Velcro City Records

DJ Hero’s Guide to Starting and Finishing an Original Track

 

Have an idea.

It’s extremely important to have an idea when you sit down to write music. It doesn’t have to be some grand thought, but a simple melody, a groove, or a bassline pattern in your head is the best way I have found to get you started. That being said, when these ideas come to you, write them down, hum a bar into a recording device, collect any samples into a folder. Do something to keep that idea workable, because it’s amazing how quickly they will drift off.

Always make sure to keep in mind the genre of your idea as well. Think about is going to work best for you. We all have had some brilliant ideas for various tunes, sounds, and genres, but when it comes down to it, we have to be selfish. We have to ask ourselves “what is going to best serve me?” If you feel you’re best served by sticking to a genre, most likely the one you DJ (if you’re a DJ), then learn and apply every technique you can find that involves that genre. Explore how that genre works for you, and make those principles serve you. If you feel that you’re best served by writing everything based on a feeling, then explore those feelings, not the genres themselves. On the flip side, keep in mind the target audience you intend your music for.  Producing a wide range of sounds may discourage sales to a degree, as people will over look your name in the stores because they don’t know what to expect. Or if you focus too closely on one sound, you may find that your production may grow stale.

I like to encourage listening to and using as many genres as possible to pull ideas from, then applying those ideas to the genre you want to be your focus. Case in point, fidget house. Those basslines came from other genres, namely drum and bass, and breaks. Some clever individual applied the idea to a house beat and a whole new beast was created. 

Always explore, but never lose sight of your goal.

 

Lay out a structure.

The easiest way to slow down your production is to wander along with your idea. I have found over the years that the best way to stay on track is to create the structure immediately. Use a generic and very simple percussion bed to show where you want your intro beats, your break downs, your transitions, and your bridges to be. Once you see what you’ve got to work with you’ll be able to define how your ideas are going to work in the song you’ve set out to produce.

 A simple kick drum, snare, and high hat bed is the best way to sketch your structure. Put markers in the project and label them accordingly to give you visual cues as to what is happening at any given point in the song. Typically I start with the first marker labeled “start”, the next “intro”, “break 1”, “bassline 1”, “lead 1”, etc. Use terms that are going to mean something to you, but do your best to stick with industry terms incase other people’s eyes have to navigate through the project as well.

 The second aspect of your song’s structure is how it’s going to mix with other tunes. Your song is going to be mixed by some other DJ, so keep your structure fitting to the genre that DJ is playing. Each genre has a pretty general layout. The best way to learn about it is to take a few inspiration songs into your sequencer, and lay it out just as you have laid yours out. Place markers where the elements change just as you have done with your track (or are going to do). By doing so you’ll start to see how your music is going to mix with other people’s music. The structure is an extremely important aspect of a tune. It can keep a song sounding fresh or cause it to get old quickly. It can create the necessary anxiety that gets the dance floor hyped up, or it can instruct people to go find another room, or go to the bar. As a DJ, we become familiar with how a song flow by hearing it, as producers we have to change that process and get familiar with how a song flows by looking at it first.

Because there are no ideas in the song’s file when we begin, the slate is blank, and filling in the sketch first will give us the ability to hear the ideas flow more easily.

 

Stick to the genre.

 When you’re roughing out your music you have to stick to the design. If you’re going to make electro house, it is extremely important to build a library of percussion, instruments, and various sounds that are relevant to the genre. Hard house kick drums don’t work with tech house. Trance leads don’t fit in house. Aggressive doesn’t fit with melodic, etc. Go through the music you’ve purchased for your own mixing and pick out the drums you like, the sounds you like, and the various other elements you like, then write them down. Copy the specific files to a folder, for ease of access. When you’ve got the ability, go through those songs and sample them. Pull the sounds you like. Having clips of other people’s ideas will help you figure out how to be more “genre conscious.” Making use of percussion from those songs will give you a tremendous head start on your project.

 

Build upon the basics.

 Always start simple, a simple structure, a simple loop, a simple lead, etc. Once your ideas start to come together, build upon that simplicity. Once you’ve gotten your bassline in place, you’ll be able to hear how your percussion can be added to so you can really get the movement and full sound a well produced tune has. Once you’ve got melodies and various other layers, like your bassline in the mix, then you can enhance the simple structure, but intelligently placing the sounds in the song. From there you’ll be able to create effective fills to signify changes, build excitement, and add to the over all experience that the listener is going to take away from your work. The greater the perceived experience by a selected audience is, the greater the chances of a DJ playing the song, and likewise the greater the chances of the DJ will buy your song.

 Don’t set out tomake the next number one tune from the start. Wait until you’ve got an idea flushed out to swing for the fence. I recommend using three songs to keep your production moving in the right direction. Go find three songs that you would play in a set together. Put them in the order you would play them to achieve the biggest bang for the audiences listening buck. The next step is to remove the middle song from the miniature set. The goal then becomes to produce the song that sits in the middle.

Now you’ve got three songs to help build your structure, get sample ideas from, keep you in the selected genre, and melodies and loops to help inspire your own vision. Always refer back to these ideas to stay focused.

It’s extremely easy in the beginning to run and run in one direction. Before you know it, you’ve not actually ran in a straight line, you’ve made a mess of your idea and lost sight of how to achieve your goal. Over time you’ll find you won’t need to do this as much as you did when you first started, but despite our experiences, even the top producing around the world do it. Armin Van Buurin is quoted in the August issue of “Sound On Sound” magazine as expressing this idea exactly.

 

Find the end.

 As you add more and more elements to the song, including change ups, fills, effects, melodies, basslines, percussion, and everything in between; STOP!. From this point it is extremely important to listen with the DJ’s ear, not the producer’s ear. Give it to other people who can be honest and objective. Give it to fresh ears, both with similar education and experience, and with none. Every crowd has its fanatics, but most crowds are filled with people who are no where near capable of experiencing the song like you do. That being said, it is important to get their feedback too.

Once you’ve gotten the feedback, evaluate it carefully. Often it’s too easy to blow it off or let us get frustrated by criticism, but it is the criticism that makes us better. When we get better our music comes to life. Use the criticism to find the end of the current track. Go through each bit of advice and focus on how it applies to the song. Make sure to take your time, take lots of breaks and listen to other music. If you remain to0 closed to the mix while you’re adjusting it to fix the issues, you won’t be able to hear the issues, because you’ll think to yourself “it’s fine just the way it is.” In all reality, every song can be made better. It boils down to how patient you are, and how willing you are to go one more step. At that point, however, you’ll at least see the end.

 

Be done of it. When you’re done, be done. Don’t go back because you think something doesn’t sound exactly like it should. It’s not uncommon to adjust a mix down a few times to get it just right, but if you find yourself wanting to change elements, don’t. Save those changes for the next song. Or recommend them to the remixer(s) working on the release with you. You’ll beat yourself to death if you try to force ideas, so don’t. Make the most of them in the next one. That’s how we grow.

 

Though this material isn’t a full assessment of everything I hope you learn, it will get you started, and help you make progress every step of the way.

John Mundt aka DJ Hero
Chief Engineer
Velcro City Records