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Process of composing a song

Architekton

Active Member
Hello,

one question - when you start composing a new song in your daw with your favorite libraries, do you lay down the whole song first without going into technical details like playing with midi ccs, etc...and you do final details when whole song is there or you do it like at the same time, you record for example 1st violins melody and than instantly play with midi ccs to make it as realistic as possible before moving onto next instrument?

How do you do it?

I ask this because I noticed that sometimes I play too much with midi ccs when I compose and I get tired soon...hours pass by and I have written down like 30 secs of music. I try too hard to make libriaries as realistic as possible and that destroys my creative flow.

Thx
 
I usually compose the whole piece with just a sketch track, which can be a piano and/or string ensemble (no click, and I can simply just improvise and record for 1 hour, or less if I have the material ready, and see what I got out of it after). I like to have the structure ready until I even think about instrumentation and other details. So there's the composing part and the arranging part. And during the arranging part, I get a lot of new musical ideas as well to "spice things up ":) Like adding contrapuntal motifs.
 
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I found I would work on a section, spend ages tweaking it and then often I would end up not even using it.

So now I sketch out the whole track using basic CC1 to play something passable in. Once the song has been written (and only then) would I start tweaking midi and fine-tuning orchestration.
 
Hello,

one question - when you start composing a new song in your daw with your favorite libraries, do you lay down the whole song first without going into technical details like playing with midi ccs, etc...and you do final details when whole song is there or you do it like at the same time, you record for example 1st violins melody and than instantly play with midi ccs to make it as realistic as possible before moving onto next instrument?

How do you do it?

I ask this because I noticed that sometimes I play too much with midi ccs when I compose and I get tired soon...hours pass by and I have written down like 30 secs of music. I try too hard to make libriaries as realistic as possible and that destroys my creative flow.

Thx

For me, I do everything at one go. In terms of building construction, assuming your music is a 5 storey building. I start with ground floor (intro part of the music) by doing the following
1) building structure (main melody)
2) laying of water pipe (accompanies and percussions)
3) laying of electricity (a bit of CC1 and CC11)

Once this is done, i move on to 1st floor and etc under the last.

Once everything done, I'll then do the painting (touching up here and there)

Might not be the most effective ways of compose but this is my work flow.
 
My workflow is again different. I have two different workflows that I do:

1. Sketch first in notation / short score
I open up Notion (it's great for that) with a treble clef and scratch for a usable melody. When I have that I come up with the rest - since I'm not a good pianist, I can use the playback to try out different harmonies, or play a bit myself. And then, on a 4 or 5 staff shortscore, I make my orchestration with notes. The whole piece is then ready, and I play it into the DAW line by line, sometimes all in one go (my personal faderbox and controlling 2-3 CCs while playing) or record them afterwards for some more focus.

2. Directly into DAW
I'm doing that for a short film currently because time presses a bit. I usually then grab a piano patch and do the same as above - sketch out the main idea and harmonies there. If I want to, I take ensemble patches from Masse to make my "sketch". And from there, I either "drag and drop" (less preferably) or play the individual lines in, same applies as above, either simultaneously recording CCs, or afterwards.

In both workflows, I sometimes alter some ideas or add countermelody or spice to it in the DAW, meaning when I hear it played back I go "hmm - that needs a little extra". And ideally, I then take that into account for my next sketch, and after time, I maybe have a sketch (be it paper or DAW) that has everything in it, without much changes :)
 
Folks may balk at this but over the past few years I have experimented with randomly writing melodies and chords with no idea of what I am doing in an effort to get a piece started. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not.
 
I sit down with an idea or brief for what I want to accomplish.
I load some starter sounds and get going.

Then there's a weird couple of hours where I throw every idea I have at the music. I'm quite blunt with ideas. If it doesn't work right away, it's dropped. Kinda old school.

After a couple of hours, my DAW is a hot mess of unnamed tracks, ropey performances and a bad mix. But the track is already in the bag and I can hear how it's going to sound. Then comes the tidy up. Renaming of tracks, organising the mixer and tidying up CC's, quantise etc.

The greatest mistake for me is diving into the technical stuff too soon. If it's a major part of the sound (like a timed delay) I drop it in early, but stuff like compression is left until later.
 
I typically sequence the "main" part of the song, tweak it until it sounds how I want it, then sequence the rest of the song based on these parameters. Usually though, the finished product is nothing like I had originally envisioned it in my mind!
 
Disclaimer - I am not a professional...

Mine is a two stage process

1. Writing/composing a song - involves playing the piano (piano voice doubled in cubase with a quiet background pad sound that I have used for years).

Then

2. Once I am happy with the COMPLETE song idea I try my best to arrange it - sometimes I re-record the piano track, sometimes I keep the original and sometimes I forget about it altogether, sometimes I reduce it to just the piano track alone. My goal is to learn more about string arranging. I have two string libraries and have a background in both piano and violin playing (both to UK grade 8) but my arranging skills are limited and I need to develop them.

I have LOTS of Cubase projects where I have not progressed beyond stage 1 above. It is that stage that I seem to get lost in and enjoy the most whereas stage 2 at the moment I consider more of a chore!

I am wondering if there are folks out there that find the opposite, ie find stage 1 the chore but actually enjoy stage 2 more. If so could they get in touch with me please, maybe we could make beautiful tracks together :)

Hywel
 
I'll start with an idea in my head, then pull my hair out trying to realize it. After 2 bars of music, I sit on it for two days (one week) and meditate (netflix, youtube, crunchyroll) during that time. I'll come back to the piece and after one listen through, delete all my progress and start over with a IDGAF mentality. Many hours later, I've got a finished piece of music.
 
It's a slow process for me. But my wife is the opposite. We're just finishing up a CD now where she sat down behind her harp, hit record and she improvised, created on the spot her music. It wasn't thru-composed either, she would play themes, motifs, and repeat them throughout, giving the track cohesion. I wish I was more creative, I usually think too much instead of listening and feeling.
 
I have a folder of dozens of the most fantastically produced 8 bar segments - that will never get used. I force myself now to sketch the whole thing out harmonically first. It's a great relief to have that structure, timed and spotted if it's for picture, that I can then noodle away over to get the fun stuff.
 
Sometimes I force myself to write away from the DAW until I have a complete idea end to end, and sometimes I just improvise into the DAW anything that comes to mind for a few hours using some good patches and then "clean it up". Both give different results, but both seem to work in their own way.

What I'm perhaps even more interesting in knowing is when to give up on an idea. I've nearly given up on ideas that have eventually turned into something worthwhile, and I've also spent huge amounts of time polishing t...s that never reveal any potential whatsoever.
 
I think of “songs” as music with lyrics. As I’m a songwriter , I almost always write lyrics first, and as I do, melody and harmony suggest themselves.
 
If I am writing a song, melody/harmony come first. Lyrics last.

If I am composing a soundtrack, I will do a piano sketch first, then being arranging and laying down one instrument at a time, one section at a time. I won't worry too much about small details yet until later.
 
You sit in front of the screen, trying hard, then when the blood from your forehead start dripping on your keys, you just follow the stains..
 
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