Krane really hit the nail on the head.  I bought it too for iPad, it is definitely good for learning basics and how to read their platform.  I wish it taught popular chord progressions in minor though, I only recall learning major progressions

Anotha one [/DJKhaled]:

Get a notebook or open a notepad app BEFORE you start working on your project. Brainstorm a bunch of different song ideas in your spare time. For each one, start writing down words that help describe the song: "Liquid Drum and Bass, 170 BPM, stormy seas, angry and sad, female vocals, dark drums, etc." Write down the element of the song that you want to be the primary focus (Drums, Vocals, Bass, Chords, Melody, etc.). Try to write out a basic skeleton for the song. "8 bar intro, 12 bar break, 8 bar build, 2 bar pre-drop, 32 bar drop, 4 bar fadeout, 16 bar break, 16 bar build, 2 bar pre-drop, 32 bar drop, 8 bar outro." If you know theory, pick a few key signatures or chord progressions you could try. Try to write down some hook ideas or lyrics if that's what you're going for. Make sure you have at least 2 or 3 before your next production session.

When you finally go sit down in front of your DAW, pick one of those song ideas and start from whatever the primary focus is: If Drums, build a simple drum kit that reminds you of the words you've written down. It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to work with. If you already have a generic drum kit in your template, stick with that. If bass, chords, or melody, use a piano sampler or a basic synth patch (pure saws or squares work) just for the basic idea. If vocals, go find some vocal samples that fit or that you can chop, or set up your microphone just so you can get the lines down. Once you've established that primary idea, you can put more generic placeholders in the other elements, and go straight from there to arrangement. You can refine it later, because once you have the song placed into the skeleton you wrote down and can see what sounds should go where, you can really start going in and making everything unique and get your track finished.

Good tip! I'll have to try this.

I've been struggling with consistency as of late, it seems like I can write 1 song a month and the rest of the time i struggle with fleshing out ideas.

For me, if I don't finish a song in 1 day then it generally won't be finished. I'd say my advice would be that when you get the writing bug, don't be afraid to just sit in front of your daw all day, and if you have real life things to do then do them when you're at a good break point for your song

Skype: aj_raymond

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Can this be a multi-band expansion topic too? One of my favorite techniques for drums is to boost the "fundamental" of the drum only when the transient hits.

For my snares this is usually at around 200Hz so just boosting there with an EQ would usually sound too boxy, especially if the sample has a longer tail. Using multi-band expansion lets you only boost the initial transient while leaving the rest of the sound untouched.

It also works great for smoothening long drum sample tails that sound too harsh in the top end but nice with the actual drum hit. You can do this with at least the TDR Nova GE and FF Pro-MB

So instead of lowering the threshhold you raise it essentially?

Money drives people, and the simple songs are what sells. People have no reason to create more complex songs

People have plenty of reason to make more complex songs, they just choose not to. I think most if not all of the verified artists on this forum would cherish artistic integrity over an easy dollar

Quote from: WRLD on January 06, 2016, 03:47:46 pm

Awesome to get mentioned on here already! 

I bet about 95% of my synth sounds are probably made in Sylenth. I like to keep my sounds simple and clean.

I'd say future bass is definitely more about songwriting than it is about sound design. Like a few people here already mentioned, adding 2nds, 4ths and 7ths to your chords will help give them a bit more depth and emotion (not just for future bass obviously). I tend to use a lot of dissonant harmonies in my chords as well, I think a lot of people aren't used to using those types of harmonies in their chords. My music teacher in high school once asked me to describe a dissonant harmony and I answered "they always sound ugly" and he said "not if you use them in the right way", and that actually completely changed the way I wrote my chords.

Also something I absolutely looooove is using nice clean sounding, slightly detuned saw (most of the time using 2 voices) synth leads for my main melodies or solos. I use an LFO to add vibrato and then I automate the gain to make it sound funkier, I also use a lot of pitch bending and/or portamento as well to give it a bit more depth. To make it sound smoother I always use a nice lowpassed ping pong delay. Highpassing out anything below 120 Hz on the leads always seems to help with that as well.

One little trick I always use is slightly bit crushing the leads to give them a little 'crunch'. If I'm using a bit crusher though, I always lowpass anything above 20K, you might not hear those super high frequencies but your dog might. Even if you're not hearing it it might still clean up your mix and bit crushers always add nasty unwanted frequencies.

Are there any particular bit crushing plugins you would recommend? Been using bit crushing a lot more lately and I can't seem to find a decent plugin. :/

On stream I've seen him use the standard ableton redux effect, not sure if he's changed it up recently though!

Brillz's tutorial on his Facebook is pretty good: https://facebook.com/ItsBrillz/posts/596389447123285

Quote from: Shew on January 08, 2016, 04:31:12 am

Can you please tell me who made this? It's stunning.

Love the pics you uploaded   I can try to look it up but honestly I don't remember who made it sorry.  I just right click -> download image to my computer for all of these