Getting started with making electronic music can be expensive and you may ask yourself whether you actually need a MIDI keyboard to make electronic music at home.

I want to get straight to the point and say that a MIDI keyboard is not essential for producing music, but there are a number of reasons why it is great…as well as a few alternatives you may want to consider!

For those of you very new to music production, a MIDI keyboard is generally a keyboard that you can plug into a computer or synth. It won’t make any noises by itself – unlike electric pianos – but it has a huge amount of versatility because it can control anything in a computer.

READ MORE: How to become a power user of your favourite DAW

MIDI keyboards send MIDI messages to the computer which can control pretty much any software instrument (or VST). Whether you have loaded a piano instrument or a dubstep synth, or even an orchestral ensemble, it can be controlled via your MIDI keyboard.

Alongside notes, they can also send other control signals such as faders and playback controls. As you’ll see further down, these can come at a premium, but not a drastic one.

While all good music software allows you to draw in the notes you need with a mouse, having a MIDI keyboard allows you to perform the melodies into the computer and record the grooves more naturally. When playing on a keyboard, you are jamming or performing ideas in real time.

Compare that to inputting the notes manually with a mouse, you can’t do it as the song is playing, so have much less of a feel for the music.

Do you need to know how to play piano to produce music?

No. In fact, almost all of the producers I know aren’t trained pianists. What you will find is that as you produce more and more, you do get better at playing the piano. That is, of course, provided you have been using a MIDI keyboard to record your melodies.

I am by no means any good at piano, but having spent so much of my spare time making music, I am able to play and compose things more or less on the fly with my keyboard. I can’t do anything too technical, but I can lay down the chords needed with not too much trouble.

What you will get good at (quickly) is chords and simple melodies. It is then on to you to determine how much you want to learn. Many producers go their whole lives being unable to perform back their songs on a keyboard, because the computer assistance is so great it means they can get by with minimal skill. (I’m not saying producers aren’t skilled – you still need to be musically talented – you just don’t have to be a proficient pianist to make great songs)

What MIDI keyboard should I get for music production?

I’m going to be really budget friendly with this section, because I know what it was like getting into music little money to waste on frivolities.

Basically, any MIDI keyboard that connects via USB will be best for most producers. There are a few things to consider such as size and the number of keys, and after that, you are just looking at nice-to-haves which will be a case of balancing your budget.

– Mini & Budget

If you aren’t too fussed about the “legitimate” piano experience, you may be good for a “mini” keyboard. These are cheap and compact and have small keys, but they are more than enough to record in the melodies and jam out ideas.

They generally only have a few octaves at most, so don’t expect to play two-handed. But this is good because it keeps size down.

Generally these come with “no frills” but some also have additional knobs or pads to add extra control.

– Normal-sized & Budget

These keyboards generally have 49 keys or more and use the standard key size. Because they are larger units, they are generally more expensive, but have more room for extra controls and even screens.

This is probably the best place to start if you are planning on setting up a space in your house/room for music production. The keyboards aren’t very portable and take up space on the desk, which is something worth considering if you are in a small room.

Generally you will be getting a unit for under £100 and maybe a few nice-to-haves such as pads or knobs, but it will be a simple, basic controller. You may also get some software bundled with some models, which is a very big plus when deciding on what product to buy.

– The Nice-to-haves models

These models are generally a bit more expensive and have a large range of extras on them, from screens to plenty of extra buttons, knobs, and pads.

These are good for if you want extra DAW control and can afford it, but in my honest opinion, they don’t necessarily add much.

I have a MIDI keyboard in this “tier” and I bought it for all the faders and knobs, but I probably use them <5% of the time. If you think they are something you will make use of though, they are definitely worthwhile.

Alternatives to MIDI controllers for music production

One of the best things about making music on a computer is that you aren’t limited. There are many ways to go about the same task, none of which are right.

This is true for controllers too. The main alternative is probably pad controllers such as the Maschine and the Push.

These work with drum pads and have the benefit of being better at drum programming than a MIDI keyboard. You can also assign the pads to musical notes and ply like that.

This has its benefits for those who aren’t keen at the piano and there are many ways to set pad controllers up to lock the player in a single key signature so they’ll never play out of tune.

Pad controllers tend to be pricey, but can also come with their own software. If you are into hip-hop and minimalist electronic genres such as techno and tech house, these may be more suited to you. If you are into more complex melodic compositions, then you may prefer a keyboard controller.

The post Do you need a MIDI keyboard for producing music? appeared first on Audio Ordeal.

Today we are looking at what it is like to produce music on a PC running a Linux operating system.

Linux is fantastic for many things, and while some people swear by it, it still has a lot of catching up to do before it can compete with mainstream OSes like Windows and MacOS.

For those that don’t know, Linux is a family of open source operating systems based on the Linux kernel, which was first released in 1991, by Linus Torvalds.

READ MORE: Can You Produce Music on a Raspberry Pi?

All computers for day-to-day use run on an operating system, which includes the desktop environment and file systems. Most people will be on PC and MacOS, but thousands of views on this site have come from Linux users, showing that it is very much in use for many people.

Linux has been seen by many mainstream computer users as a bit of an underdog.

While it is free, it is presumed to be less user-friendly than Windows and MacOS (both are paid for either when you buy the computer or build it).

One of the biggest “scary” parts about Linux is the need to use the command line to do certain things, however modern Linux OSes are slowly moving towards fully-graphical interfaces.

To be clear, Linux isn’t a single OS. There are many which you may have heard of, such as Ubuntu, Raspbian, and Debian, and others which you might not have, such as the MacOS-like Elementary.

The Lowdown
Linux is definitely a viable option, particularly for the future, however the lack of VST support and additional work needed to get it running smoothly will leave most producers pining for a better solution.

If you do want to tinker with Linux audio, I recommend grabbing a Raspberry Pi and checking out this article.

Using Linux for music production pros:

Linux is lightweight

One of the biggest pros of using a Linux OS to make music is that it is lightweight.

Music production software can get heavy, particularly with lots of samples and audio being processed simultaneously. This uses lots of CPU power and fills up RAM.

Linux has advantages over Windows and MacOS because it is generally more lightweight. To run the basic operating system, you generally need less computing power, and the base operations take up less RAM.

If we look at when Windows 10 was launched, lots of older computers ground to a halt, because Windows 10 needed at least 2GB of RAM to run. For a cheap computer, this meant even turning it on could use the full amount of system RAM, or at least half.

Once working, a DAW in Linux will (hopefully) run much smoother than it would on the same computer running Windows, this includes better latency and potentially more tracks.

Linux is free

Another big advantage is that Linux OSes and apps are almost always free. It is a heaven for open-source software and so for people on a budget, it may be a good solution. It is worth noting that, as you’ll see in the cons section, the additional time needed to get things working may be worth more than the cost of Windows.

Future of Linux

A lot of the downsides of Linux are being fixed, even as we speak. With thousands of people all contributing to the code behind it, Linux is becoming more and more usable for the average person.

One key area that Linux always struggled with was gaming, yet the past few years have been great for Linux gamers as more and more support has come.

Now, players can even see triple-A video game titles available on Linux in game stores such as Steam.

Music production is not as well supported yet, but as the ecosystem continues to develop, Linux may see even greater improvements.

Using Linux for music production cons:

Linux is still hard for anyone who isn’t tech-savvy

There will be plenty of Linux die-hards that may dislike this, but at the end of the day, Linux is much less plug-and-play than Windows or MacOS.

Driver compatibility is something most producers rarely need to worry about as Windows and MacOS deal with a lot of it under the hood.

In Linux, there isn’t the same user-flow to get something up and running from scratch.

Take me for example, in high school I actually had Ubuntu Linux as my main OS on my school laptop, so I am fairly used to using it day-to-day. Yet even now, I still have to Google solutions to problems much more than I do with Windows.

Finding solutions for Linux on forums is also a bit of a nightmare for tech noobs as everyone contributing to them generally has an expectation that people have done their research first. As much as people say it has a thriving community, it can also be quite snobby and hard to break into.

Linux is the WORST for plugin support

If you’ve ever had the problem with plugins running on a Mac, or realise you can’t run a 64-bit VST on a 32-bit OS, then you are going to hate what Linux has in store for you.

In fact, if you move to Linux, you can say goodbye to all your VSTs, since they often won’t work.

There are exceptions to this, for example running REAPER in WINE (recursive backronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator) – which allows you to run Windows software outside Windows – does allow you to use 64-bit VSTs. However, these tricks are much harder than just having them work from scratch in Windows.

There are a bunch of Linux plugins available, but many don’t work in the same way as VSTs, some may work as separate programs, where you have to pipe the audio back into the DAW after processing.

DAW options are limited in Linux

While Linux does offer a bunch of options for music production DAWs, examples include REAPER and BitWig, you aren’t going to get the industry heavyweights such as Logic, Pro Tools, or Ableton Live.

That said, here’s a list of music production apps Linux does offer.

Sound cards may be “no-sound” cards

Most producers will use an audio interface or a sound card of some kind to get their music to their speakers. In this regard, be very careful of what you buy if you plan to use Linux.

There is a good chance, you will struggle to get one working, and that is if it will be supported at all.

Audio issues in Linux aren’t a case of running Windows troubleshooter

While in Windows, you can solve most problems with the built-in troubleshooters, fixing issues in Linux is a bit more of a pain. Expect to dive deeper into the OS than you feel comfortable, and spend much longer looking for a fix.

There is a high chance when things go wrong you’ll need to dive into the Terminal and type a bit of “code” and navigating the filesystems in Linux can be daunting for newbies (and more seasoned users).

To sum up

I really can’t recommend the hassle of using Linux as a music production OS, unless you are already a Linux fan wanting a hobby. It has so many ongoing issues and hurdles, that you are much better just paying the one off fee of convenience for a Windows licence.

As one redditor put it:

If you’re that hard up for money, your time would be better spent training rabid squirrels to gather aluminum shoehorns. Even if there were plenty of great software (there isn’t,) the whole trainwreck that is Linux audio is crippled by the never-functioning JACK (short for Jack Audio Connection Kit.) It never fucking works. It will crash all day every day, for any reason, or for no reason. Instead of wrestling with already-difficult problems like “should I use side-chain compression?” you’ll be asking yourself “what does ERROR%^{&%&^(_&^(%$$&%#%#} mean?”

/u/Singaya

The post Pros and Cons of using Linux for music production appeared first on Audio Ordeal.

Our last look into Logic’s stock collection of effects saw the Compressor broken down into its many functions. Today I wish to show you the depth of Logic Pro X’s Vintage EQ Collection, and why you should hold off on buying a new EQ plugin.

If you have tried Logic Pro in the past, you would be forgiven for still thinking that it doesn’t offer a lot in the way of analogue “colour” or character, not past Logic’s Compressor at least. 

To get around this you would have needed vintage hardware or expensive plugins to solve the digital “sterility” of recording within the programme. With the introduction of Logic’s Vintage EQ Collection, this is no longer the case!

Logic Pro X’s 10.4 update (introduced in January 2018) was substantial, and with its inclusion of the Vintage EQ Collection it saw three accurately modelled analogue EQs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s added to the programme.

• READ MORE: What are reverse fades and when to use them?
• READ MORE: Wave Destroyer is my new go-to VST for making drums hot!

In classic Logic style, as well as closely mirroring the sounds and functionality of the originals, the EQs boast features and flexibility not entirely possible on the originals in the analogue domain.

Despite this, in the two years since their introduction I’ve found that these plugins have slipped completely under the radar for many Logic users.

This is understandable since stock plugins are easy to dismiss; third-party manufacturers have trained us to believe that their products are some of the best on offer and that DAW developers simply cannot compete.

Or, if a user has already bought into a plugin eco-system, they may not feel the need to check for updates or use yet another emulation.

So what makes these EQs so special? Let’s take a look.

Vintage Console EQ

Anybody familiar with this console will recognise this layout as that of the Neve 1073 channel strip EQ. 

Designed in 1970 by Rupert Neve, this channel strip is a favourite of many engineers on just about any instrument you throw it at. 

This is largely due to the character of its transformer that is often described as “big, fat, and coloured”. 

This EQ features the same controls as the original: a switchable high pass filter, a switchable low shelving filter and mids bell filter, and a fixed shelving filter at 12 kHz.

Where this differs from the original however, is the ability to set the controls to frequencies between the original stepped EQ points, allowing significantly greater control over sonic balance.

Like the original, it also features a drive control which allows you to control just how much of the unique saturation this unit offers is applied. Try it on bass, drum shells, and vocals to add size and life!

Vintage Graphic EQ

The tell-tale knob and colours tells us this plugin is based on the API 560 Graphic EQ.

Introduced in 1969, this EQ has a lot of headroom thanks to the combination of their proprietary components and transformers which results in what API states as better low frequency reproduction and tighter imaging, which gives you that legendary API “punch in your gut” sound.

Where this plugin differs from the original is the “Tune” feature. This allows the user to globally adjust the frequency centre-points of the EQ’s sliders. It also features a drive knob not found on the original. 

Tip: When set to +12 the top filter’s centre-point is doubled to 32 kHz which allows for some really nice subtle boosting of that ever-elusive “expensive airiness”! 

This classic and unique sound makes it an especially appropriate choice for drums and guitars and voice. Not outrightly transparent, it’s best to think of this EQ as putting forward only the best bits of a sound.

Vintage Tube EQ

Last but not least, this emulation is based on a legendary pairing of not one but two EQ units, which can also both be bypassed independently within the plugin.

The top unit is based on the “PulTec” EQP-1A which has filters for the Lows and Highs, while the bottom unit is based on the MEQ-5 which allows for filtering of the Midrange. 

Originally, the EQP-1 was a bespoke design by Eugene Shenk of Pulse Techniques (PulTec, aay!) for a Capitol Records mastering studio, and it was then introduced to the wider studio industry in 1953 as the EQP-1A, following the addition of a tube amplifier section.

Later another tube-amp EQ, the MEQ-5, was introduced and both units became the ideal combination and now tend to live on most mixers’ Master Bus. 

Unless you have thousands and thousands in spare change the original units and even reproductions are virtually inaccessible, so having the sounds and characteristics available to you in as many instances as your CPU allows is a fair tradeoff. 

Not just for the master bus, this pairing is well suited to submixes like a Drum, Cymbals, or Bass bus, with its ability to add excellent beefy lows or super silky highs and mids.

Think of it as adding broad, yet final and subtle strokes of paint to a canvas, the kind that make the sweetest difference.

Tip: If you increase the low boost and cut by similar amounts, the result is not a cancellation as you might think, but a more controlled and focused low end owing to the fact that both filters are of different orders. This is the famous Pultec trick for adding and controlling some serious low end on your tracks!

Output Section

You may have noticed that each EQ has a different setting under the Drive knob and are so named to associate their sound with each particular emulation: Smooth for Neve, Punchy for API, Silky for Pultec. 

Thanks to the magic of plugins, we can actually swap these around in each of the EQs, or even disable them altogether.

Add that to the already increased flexibility of the plugins, we now have the opportunity to process our source material in truly unique ways.

At the end of the Output section we have a gain knob to adjust for any difference in level (handy for A/Bing any processing), as well as the option to switch between Linear or Natural Phase. 

Natural Phase mode allows the signal processing to replicate the phase/time shift to the sound that the original units would impart.

These phase shifts are actually usually desirable and those familiar with the units are used to hearing these shifts as part of the units’ sound! 

For those that argue that these shifts are detrimental however, Linear Phase mode compensates for these phase/time shifts.

However it’s generally recommended to limit use of Linear Phase processing to your sub groups and Mix bus, for minimal global processing and minimal to no “pre-ringing”, which can be even more obviously detrimental in some cases, especially across many individual tracks. 

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully you can now see that Logic does in fact have some great tone shaping options that will help you to bring your tracks that extra bit closer to “alive” and away from what can sometimes be a somewhat sterile experience, it’s a bit of a shame I haven’t heard more people raving about them. 

I suggest you start experimenting with these across your projects, familiarise yourself with them and see what they can do for your music.

The Vintage EQ Collection provides tonnes of variety, flexibility, and it’s absolutely free with Logic Pro X, and who doesn’t love free?

This article was written by Seàn Frost of Frozen Sounds Audio

Shout out to Feedspot
We are very pleased to announce that Audio Ordeal has been recognised as one of the top music production blogs/websites online. Anuj Agarwal, founder of Feedspot, got in touch with me to congratulate us and requested I give our readers a heads up about all the other greats sites on the list. Knowledge will make you a better producer, and every site listed is packed with tips, so definitely get subscribed to them all! You can find the full list here.

– Tom Jarvis, Editor

The post Here’s what you didn’t know about Logic’s vintage EQ collection appeared first on Audio Ordeal.

One of the most important things in your studio is your PC. And having a fast PC is crucial to being able to handle large projects and produce music swiftly. This guide will look at the three main upgrades for improving your production PC.

One thing to note, upgrading a PC is cheaper than building a new one, but if your computer is really old, you will be severely limited in how much you can upgrade.

Jump to:

• SSDs
• CPU
• RAM

This is down mostly to the motherboard, and so if you feel like the upgrade options aren’t enough, you may be looking at more of a PC rebuild than an upgrade. In that case, you can keep components like your hard drives and graphics card and refer to our guide on building a music production PC.

You can think of upgrading your computer like upgrading a car. If you want a new engine, you can’t fit any engine, it needs to be one that will work with the rest of the car. Likewise, if your car is small, you won’t be able to add massive wheels to it.

SSD

This is the first thing I’d advise you look at as it is the least limited in terms of compatibility.

Solid state drives (SSDs) run much faster than old hard drives because they don’t have moving platters to read from. An exaggerated example would be comparing reading a song file off a USB drive vs a vinyl record, though even hard disk drives (HDDs) run much faster than record players.

If you can upgrade your main boot drive to an SSD, you computer will see a boost in overall responsiveness. This will include the time it takes to boot up and load Windows, as well as opening apps and projects.

SSDs used to be a lot more expensive than HDDs, but nowadays, they are much more affordable.

I do recommend also buying a large HDD as a secondary drive, as these are now dirt-cheap and you can buy several terrabytes of storage for under £100 which means older projects and large video files can be stored cheaply. This frees up space on your fast SSD for the important files and applications that need to be accessed more frequently.

There are two main types of SSD available at the moment. Your traditional SATA SSD will directly replace your normal hard drives and they use the same cabling.

This is a case of just unplugging one and replacing it with the other.

The second type of SSD is newer and it is called an NVMe SSD. These plug into dedicated slots on your motherboard (found on newer motherboards) or expansion cards for older motherboards.

NVMe drives are significantly faster than normal SSDs, with the best ones being able to read data at more than 3GB a second.

You’ll have to refer to your motherboard manual to see if it has an M.2 slot, but chances are, if it is more than a few years old, it won’t. This means you can either stick to the traditional SSD style, or grab an expansion card to be able to accommodate an NVMe drive. Do note that these cards will take up a graphics card slot on your motherboard and you’ll need to make sure there is enough room for one.

SATA SSDs

NVMe M.2 SSDs

NVMe exapansion cards (allows you to plug in an NVMe drive on older motherboards)

CPU

The main bit of hardware to look at upgrading is your central processing unit (CPU). This is the brain of your computer and handles all the calculations for pretty much everything.

Upgrading your CPU can be a major hassle if you don’t know what you are doing, because only a few are compatible with each other.

The main board on your PC, which everything plugs into is called the motherboards, and motherboards only accept a few types of CPU each (normally within the same generation).

To find out if you can upgrade your CPU, you’ll have to do some research. You’ll need to know what CPU you already have, and what motherboard you have.

Generally speaking, newer CPUs perform better. They have faster clock speeds and more cores. (Think of clock speed as how fast it can do tasks, and cores as the number of “brains” it has to work on multiple things)

When looking for a new CPU, find out what motherboard you have and you will be able to look online to see what CPUs are compatible.

There are a few things to note here:

Firstly, some CPUs require more power than others. If you have a really small cheap PC with a slow CPU, upgrading it can draw more power than the computer hardware can supply.

Secondly, some CPUs come with integrated graphics. This means they have a graphics card built in. If your planned CPU upgrade doesn’t come with integrated graphics, then you’ll need to buy a cheap graphics card (or if you plan on gaming, a more expensive one).

A quick tool to check what CPU you can buy is UserBenchmark. Put in the motherboard you own, and it will filter out the CPUs that aren’t compatible. You don’t need to go through the rest of the tool as it is designed for people who build their PCs from scratch.

Top things to look out for:

• Much newer generation (that is still compatible with your motherboard)
• Faster clock speeds
• More cores
• Features such as hyperthreading

RAM

Random access memory doesn’t contribute directly to PC speed in most cases. What it does mean is that more files can be stored in fast memory for you. If you are a music producer, you’ll probably have lots of samples in a project that need to be played back immediately, instead of being read off a slow disk. RAM can help with that.

I recommend 8GB of RAM at a minimum these days, and if possible, go to 16GB so you can have some other apps running in the background behind your DAW.

Some plugins such as Kontakt use large amounts of RAM (sometimes gigabytes) so if you are using high-end plugins, more is essential.

You will need to check what type of RAM your motherboard supports. Most people will have either DDR3 or the newer DDR4.

These aren’t interchangeable.

DDR3 is older and rus a bit slower. It is also limited in how much RAM you can add to your system. Most people with older computers will be currently using DDR3 RAM.

DDR4 is newer and runs faster. You will see it can have larger sticks with more GB on them. I recommend going for sticks with a clock speed of at least 3200MHz for best speed.

Your motherboard is how you can tell what RAM you need. Give it a Google and see what RAM it can take.

Most motherboards come with more than one RAM slot. It is not advised to use two different models of RAM, so you may be best replacing it all with a RAM kit (e.g. buying two 8GB sticks instead of adding a single 8GB stick from a different brand to the RAM already installed).

Good DDR3 RAM Kits

Good DDR4 RAM Kits

SEE ALSO:

• Best PC Optimisation Software for Producers
• How to pick/build a computer for music production

The post How to speed up your music production PC appeared first on Audio Ordeal.

ONE of the most important things to consider when sampling sounds and tightening the feel of your track is ensuring that timings are correct.

In this regard, Ableton has one of the best solutions of any DAW: Grooves.

You are able to take a sample and extract a groove from it, this involves the computer calculating the volumes and accents as well as the swing and feel of the sample.

In many live instrument performances, the beats and notes aren’t exactly quantised. Particularly in swung genres, they are ever so slightly delayed or rushed allowing for a groovy feel.

In a lot of electronic music, everything is tightly quantised, and dare I say it, boring. You can really spice up the feel of a dance track by adding grooves and swing to the sounds to really make it stand out.

Future house is a genre that works as a great example for this, whether you like it or not, the feel of it is especially funky.

• READ MORE: How to Build a VST: Compressor
• READ MORE: Can You DJ with a Raspberry Pi?
• READ MORE: Ableton: What is the difference between Dynamic Tube and Overdrive?

Likewise, if you are using a sample with a swung groove and then program in straight, quantised sounds over the top, it will feel like they aren’t playing with each other and suck away the impression that the sounds are working together.

To solve this, you want to extract the groove from the sound you want and apply it to the other main instruments. One key thing here is choosing a feel and sticking with it across your sounds. I have experimented with combining various grooves over each other and it can lead to happy accidents, or more often than not, messy timings.

It is especially important to make sure kick drum tracks (or any featuring the kick) and basslines are quantised to the same groove.

So let’s get started.

Extracting grooves from samples/recordings

The main other way I use grooves is from Ableton’s library of grooves. Many are available in Ableton’s core library under the folder Swing and Groove.

To apply them to sounds, you can just drag and drop them into the timeline onto individual samples or apply it to the whole master track.

For a full overview, there is no better resource than Ableton’s manual … here’s the section on using grooves.

The post Using grooves in Ableton to tighten your mix appeared first on Audio Ordeal.

ONE of the best ways to become a better producer is to make your life harder.

I know how that sounds, but hear me out! If you limit yourself to certain options, then you have to become more creative. By only allowing yourself certain freedoms, you can really steer your music in ways that you’d not see open to you otherwise.

DAWs now ship with huge content libraries and the availability of free and cheap VSTs means that producers are spoiled for choice with what is on offer. This can lead to more time choosing sounds than time spent making music.

Here are a few “games” you can play to improve your production:

1. The one synth rule

Grab yourself a powerful synth VST and make a song using only that synth. You will have to make the elements from scratch, including the percussion.

This works great with synths like Serum, where you can add in samples as wavetables and have a wide range of sounds on offer.

By playing with the one synth rule, you will force yourself to learn that synth inside out and come up with new techniques for making ideas flow.

Alternatively, you could use a single hardware synth or (limited functionality) groovebox.

2. The one track rule

This option is even more limiting. You are only allowed to use one track to make a song.

With this, you will have to curate a selection of samples (or make your own) that fit together into a single track.

While this game will become harder as you want to make a track more complex, you can play about with delays and other options to let sounds flow over each other.

You will be limited with sounds as you can’t layer them on top of each other, so expect to play with off-beat notes between the drums and percussion elements.

It will also teach you to pick and level sounds as you produce them because you are limited in the way you can mix when only using one track.

Some DAWs like Reaper offer clip effects, where you can apply FX to individual sounds on a track, other DAWs may only allow you to apply effects on the track itself.

This is a great way of finding new possibilities within the feature-set of your DAW.

3. No effects mixing

This will open up your possibilities more than the last game. To play this, you can have as many (or as few) tracks as you like, but you can’t use any effects.

Built-in effects on synths like Serum are not allowed either – so don’t try and sneak a compressor in there!

This game will make you very considerate of the sounds you pick and design in a song, and the mixing is as much a compositional and arrangement affair as it is setting levels and panning.

Remember, before tracks could be mixed, composers had to select how many instruments in the orchestra were playing a section so other elements weren’t drowning them out.

4. Single sample production

Rip a recording of a politician or celebrity speaking and choose a 10-second snippet.

You are only allowed to make sounds and instruments from that small clip.

Sounds that are vowels (“aaahs” and “ooohs”) can turn into sampled notes, and plosives (“Ps” and “Bs”) can make up the percussion.

This game will turn you into a sampling mastermind as you discover how to transform sounds into real-life instruments.

5. The 20-minute song

You have 20 minutes to make a complete verse and chorus that you would be happy to show to your friends.

This game puts efficiency at the forefront. You can use any sample pack and join loops, but the more original ideas, the better.

Set a timer for 20 minutes and see how far you get.

One thing to work on is your ability to use shortcuts and the tools built into your DAW to improve speed and efficacy of production.

This will not only make you learn your DAW better, but it will also force new ideas into your head and prevent overthinking or losing the flow by getting bogged-down with sound design.

You can add new rules to this game such as recreating your favourite song, or combining it with any one of the games mentioned above.

The post Five fun games to become a better producer appeared first on Audio Ordeal.