for those high hats that come in on the offbeat at certain peak points in the track.

Given these elements above, I would make sure that each part in my song either fell directly into one of these categories or was playing a neccesary support role to one of these elements. A bass for example might need 3 elements working together to get the right sound. Typically each layer will consist of a different frequency range where when put together make one rich, dynamic sound.

If you are playing 3 different parts in the same bass frequency, you’re most likely going to want to either cut something, or re-EQ one of the parts so they don’t interfere with eachother. Interference causes a lack of clarity and the overall impact is likely to suffer.

DJ mixes vs songs

When it comes to building a template of sounds, I prefer to listen to a Live DJ mix instead of individual songs from a DJ I would like playing my track. The reason for this is manyfold.

For one, you are able to find common themes and patterns in the overall sound of the mix instead of taking direct influence from one artist alone. You are also able to hear the elements of the songs that are being highlighted in the mix and which are not being used.

It may turn out that a DJ needs to re-edit or layer a track for it to work on the dancefloor. If you are able to listen to a 4+ hour mix, you can really get an idea how the DJ builds his set in a live situation instead of the snapshot that is given on a commercial DJ mix CD.

This also gives you the ability to know whether your style is best suited for the early, mid or late portion of a set.  Where individual tracks come in handy is when looking for inspiration in the arrangement of your song.

I recently took this approach with a track of mine. I produce with a partner under the name Innerstate (not to be confused by the trance artists under the same name). We hadn’t made a new track as partners in several years and although we both are more skilled at making music now than we were in the past, it definitely took us a bit to find our feet.

Ask a DJ

A DJ that has been (and continues to be) a big supporter of our tracks was coming to LA which is pretty close to us and we didn’t want to show up empty handed this time. This put a fire under our asses but also put us in a bit of a rush as we only had 3 days to complete an unfinished track idea.

To make a long story short, we missed the boat on the 1st version of we delivered. I wouldn’t say it was crap but it certainly wasn’t up to the standard people have grown to expect from us. It was also missing the elements that this particular DJ was drawn to, elements that had become a trademark for us.

Our first reaction was to be a bit defensive of the new direction we had taken but we soon realized that sometimes it’s important to hear from a fan or your work to keep you on track.

We took some time to listen to actual live mixes from him which surprisingly had some of our tracks in them. It was nice to know they still worked with current DJ sets on top notch sound systems. This brought back to mind what the name “Innerstate” was all about for us. We realized that not only did we have the wrong elements, the EQ’ing was too “in your face” for this style of music.

We went into a bit of panic and feeling like we failed, but once that passed, we went about to find our own way of expressing the right elements and getting rid of the ones that weren’t working.

I’m happy to say that version 2 of our track was massively improved, and we learned a whole lot from the whole process. Everyone we shared it with gave it great feedback. There will likely be a few more minor tweaks but it’s pretty normal for any producer to have their songs “road tested” before they settle on a final mix. If you have a friend that DJ’s in well established clubs around the world, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor by listening to what they have to say. This of course, is assuming s/he plays the kind of music you make.

I  wrote this blog to expose some of my own weaknesses in hopes that you won’t give up when you have struggles. Almost everytime I write a new track, I feel like a beginner all over again. I  wonder exactly how I managed to get that sound in my last track and if I can pull off something as interesting or more interesting than that in my new track.

Writing music for the public can be pretty scary. Putting something out into the world is your way of saying “I think this is good and I’m gambling my reputation on it”.  Don’t let that scare you off though, every artist is going through the same thing, so you’re in very good company.

Happy music making,

Jason

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Website: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

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