Social sample library and beat workshop; learning music production

[deficiT]

This is something I've been looking for, for a minute. Just a really simple diagram, with all of the scale patterns for each Mode of the Major scale.

Guitar Modes - All 7 complete modes for guitar

Guitar Modes - Easy to learn method to master modes.

www.guitar-skill-builder.com

This is some more advanced shit, I'm not gonna be able to do a master class or anything, but the gist of it, is that when you hear the words "Major" or "Minor", these are considered modes. It's essentially just a different ordering of the notes, with different chord triads and relationships with each other, so they all got a different sound, major being upbeat, minor being more emotional.... But, ya know, read the link it'll probably make more sense.

Major and Minor, are obviously most popular, but there's 5 whole ass other ones! And that's just in traditional western music... You can definitely branch out much further with song writing when you begin to understand this stuff, I'd highly suggest anyone interested in music to get acquainted. It's easier than it looks when you put the time in and find the right teachers, if my simple ass can do it, anyone can. The major and minor Scales I've pounded into my head forwards and backwards, but never really taken the time to memorize the other ones, but I do love messing with them

I'll try to find one for the piano as well, as that may be make more sense. I don't even know if piano players do diagrams, they're kinda traditional like that

 

[deficiT]

Ok, so dats much better... So ya see, they all start on the same note, that's considered the "1"... Each of these scales have 7 notes, (there are 12 notes in each octave)... So just think of the word "mode", as synonymous with the word "key"...

Errrr EDIT: ok so this is where modes can get a little clnfusing, because there's multiple ways to look at, and understand them. ^^^ that diagram is all of the modes of C, so C is the root note, and it is just showing the scale pattern to play through each mode. So they are not the same arrangements of notes here.

I'm trying to memorize the patterns themselves right now, I'll definitely come back to this

So like, C major is the easiest example, has no sharps, no flats, it's just all the white notes. The 6th note in C major, is A... And the 6th mode, is Minor. So, A minorrrrrrrr, has the same notes as C major, it just starts on A.

Lol tmrw I'll find some more easy shit, like scales, and chord triads and shit

 

[Esperighanto]

when you hear the words "Major" or "Minor", these are considered modes.

As much as this can be argued to be true with things like relative minors and all that, I've often found modes best described as taking a scale and shifting how one perceived (or implies) the tonic note by things like voicing, compositional innuendo, etc.

A really neat exercise is to write a chord progression, then copy+paste it into a new MIDI pattern and convert it into different modes. Once you have all of those, chop each chord out into a sample and beat on them on a launchpad or something and you'll find that being able to bang out J Dilla style soulful samples in a way that involves mode shifts that would make Coltrane lustful is a really great way to explore the natural of modality in composition. Every time I write with a mode change, I always want to change the BPM too but then it starts sounding too much like a different song.

Have you (or has anybody reading this thread) ever improvised in a context that involved mode shifts? I used to jam with some super talented jazz guitarists back in college while I was producing/DJing as a damn near full time job and it shocked me how smooth those jazz cats could flow between not just key, but mode as well, as if the dyadic combination of key:mode combines into a single point within space. I suppose it's kind of like the true coordinates to the tonic and the detail of the steps to it, if that makes sense.

I've worked as a professional audio engineer doing predominantly FoH mixing for venues. I've also got some albums out on major publishing platforms, and used to DJ a lot back in the pre-covid South Florida EDM scene. If anybody has questions about audio engineering or just wants to nerd out about it, feel free to hit me with questions or an invitation to get nerdy with some audio shit.

Writing audio DSP code is the current wall I'm trying to scale as far as programming goes, 17 years of writing code and I'm still quite stumped on how to get anything fast enough to FFT both in and out of my plugin in live time without an absolutely unforgivable delay occurring. Optimizing C is like having to write battle raps in calligraphy with no writing utensil, just a spork or some shit. Idk how to articulate the fickle, tempestuous nature of optimizing C but I swear I'll inevitably have to grow from getting better with it.

 

[ImperialTyranny]

These all look pretty good man, legendary for doing these write ups. I'll go over them abit better once I've finished setting up audacity and reaper, I'm still fine tuning debian atm. The sound and equalizer software that came stock/default needed some fine tuning

 

[deficiT]

As much as this can be argued to be true with things like relative minors and all that, I've often found modes best described as taking a scale and shifting how one perceived (or implies) the tonic note by things like voicing, compositional innuendo, etc.

Lol, yeah, that's why I made the edit, I'm definitely not super knowledgeable with a ton of musical terminology, but, I feel like being told in that manner is the only reason it made sense to me.

I've mostly played guitar and bass, and written music, for, well fuck over 20 years now. I was in a pretty awesome music school through high school, so I've been playing live shows and stuff since I was like 13 or something. Played with a lot of bands throughout the years, have written a ton of stuff and really just trying to refine things.

Wrote a pretty dope song in A Lydian over the winter. It's just a beautiful key/mode whatever, not quite as straight joyous as major, but also not downtrodden.

I'm really just starting to mess with producing shit, and Lord it's opened up an entire world to me that I can't believe I wasn't harnessing previously. Can't sing the blues until you really, really, really know what the blues is, I guess lol.

But yeah, I'm definitely gonna nerd out (100% I'm gonna pick your brain) and will come back to this, glad you found your way here

 

[deficiT]

I've taken a break from making a ton of new stuff, to take the time to do some much needed learning on production ... Man, here's something I've learned that's pretty damn important that basically none of the tutorials I've watched have bothered explaining... It relates to using samples and making patterns with the piano roll. This information is solely based on my FL studio limited understanding...

Say you have a kick drum, well, in order for it to actually play the note you want it to, say D4... Well, the sampler automatically will set whatever sound you load into there at C5... So if you go on the piano roll, make your pattern on D4... If the sample isnt actually a C5, well it's not going to be playing a D4 when the pattern is triggered!!!!

So ya gotta load up Edison on the sample, detect pitch region, and find out what note the original sample is actually doing. And then you have to go to the settings screen, and right click whatever note that is... It's the blue highlight on the piano at the bottom of the sampler or the audio clip editor.

Sorry, this is disjointed and confusing, but I was annoyed when I learned this, since noooooo one has said anything about it in all the videos I've watched, so my drums to this point have all been out of tune lol... Jeez

 

[Esperighanto]

Say you have a kick drum, well, in order for it to actually play the note you want it to, say D4... Well, the sampler automatically will set whatever sound you load into there at C5... So if you go on the piano roll, make your pattern on D4... If the sample isnt actually a C5, well it's not going to be playing a D4 when the pattern is triggered!!!!

Pitching samples can be a pain in the ass in FL, but once you've done it enough it's a breeze. I first used FL about a decade ago, but was putting in 40 hours a week or so for ~3 years straight. It helps to consolidate out samples you use often to a C5, and pitch it after you load it to fit the key of the track you're working in. You could also use pitching the sample to fit your song as an exercise not just in pitch recognition, but also in recognition of the tonic note of a scale vs. the other 6 (or more).

Personally I use all samples as audio clips straight on the playlist, so I can visualize the transients better. It also opens up sample chopping, reversal, and time alignment (such as stacking a clap and a splash cymbal under your snare in a tearout song), all of which I personally find invaluable from genre-to-genre.

 

[deficiT]

Pitching samples can be a pain in the ass in FL, but once you've done it enough it's a breeze. I first used FL about a decade ago, but was putting in 40 hours a week or so for ~3 years straight. It helps to consolidate out samples you use often to a C5, and pitch it after you load it to fit the key of the track you're working in. You could also use pitching the sample to fit your song as an exercise not just in pitch recognition, but also in recognition of the tonic note of a scale vs. the other 6 (or more).

Personally I use all samples as audio clips straight on the playlist, so I can visualize the transients better. It also opens up sample chopping, reversal, and time alignment (such as stacking a clap and a splash cymbal under your snare in a tearout song), all of which I personally find invaluable from genre-to-genre.

Yeah, that's the other thing it took me a second to realize, that dropping a sound on the channel rack was different than just putting an audio clip in there. The sampler gives different options, and I just didn't realize it was different, since they both just drop in the channel rack either way.

It just kinda blew my mind that I should've been doing that with essentially every one shot, but just no one ever mentioned it. Like I was mindful that I needed to make sure the 808s were in tune... But if say the sample said (B) or whatever, I would just pitch it up 1 semitone.

Right now I'm going through a pretty big course with Larry Ohh, it's specifically about FL studio, and yeah he's definitely thrown some good stuff out there.

Yeah, audio is definitely the way to go, especially when the project gets big it can be difficult to manage all of those MIDI patterns. But, I just find it way too difficult to build some kind of cool pattern or rhythm by just dropping individual elements in to the playlist, it feels extremely limiting with what you can do. I feel like it works best for me to build the arrangement I want with midi patterns, split them into individual tracks, and then render them as audio to do what you need to with mixing and effects and so on.

Or is that basically what you were saying?

 

[Esperighanto]

Or is that basically what you were saying?

It could be, I'd consider what you mentioned to be more of a "consolidate and then flip it" type of technique, DnB producers do this a lot when they render out basses and then process them even further to enhance the glitchy qualities. I've watched countless hours of Virtual Riot and Mr. Bill streaming as they produce, and both are prone to doing this, not involving MIDI triggered drum samples (I picked up raw audio in the playlist from seeing them both do it), but MIDI triggered synths and other instruments. I think I'd personally rather spend hours fine tuning audio in a playlist instead of MIDI because it feels far less robotic, you can give it a sense of "humanity" or "groove" or "soul" or whatever you want to call the consistent flow of novel imperfections that separates the robotic soullessness of house music produced in a professional studio from the soulfulness of hip-hop produced on just an MPC.

A huge "why was I never told this!" moment for me was when I learned that really every sample on the playlist (or in the channel rack), as well as every synth should likely be assigned to its own mixer channel, then those channels bussed by type, and that buss run to the master where it's beneficial for sound/sample selection to have the mastering channel already running by time you start the song, just not fine tuned yet. Nowdays I'm even somewhat militant about how I organize the playlist by section:

I had to stitch that together out of 6 screenshots, sorry if it's a little bit choppy. It's a glitch remix of Waiting For The End by Linkin Park that I made to get back in the flow of music making a while back. At the very end of the arrangement you can see an old build I decided was garbage, so I cast it into far-to-the-right exile in case I wanted to steal any drum programming from it in the future. There's a building suspicion within me that bass music producers are specifically drawn to producing on the playlist instead of the channel rack in FL because it allows you to visualize automations over samples, therefore making the classic "consolidate and then flip it" mindset of many producers easier to exist in that way.

Sorry for the rant here, just super passionate about audio and music production.

 

[deficiT]

For anyone looking to learn some basic music theory, here's a good article for that. It goes over the basics without getting too in depth with it

Basic Music Theory for Beginners – The Complete Guide

This basic music theory guide looks at fundamental concepts musicians use to understand, analyze, perform, and create music. This curriculum is designed to introduce basic/advance components of music.

www.iconcollective.edu

 

[deficiT]

Ok, yeah, I've gotta now take a break from collecting loops, drum kits, and samples and all that. I went pretty crazy with it, as well as different plugins to try, that my brand new 2TB hard drive 24gb RAM laptop is struggling with only medium size projects. I think this laptop will be perfect for more portable type things, but I should probably be trying to invest in a proper rig like a good PC with a powerful processor, for long term use as a main unit

But, before that, I'm looking at getting a DDJFLX4 dj controller. That way, I can really start learning that craft as well. As I don't have a band to perform with, learning to DJ will be my go to for getting into some live performances. For now, I'm going to install the rekordbox software, and then I believe I can set it up to control that with my midi keyboard/drum machine.

Man, the path forward to having a career as a solo musician is so clear to me now. It's really a bummer that I wasted so many years on basically trying to start a band, or being just a traditional singer songwriter, playing guitar and singing, stuff like that. I have a lot of lost time to make up for with regards to learning, but now that I've opened the door to production and DJing, man the inspiration and drive to get better is just pouring out.

 

[deficiT]

Quick question though @Esperighanto

Do you know of any good forums that are music production or DJ based? It can be genre specific or whatever, or general.

Like yeah theres social media, but so much of the people you meet on there are just basically out to gas themselves up, it's tough to find a community that's really trying to spread knowledge or lift each other up, and I figure I'm much more likely to find it on an old school forum like this

 

[deficiT]

Here's a good video on synthesizer basics:

 

[deficiT]

This is a good one for beginners on music theory, particularly guitarists:

 

[deficiT]

Ok next project is gonna be to chop this fucker up here and add it to something cool:



Run Fay Run - Isaac Hayes

 

[Jnowhere]

Yeah, it's pretty tough to make a real living out there, record labels do suck, but there's still creative ways to make a living, for sure. The quality of the mainstream music has definitely gone done, even since the 90s,
but there's a ton of great underground music out there. It's not being blasted on the radio, you might have to seek it out. But it's actually never been easier for a regular person to just produce great music, there's tons of free lessons and resources, and you can pretty much learn how to produce on a DAW with enough effort.

But this is why I'm trying to broaden my horizon, learn a ton about sound design, and not just pour everything into writing my own solo music ya know and trying to release it. I am planning on making an LLC and a website, give away a ton of free content for producers, and start making some more premium shit as I get better and build a team. Maybe start some kind of music collective where people can network with each other, release music, learn, share resources and collab, etc.

It's definitely a solid idea I just have to put all the framework together and it will definitely take some time, but I think that is the best way to leverage my skills, get better at music, while also hopefully making a small bit of money. Who knows where it'll go, but all I can do is try, and I've got a good day job to hold me down, so we'll see.

That is the most frustrating part for people. I mean, I am going to try not to go off on him but, Justin Bieber in part got his start posting on YouTube. It is a musical tragedy that musicians from all genres can post music that they make and reach a hugh audience but can't get any sort of album deal because it is not like when people could go in and record an album for $ 600-$1000 dollars and get 100 tapes or cds depending on the era.

They would also get their masters( recordings) also for$1,000 for 1,000 additional copies and basic 4 color insert and plastic case and would sell them for $5 after a bar shows and if they were good make money and be able to send out copies to whatever ever radio station( college radio as I was sort of apart of two different ones that would receive them).
And also commercial stations. And record companies form indie to big faceless corporations and every thing inbetween. There were bands I liked that were in a genre that the biggest album sold was around 200,000 copies yet Bands like Death, Cannibal corpse, Obituary, would sell few albums but have a big enough fan base to have their albums in record stores coast to coast and over seas and tour smaller venues and large capacity bars to make a living.
As long as they just took advantage of free drinks at the bars and didn't really get into hard drugs.

But there is no way now to have a medium to for the younger garage bands, and musical acts of all types to promote with a solid medium.

I am trying to hold back my stylus on going after Bieber, but he actually got able to promote world wide and then sell cd's. Millions unfortunately but he was able to really get his" music" promoted and had a way for fans to buy his albums and create a fan base. Way back in the later 80's I would listen to music my friends had and learn of new band and even earlier from the teenagers I hung out with when I was 12 or younger. I first every thing from Metallica to Run DMC to AC DC to The Beastie Boys from junior high and high school kids and my being able to have solid medium such as cassette, which someone would buy one or steal it and let people make copies. Yes music piracy it was last century and I having nothing to live for, oh that right I got a warning while doing 71mph in a 45 mph
Area and only had to prove later that day that I did have a valid registration and only cost me 50 cents in gas. I like cops for probably at least the rest of the week. Who besides a hot chick especially with my dui and 2 car accidents gets a warning doing 26 over?
Thank you God but I digress. The streaming companies rip recording artists off and they have made it tough to make a living.
Remember when you started to have money and you'd hear a song on the radio by a band and then another and say ok how good is the security system at the record store at the mall? I mean I gotta go buy that album. Now it is I got to listen to it free on YouTube. Even though bands would get ripped off some until they made it big. Music videos and albums helped them make money and able to go touring and if they got big enough and weren't stupid could make real money and sell merchandise( KISS is a horrible example but they got filthy rich off Gene Simmons greed. Back in the nineties there were lots of rappers who made millions and went broke. Now they are lucky to make thousands and probably end up dead.

 

[Esperighanto]

Do you know of any good forums that are music production or DJ based? It can be genre specific or whatever, or general.

Honestly I don't know of any that are meaningfully active, but it would be cool if some were. It seems like subreddits killed the last major ones that were around, tragically.

 

[deficiT]

Honestly I don't know of any that are meaningfully active, but it would be cool if some were. It seems like subreddits killed the last major ones that were around, tragically.

Ah, I see, that's a bummer. Yeah, I definitely frequent some subreddits, but generally speaking I don't really like to interact on Reddit because the people kinda just suck.

But yeah, I got this really sick Drum N Bass production suite today, it's a ton of really good one shots and samples, as well as like 800 some shit serum presets. Right now I'm trying to get it on my Google drive, but have some plans this evening and no access to WiFi, so haven't fully delved into it yet.

But if anyone is interested in these vital or serum presets, or the samples, just lmk!

 

[deficiT]

Oh yeah, I also wanted to share this girl's channel, she really is next level on providing good advice for making drum n bass in particular!! Tons of good sound design stuff too...

Hold up, I actually have two really good channels I found yesterday to share:

 

[deficiT]