Well, you asked =). Here's the entire process I use to make a song. Sorry
for the length...
First of all go download all of my songs so you can get an idea of the
finished product (shameless plug).
http://www.mp3.com/fleshpile
I start out just listening to my samples. I pick one that I think might work
and drag it into a channel. I tend to favor a lot of reverb, delay and
stretching - but that's me. I repeat this process over and over again,
putting them all in ONE pattern that is constantly playing. After I get like
5-10 channels of odd effects going that sound cohesive and form a nice ball
of noise, I work on the cymbals and the beats. Sometimes I start with the
cymbals, sometime with the beats, but usually with the effects. After that
_one_ pattern sounds pretty good with the noises, beats and cymbals all
playing together, I start making patterns...
I copy each individual track to a seperate pattern, retaining all of the...
umm... positions of the hits (understand?) in each one. So in other words if
there's 15 total channels, I'll end up with 16 tracks (the main one I
started with and 15 seperate ones). Now for the arrangement...
I open the LOOP window and name each pattern after the track that it's
involved with. this part is going to be quite different for each person, but
here's how I do it. I think which one of the patterns I want to start the
song with, and I drag that pattern all the way across the loop window to the
end of the song. Whatever measure I want the next pattern (or group of
patterns) to start at, I drag those from the desired measure to the end of
the song, repeat till all of the tracks are used. This is how I make the
build-up of the song. Then I listen to it from the beginning OVER AND OVER
AGAIN, taking patterns out here and there, making for a lot of variety
throughout the song but maintaining that same basic flow from start to end
(usually). After I'm happy with the whole arrangement, I try to do the thing
I did at the beginning in reverse. I gradually delete each pattern until
they're thinned out enough at the end to call it finished. I like to leave a
long area that I can fade with at the beginning and ends of the song (in
SoundForge or Acid). That's the basics.
After this, I listen to it OVER AND OVER AGAIN AGAIN, making little changes
here and there, adjusting volumes of each of the channels so that each of
the 15-ish sounds I used are all audible but none of them are overpowering.
At this point, we're pretty much done. EXPORT it as a WAV file (don't Save
As), and be absolutely sure you have "High Quality" checked. Wait half an
hour............ Now take that WAV into ACID, run an EQ over it sill it
sounds warmer. Run any gradual effects over the length of the track with
your DirectX Plugins, and adjust the main volume so that it is as loud as
possible without clipping, then save as a mixed WAV file. Bring it into
SoundForge, and run a NORMALIZATION on it, checking LOUDNESS (not PEAKS),
and setting it to the MUSIC preset (-16db). That's your song! AudioCatalyst
it to MP3 and call all your friends.
Hope that wasn't too boring for anyone =).
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