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

 

 

Ok, I seem to have gotten a few requests for a second installment to DJ Hero’s production tips, tricks, and advice. My first, “DJ Hero’s ‘V’ Theory” seem to go over pretty well, so I hope this second edition of useful production and engineering knowledge provides you with more ammunition in the studio.

 

The topic this time is EQ’ing, which is by far one of the more powerful tools any engineer has to creating a cohesive, clear, and punchy mix. Like the “V Theory”, EQ’ing is essential to making your song sounds rich, full, bright, and yet another slew of color words that mean…good.

 

A little history lesson behind the term “equalization”. It was original coined by the phone company somewhere around the time that the telephone was implemented as a household item. Signal equalization was used to compensate for long cable lengths with respect to where the copper wiring came from and how long it was by the time it came in to home.

The equalizer is nothing more than a series of filters designed to shape a sound, but let’s not get over technical. There are a few different types of equalizers, analog, digital, graphic, and parametric. Where the argument behind which is better, analog or digital will probably continue into the sunset, it’s pretty safe to say that today’s engineers opt for the parametric equalizer over a graphic equalizer any day of the week because of the massive amount of control and shaping ability it provides.

 

To get started I’ll refer back to the “V Theory” simply to remind you of the space you’re working in, low end at the bottom, high end at the top and all the space in between that your sounds (hopefully) sit. EQ’ing will maximize that space so you can achieve a much cleaner mixdown with the finite over head and space you have. You only have so much room to work with, and you want to be able to pack that space with as much sound as possible, without making the whole song sound muddy, cluttered, or lack luster. EQ’ing is one way to help you.

 

First, the EQ can provide you the means of shaping frequencies by means of shelfing, notching, or sculpting. The shelf creates a wall type shape if you’re looking at the EQ (graphically), essentially every frequency below (or above depending on if you’re using a low shelf or a high shelf), that “wall” will be cut away. That will cause the remaining frequencies to sound perceivably more noticeable. Note, those frequencies have not been turned up, the others have been eliminated. Notching allows the engineer to cut out certain frequencies in a sound, the notch’s width can be adjusted to be really narrow or quite vast, with the audible results being slight to great. Sculpting is another term I use, but it’s less on the technical end because it’s just a more subtle version of shelfing or notching.

 

As a simple example we can take three sound layers, one low, one mid, and one high. For sake of the example let’s assume that all three are relatively thick sounds given the range of frequencies they individually sit in, so much so that they each impede upon the adjacent frequency range. Individually all three sounds could very well sound terrific, but when placed together, can get lost or fight for the same space as the other sounds. Like the “V Theory” EQ’ing can reduce that “fight” for space, and cause a sound to use less space.

 

The EQ will help isolate the range the sound sit in. The easiest way to describe it would be that if the low end doesn’t need to ride in the higher end frequencies, then shave them off, if the high end doesn’t need to ride in the mid or low end ranges, then we shave them off, etc. Perhaps I mistakenly use the term “shave” however. My professional opinion is to never cut full frequency ranges, unless you plan on filling them. Cutting entire frequency ranges unnecessarily will leave your production sounding empty. Instead we reduce ranges only enough to create the room needed to allow the combating frequency ranges the ability to breathe.

 

One reason to avoid cutting entire frequency ranges is because any reverb that may be on those sounds will sound empty, and cease to be an effect and become simply noise in the mix. As well stereo delays will feel a little lacking as well. Imagine you were an amazing swimmer, and suddenly you had no legs, even though you are amazingly fit, and well trained, you’re still not going to be able to take a gold in the next Olympics (lest of course they are the special Olympics, but let’s not go there). “Waste not, want not” is key, don’t get rid of anything if there is no need to.

 

When EQ’ing the various layers of your song always, always, always do it while each sound is in the mix, what may sound good or bad while the sound is isolated may not be effective EQ’ing when the sounds all play together. Also, always, always, always REDUCE before you BOOST. Instead of boosting a specific frequency range, reduce the ranges around the one you naturally want to turn up, then simply turn the over all volume up to make up for the reduction in relative volume. Again that is my professional opinion and not a matter of fact, but you’ll find you save over head and avoid frequency phasing (unless you’re experienced enough to use it to you advantage).

 

A lot of vintage analog equalizers have some really wonderful voice phasing effects that occur when frequencies are boosted, and that’s a part of the argument between analog and digital. Rather than get into that argument, I’d rather try to teach some techniques that are going to be helpful regardless the skill level. So like I said, reduce the frequencies around the frequency range you desire to be more pronounced, then increase the over all volume of the sound, that will create the same effect without any ill side effects as boosting a particular frequency range.

 

Some ideas to keep in the front of your head are what is the sound’s function in the song? Is it a bass line designed to drive the song? If so, shaving the top end will save a lot of room for sounds that move and fill the up mid and high end ranges. The same applies to high ends frequencies. The high hats, typically rest mostly in the high end frequency ranges. That being the case, you’ll be able to reduce the low end quite a bit without over working and hence destroying the sound of the high hat. Keep in mind what I said earlier though, cutting too much will leave reverb on that high hat incapable of sounding rich and natural, so only take as much as needed.

 

Mid range frequencies are a bit tougher to EQ, for the simple fact that no sound JUST sits in the middle, usually they over lap into the low and high ends of the spectrum. If you shave those off, that pad in the middle will be sitting a little awkward. Again why I stress taking off only as much is as needed. I’m sure you don’t have to reach too far into your brain to agree with me that the one range of frequencies that get destroyed in the club is the mid range. Large PA’s often fall short in that department for several reasons, one the room and the sound system haven’t been set to work with each other. Another is because mid range tends to sit between highs and lows, and for most producers it’s tough to isolate and effectively bring those sounds out in a complicated mix. I won’t speak for the simple music that doesn’t have much going on, but in a song that is rich and full of sound, the mid range is the toughest range of frequencies to make stand out as a separate entity while maintaining a cohesive bond between the highs and lows.

 

The trick while EQ’ing is to make each sound as unique as possible in the mix, while not isolating it from the other sounds to the point where the song sounds like a it’s a series of Lego blocks stacked on top of each other, one blue, one red, and one yellow. Having the individual color is obviously awesome, but the transition should be smooth enough to keep the mix sounding rich and full. To round off the Lego analogy, the transition between the blue and red block should give you purple, and the space between the red and yellow block should give you orange. The amount of each however is up to your ears and what works for your mix.

 

Two things to keep in mind, your speakers will allow you as good a job as their own frequency response, so don’t think your PC’s stock speakers are going to provide you the ability to EQ effectively, neither will your headphones, though top end studio monitors like the Ultrasone 750’s will provide you with a better shot at it then your Pioneer DJ headphones. I don’t recommend using headphones to EQ anything. 99% of headphones are not designed to provide sound to your ear like your ear is designed to hear sound. Case in point, headphones blast sound directly to the ear drum and by pass the mechanics of your earlobe. The earlobe is designed to channel sound to your ear natural (take a minute to feel the shape of your ear before you try to argue), all those natural curves made from skin, hair, and cartilage actually are designed and grow for a reason.

 

The second thing to keep in mind is that transient frequencies will often seem dramatically different with stereo placement (such as described in my “V Theory”). A sound could easily sound muddy or empty centered in the mix, but when moved somewhere else can take on new characteristics, and visa versa so listen carefully.

 

Professional engineers with years of experience will all agree that EQ’ing when your ears are fresh is to your advantage. If you’ve been working on the song all day and are just trying to get it done, you will fail. Take a break, if you can afford to leave it for a day, then do so, but if for some ODD reason time just isn’t on your side, step outside, make some tea, pet the dog, do anything but sit in front of your studio.

 

Typical when I’ve gotten a song to that point where it’s time for that final mixdown where EQ’ing becomes vital, I will get a good nights sleep, shower in the morning (my morning), have some coffee, relax a bit, pet the dog, then go down into the studio. At that point I’m rested, my ears are rested, I’m awake, and ready to go. Be patient, listen carefully. Sometimes you may find it necessary to bring certain ranges to their extremes just to hear what the EQ is doing to them, perhaps as a means to give yourself a reference point. I will add though, avoiding the boosting side of that, and cut them first to provide a reference. Boosting frequency ranges to provide a reference point can be harsh, and take away from the fact that you’re supposed to be using rested ears.

 

In my next tips, trick, and techniques, am I going to fully cover the compressor/limiter. Between “DJ Hero’s ‘V’ Theory”, Equalization, and Compression/Limiting, I will have hopefully provided you the means to use the three most powerful tools in your engineering bag., the trifecta if you will, of audio engineering. The compressor can reduce the amount of EQ’ing needed, and the EQ can reduce the amount of compression needed. Stereo placement can be thrown in there as well. The main point of all three is to take away as little as possible while maintaining as much head room and sound clarity as possible. The result will be full, warm, bright, and punchy sounds that make up a wonderfully produced track regardless the style.