Undiscovered

When I work on a remix I go with the flow using the original sounds to see where it takes me. I also combine that with a vague idea in my head.

I usually start with creating the beat and bass. Then spend yonks looking for sounds. Sometimes I'll listen to a few loops alongside my tracks until I hear a good groove and then re-program the drums with my own sounds using the rhythmic elements that I liked from the loop.

I bought a decent book recently that had some good pointers init:

http://www.amazon.com/Remixers-Bible-Build-Better-Beats/dp/0879308818

hehe, sorry bout the delay -- things are really crazy over in these parts. Gotta plan for the wedding, and moving to canada, and ontop of that, filling out 100000 pages of immigration doc's for MaryBeths residency permit into Canada. Guahh...

Anyhow,,
Something usually inspires me to write -- meaning yeah, I usually get something in my head, and work from that point. Most the time it doesnt turn out the way I originally thought, but thats the best part imo.
Sometimes, when Im not inspired, I just load up a drum machine and a few VST synths, and lay something down -- see where it takes me. My draft folder is full of tracks, and snippets that never went anywhere. Good thing about that, is that when you flip through those files, months later, it usually inspires you to write something, or you hear something in a snippet that you want to put into another, etc...
Its all in all, a very fun process.

As for going off on tangents, shit yeah man! Do it! Thats how you learn new techniques, and new ways of achieving certain sounds, riffs, etc...
One thing I found so helpful when I was first starting out, was taking a track from an artist I like, and trying to reproduce that track as closely as possible using my production software. I would run into a bunch of questions -- like not knowing how to achieve a certain effect,, so I would research it, post on forums to find out the technical term of that effect, then research that in web-help files, and the help files in my production software, to learn the effect, and how its produced. Most recently I learned how to "De-Ess" vocals (Which was a bitch to learn), using the methods I stated above.

As long as your creative, and "out of the mold" you'll have a blast either way you tackle music production. Just try not to get down on yourself when nothing comes to mind when u sit down to write. It happens more times then not. I usually fill those gaps with researching, and learning new techniques.

Hope that helps just a little bro.
Again, sorry for the delay BBC.

Hi. I have (and think everyone) 3 ways of producing a song. When you don't have idea of anything and just playing suddenly comes inspiration about something you're hearing or doing.
The second one is when you have an idea, an intuition of what you want but you don't know how, so there's a north and you follow experimenting with noizes... and th elas one is when you have some clarity of what you want, what type of noizes and the rythm and the bass, so you onle do a copy-paste process between your head and your music toys....

Obviously all this process is experimentation because you could want a synth and suddenly you discover that sounds better a piano or guitar in that part...

One think I have discovered Is that listening others stuff relative to what you want gives you ideas, but I never do it 'cause my songs are composed in the moment, no tiem for listening someones elses, just experiment and experiment.... But when I listen to rock I thought "man I could do some break like this in the song I haven't work for a year, that's the way out!"... But really I never use this... I guess I'm not a pro making music, so I'm not all the way in the production, only thinking while I do other stuff.

In this days I am very tired but what I'm doing it's working in my old projects, masterizing some things, finishing others and rearranging the stuff that I haven't touched for a year or more...

My nexts uploads will be themes from the 2005 that I haven't had the time to master... and maybe 2 songs from the beginnin of the 2007.... That keeps me in ouch with music when I haven't the time or inspiration....

For last, Sometimes you have to let the song sleep for a month or so and then remember the song and listen to it again with fresh ears... that gives you a full perspective of the song. I do that on all my songs, that's wy I work at the same time in about 5 or 8 projects...

Bye!

Ill tell ya. Sometimes I just get the urge to throw down some drums. If I am not feelin it... Ill shut the program down and do something else. On some days I can sit there for hours messing around with different drum sounds, or synths. Sometimes it turns into something.

I think Durden pretty much summed it up.

Many of my songs have come about through sudden flashes of inspiration that leave me glued to the computer until sunrise. Sometimes you are going for a specific idea and that's always harder and sometimes you get lucky with a combination of the two.

For me a lot of the inspiration actually comes when I'm at work or somewhere where I can't test it out. That's because I'll be listening to other people's music it can be a song I love or maybe just an effect in the song I'd never thought about before and this will catalyze a whole series of ideas.

Sometimes a track or remix will start off really nicely and you just get stuck and it goes nowhere, I’ve got plenty of those, sometimes the best thing you can do is just save it and hope you can use it in the future.

I work pretty linearly so a song will never get going, even if I have the whole melody down unless I’m happy with how it starts. Then I export mp3s of the song as I’m building it even if it’s just a minute long and listen to it over and over again, parts of it sound like they should be erased or changed, and you start to hear additions and the song starts to write itself.

I’ve only done a few remixes but generally I don’t attempt one unless I have some idea of a way to improve the original or do something interesting with it.