Music Production Club - Round 3

clubs
1

I did something like this with friends from another forum when I was just learning about using music production software.

Basically, a host would pick a weekly prompt, set a deadline, and then people would share their songs or productions in a google doc, where others could leave feedback.

A lot of the time the prompt was creative, i.e., "write something inspired by taking a walk in the woods", but sometimes they could also be technical, i.e., "create something based around a sample of audio you captured yourself". Being the "host" (aka, picking prompts) could also be something that those involved take turns on.

I'd be happy to host a group like that here, if there are others interested.
If we've got some interest, let me know in the replies what you think a good cadence would be (deadlines every week, every two weeks, every month, etc) and I'll at least get it started. Or if there are any questions about how this would all work, I can do my best to answer those as well.

2

That would be great! Nearly all the ā€œfeedbackā€ I get on my work comes from clients who want to mold me more into the product they want, rather than other musicians interested in my personal growth as an artist. The few times I do get feedback like this, it has always means a lot to me. Iā€˜d love to see that more regularly, and offer that same consideration towards others. Personally I wouldnā€™t be able to engage more than about once a month, but I'd love love love to see this get going

3

Yes.

4

Iā€™m interested.

5

Literally my most interesting and best music Iā€˜ve written as an amateur composer is when someone on this forum gave us a prompt of a few words and I just kinda went with it. Iā€™d like to participate schedule permitting.

FYI, schedule permitting for me won't be a single week. I'd pick a prompt and deliver something a few weeks later as this is a hobby for me. We've had art jam threads in the past and some of them have been week-long and others have been month-long. Don't let that stop you from doing weekly prompts though if that's going to get you your best work!

6

i would like this a lot! dunno if i can commit to weekly, but biweekly or monthly i could definitely do. i feel extremely self conscious about my production/composition skills so a structured environment in which to play around would be really helpful

7

This sounds like a rad idea. Music is one of those things that I let slip away as I got older but I will randomly find myself losing an entire weekend to composing, only to delete what I made and bury the impulse for a few more months. I definitely miss composing more regularly and would love for something to motivate me to stick with it.

Like others have mentioned, I don't know if weekly will fit for me creatively but I would stay engaged in feedback more frequently than I would creation.

8

Glad to see thereā€˜s so much interest!

I think what Iā€™ll do is give it through the weekend to see who else responds.

Then, sometime next week, I'll create a google doc that includes the prompt and the first deadline, making sure to tag the interested parties. I'll set the first few prompts, but once we get some steady involvement, we can definitely get a bit of a rotation going.

In the meantime, let's consider the next few weekends your time to get setup operation, however you plan on doing this, whether it be through a specific DAW, or multitrack, whatever.

9

I think it would be cool if folks gave a very brief rundown of the equipment/software etc used in their productions. I always find that interesting.

10

Alright everyone, let's give this a tryā€¦

Thank you for joining the Insert Credit Forumā€™s Unofficial Music Club. This is a club for people who are working on their own music in some capacity, and would like the structure of a feedback group to help them along.

The club will work in 14 day cycles. Starting today, Monday, August 28th, a prompt will be posted in the forum thread, and every two weeks after that. You are free to interpret the prompt however broadly you want. Your submission for feedback will be due on the 10th day of the cycle (the following Wednesday, in this case, Sept 6), and a link to your submission should be posted in the thread. This can be a soundcloud page, bandcamp, google drive linkā€¦ whatever youā€™re comfortable with.

On day 10 of each phase, the ā€œfeedbackā€ phase of our cycle begins. If you have submitted something, you now have the next 4 days (Thursday - Sunday) to listen to the submissions of others and give them your thoughts.

**A Note about Feedback:** Letā€™s try and keep things as constructive as possible. Negativity that does not contain constructive feedback should be avoided and ignored.

Today is day 1 of our first 14 day cycle.
Submissions are due September 6.
Your creative prompt is as follows:

_ā€œItā€™s the last week of summer vacation. Reflect on your summer, or the summer vacations of your past, or just the idea of summer vacation in general. Write something that tries to capture those moods and feelings.ā€_

11

["Would anyone want to get a music production feedback group going? ",ā€œMusic Production Club - Round 1ā€]

12

{ā€œstickyā€:true}

13

Pinned the thread. Please remind me that I don't need to write a Billboard Hot 100 song to be considered a success, and also remind me to un-pin the thread when it expires.

14

@ā€œantilleseā€#p130563 In my opinion, writing a Billboard Hot 100 song would be considered a failure. No one do that please.

15

@ā€œtomjonjonā€#p130636 I am making a public promise that if I participate in this thread and the song I contribute goes mega viral and makes it onto the Billboard Hot 100, I will set up an annuity to keep the IC forums hosted in perpetuity.

16

@ā€œantilleseā€#p130641 That seems fair!

17

what if the premise were ā€œtry not to make a billboard top 100 song, but you can accidentallyā€

18

Just want to add - in case I forgot to mention it - don't worry about your submissions being ā€œperfectā€ or even ā€œfinishedā€. I just (finally) started my idea today, after spending the bulk of my week seeing my home turned intro a strep throat colony. Best case scenario, I will have a rough sketch to submit on Wednesday. Which, I think, is a good stage to submit something, especially if you are looking for feedback!

19

Alright, let's see how this goes.

Here's mine:
https://soundcloud.com/tacatf/summer-1?si=457e5c8f066d4ef0a700e7c4dcebbd48&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

I interpreted the prompt pretty liberally. The first guitar line is supposed to represent something like a kid peddling a bike quickly (it's the last week of summer, and there's a lot of fun to still be had). I knew I wanted it to build into something that felt like a big adventure but also that I didn't want it to be too long because I wanted it to sound like a prelude. I've been listening to a lot of asian math rock, as well as stuff like parranoul and slowdive, and that mathy/shoegazey style is what most influenced the direction of this track.

I started with the drum beat you hear initially, and for awhile that just looped over the whole thing. The drums themselves come from Toontrack EZDrummer (pop punk expansion kit). Then I played my guitar and bass direct into my interface to ableton, but I ultimately wound up redoing this and playing through my HX Stomp because I did not like the tone I was getting through Ableton's amp sims.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to get perfect performances or even crudely mix the song. I spent most of my time trying to make the drums sound less fake. I think my achilles heel is that I want my individually made music to sound like a real rock band, and a lot of times, it just doesn't.

20

https://soundcloud.com/prophet_goddess/the-last-time-i-saw-you

when i think "end of summer," i have no choice but to think "emo."

my big inspiration was my favorite album in recent memory, [frailty by jane remover](https://soundcloud.com/janeremover/sets/frailty), specifically the tracks [search party](https://soundcloud.com/janeremover/search-party), [champ](https://soundcloud.com/janeremover/champ), and [how to lie](https://soundcloud.com/janeremover/how-to-lie). i was fortunate enough to stumble upon [this archived 3 hour live stream where jane goes through all the frailty project files track by track and explains how they were made](//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSNNj4DCifA), which was cool. i think the main thing i took away from it was how simple a lot of the sound design was, with the impression of complexity coming from a lot of layering of relatively straightforward parts.

i wanted to add vocals, which ive never done before, but i was not only unable to write lyrics that i liked but i was also unable to settle on a vocal chain i was happy with. i wanted to add a few more sections than this, i had ideas for more ways for the track to evolve, but without the vocals there wasn't anything to fill some of the space in my ideas so i just cut it off with what i had.

i borrowed a friend's guitar (a mexican stratocaster, nothing fancy) because mine has been out of commission for a while. recorded with ableton through native instruments guitar rig. the drum sounds and various ear candy was taken from various splice packs, mainly [will crooks](https://splice.com/sounds/packs/moment/yesclip-a-william-crooks-moment/samples), [wubz](https://splice.com/sounds/packs/moment/source_error-a-wubz-moment/samples), [petal supply](https://splice.com/sounds/packs/moment/garden-toys-a-petal-supply-moment/samples), [tracey brakes](https://splice.com/sounds/packs/moment/princess-girlfriend-2-a-tracey-brakes-moment/samples) and [umru](https://splice.com/sounds/packs/splice/umru-vol3-samplepack/samples), with most of the vocal samples processed through [portal](https://output.com/products/portal), which i got just the other day specifically because jane mentioned it as one of two plugins she owns lmao. it's good! i was trying to imitate her approach to vocal chopping/ear candy and i did not succeed entirely but there's a couple of transitions and bits i landed on that i like. the bass is a very simple pwm thing made with ableton analog, which is my go-to bass sound when i don't have something specific in mind.

@"kamillebiden"#p131767 this is cool! i like the way it builds. the mix is definitely rough around the edges, especially as the guitar gets louder the drums sort of struggle to punch through, could probably benefit from some sidechaining or general volume automation but you probably know that. i have very limited advice for making sampled drums sound less fake, because honestly i kind of like fake drum sounds (cf all the drums on frailty lmao). one thing i do think is that it can sound better to be "honest" about the sounds being "fake" rather than trying to imitate a real drummer, which is why i almost always use blatantly electronic drum sounds even when i'm making a song with a guitar. but also some stuff sounds less fake than other stuff, like the kick/snare/hat in this kit you're using sounds pretty realistic but the crash and ride sound very fake (which i find to be true almost universally) so it might be wise to avoid the samples that sound faker. also, this may not work for a math rock sound because of the time signature issues (though i've had some success chopping 4/4 breaks into odd time signatures), but consider sampling/chopping whole drum grooves/breaks instead of one-shots. it can have a lot more of that fun live energy.

maybe the greatest sorcerer of fake drums i know is [underscores](https://soundcloud.com/underscores/slb). i'm *pretty* sure the drums on this (and the rest of fishmonger) are sequenced and while they don't sound 100% *real* they do sound 100% *good* and are worth studying.