Hey all,

I believe the topic of 'workflow' falls under the category of 'Composition/Arrangement/Theory' despite the fact that a lot of us include sampling, mixing, and plugins IN our workflow, that all culminates into a full composition which is why it is here.

Anyway, this thread is here for tips and tricks of the trade, questions, etc. about the process of making music as well as posting any good resources that you've found useful.

I'll start:

My DAW of choice is FL Studio, while I do own Cubase, Reason, and Ableton, I prefer FL Studio. I'm most comfortable in it. I've recently been developing a large collection of .FSC files, which are 'save files' of a piano roll state. I say 'state' because it only saves the position of the notes by measure in time and frequency. It doesn't matter which instrument or channel you used to make the piano roll. These files are really useful to make saves of drum beats, chord progressions, and scales. I categorize my drums by instrument (kick, tom, snare, hats), and by time signature. For chords and scales I categorize my FSC files by key and/or mode. I've done some digging through the internet and it really surprises me that these files aren't more popular. I've never found anywhere that has a good library or 'packs' of them and they're great for composing. Instead of picking away at each note in the piano roll over and over, I have plenty of licks and rolls at the click of button.

In lieu of resources, there's a nice chord and scale reference project for ableton that can be found here: http://www.ageofthewheel.com/2010/11/circle-of-fifths-chord-resource-in.html