So interesting question then: what's the least amount of tracks you've used in a project? 🤔 OXI One ► bit.ly/3PId2Qx Become a Patron ► venustheory.com/buckaroonie-babez
4. Cassette multitracker back in the 80s - 8 at the most then with lots of track bouncing going on. TBH even now with a DAW its always generally less than 20, even with drums on their own tracks. I have a hard time coming up with little filler/fluff bits that are only there to dress the track.
Late 70's, early 80's I had a Portastudio 4 track cassette, giving me 7 tracks after bouncing. I had a TR808, Minimoog, guitars and effects pedals. Not bad for high school
12-16 tracks. Drums is one track mostly. Some tracks is just effects. Another tracks mostly melodic stiff: bass lines, arps, melodies, chords, pads. And some old versions of parties keep few tracks.
I find ambient guitar or keys + nature sounds only needs 2 tracks. For Lofi I'll hook up my elektron cycles and Boss GT-1 together and do drums / guitar / bass on a single track while my buddy gets his own track to play guitar over it all. We run both tracks through the Arturia Mello-Fi + my master chain - works great! Just gotta record with good levels. There are some fantastic Motown documentaries where you can find entire bands carefully managing their velocity to create a good mix in the room with only 2 mics 😮 T'was a different time for sure.
i just want to share with you that today i landed my first job in music after three years since i started. having gone through all ups and downs of creating art, i have to say that it's so satisfying in the end when you feel like it's heading to something tangible. it's partly thanks to people like you who keep feeding those of us behind the screen with valuable information and your positive perspective. so, thanks for that.
Couple of weeks ago I decided to make an entire album in 2 weeks. Raced through it cranking out tunes with no time to fiddle obsessively with details and: I actually ended up really pleased with the end result. Most of the neurotic polishing I normally do is close to being a waste of time
The final 10% of finishing a track can be an unhinged nightmare. I'm almost never fully satisfied w the final mix, but I eventually just a reach a point and say fuck it, its done. Let's upload. You truly can spend an infinite amount of time in the final stage, but learning to know when to pull the trigger is almost an art form in and of itself lol
Combining morning coffee with hot sauce sounds like a great idea to a) get up for work without any thought of sleep left b) spending most of your companies time on the toilet
I have always thought the same thing before hearing this guy say it!! That's why it's amazing, because when I used to be into the flow when I first started producing on Reason years ago, I thought the same thing. I took a break for a while as my life wasn't in the best place, and that thought kind of lost some meaning to me. My passion for creating was violently re-sparked by my favourite artist inviting me backstage during ADE, and the universe seems kind of on a journey to bring me back into music with new meaning, this guy is part of it. Teaching me values I kind of already/intrinsically knew, but with a different perspective. Love it.
Somebody who hasn't spent long hours chipping away at a lyrical block of marble. Maybe you don't know the Hemingway quote about sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper and bleeding on the page.
"you don't write songs, you just kind of discover them" Venus theory -22 This might be one of the best and most true quotes i have heard from any musician. I usually say "all music is good music in someones ears" wich i feel have a bit of the same feeling to it.
I watch a fair bit of music production side of youtube, you are top-tier at content production, as well as being a very talented artist. Your aesthetic presentation of the information definitely helps sell the information in the video.
I've forced myself to do all my writing in Reason. Once I have the song where I like it so much I cannot possible fuss with it anymore, I then export it as stems and import that into Logic. This forces me to only mix and engineer in Logic and not keep 2nd guessing my writing decisions. This might seem silly, but I've had songs that have taken me over a year because I get into the loop of writing, mixing, writing, mixing, engineering, re-writing, etc. and getting nowhere. Thanks for this video, it's very reassuring!
Superb advice, and very insightful. As someone who started messing around with electronica back in the mid 80s, - after getting into the London hip-hop scene, and then later the Acid and breakbeat scenes, - I often find it alarming at just how many people spend way too much time trying to make a sound fit via corrective plugin usage, or layering, instead of getting the sound correct at source. Most of the early, and now often classic, Detroit techno, Acid, UK Breakbeat, etc was created on a compact mixer, usually either a Mackie or Soundcraft, with simple eq cuts performed on said desk, maybe some graphic eq, cheap DBX and Drawmer compressors, maybe an Alesis Quadraverb, some pedals, and a Lexicon PCM, if very lucky. The closest thing I had to a computer was my Akai ASQ-10, the MPC60ii and an S-950. I'm no great musician, and have only ever approached my creative outlet as a form of aural therapy, that said, I still don't personally understand the over reliance on plugins and in the box production. What made the older electronica so appealing, even to this very day, was the punk approach to production and sound design, with whatever cheap tools and instruments "we" could lay our hands on, - artists back then weren't trying to pigeon-hole themselves to a particular genre, and they sure as hell weren't trying to sound the same as everyone else... - it was all about originality, and that seems to have been missed by many new up and coming artists, and personally I feel working in the box makes it harder to come up with a unique sound. love to ALL, feel no hate Currently listening to, Atsushi Izumi - Vendigris, Houzan Archives Filmmaker - The Love Market, Latex and Leather ep Autumn's - Your Words, Slow Release I Speak Machine - War
The new career for many musicians is content creators. Venus Theory has a talent that is unique to him. His voice is his voice, his videos are equally as enjoyable as his music, maybe more so. Many people are creating music but few can produce great content.
Venus Theory: "check out how i keep it simple in this production now!" *extensively processes multiple iterations of noise and pads just to get some background vibe* cool workflow tho. i feel that! :)
One of the things I often find myself doing is that after I made something I like, I decide to give it some clean up getting rid of ugly bit by ugly bit. Then by the end of it, I bypass all that clean up and it sounds much richer than after all that attention. What I often find what happens is that in some attempt to be perfect I kill most of the character of a sound.
This is a lesson to remember about every single topic or activity. Perfection comes just with practice and (mostly) time! Trying to immediately achieve it (or just the expectation of it) will kill the real beauty of what you are doing. In music, in programming software, in drawing, organising an event or in planning a travelling 🙂 The illusion of perfection makes us sterilise our work; and sterilisation is about killing what’s alive. Dirty & from the heart it’s usually better ♥
I find the aim for perfection really kills a process. I recently gave up on trying to make something good and made more progress than I've done in ages. When it comes to clean up, I am not doing more than some compression/maximising and a low pass and high pass. I've also learned there's not much of a point in being very subtle with effects. It might sound nice in solo but you have to commit to it otherwise it'll just be some extra noise in your mix.
Thanks for video! I also get into same workflow with "external" sequencers recently, but I use iPad as my sequencer. Tons of fun with a myriads different sequencers on iOS, and probably this is a lot cheap option than dedicated hardware sequencer, but of course its working only within apple ecosystem. Totally agree also with mindset where less=better, at least most of the time.
An old producer group I was in used to do something called THTS. Two hour track sundays. We'd pick a theme and start a timer and get to hear all the results. It was great.
99.9999% of people will never notice stuff like eq tweaks or half the things musician/producers fret over. The OXI One looks very cool. Having an interface that helps you flow and express with both hardware and software is definitely the ideal. Mouse clicking and complicated interfaces/menu diving is a vibe/workflow killer. Music interfaces are a labyrinth that can gobble people up for years. Just wanna make music. I’ve thought maybe the Deluge is the ultimate machine for this kind of thing, but I don’t know how easy it can map to stuff in your DAW, and vice versa. Maybe the OXI One is as good or better in this respect. The OXI One looks to have wonderful sequencing capabilities that would help creatively. The benefit of the Deluge over something like the OXI One is it’s internal synth engines, and it’s portability. You don’t need anything else. You can also do sampling through its microphone. Its sequencing capabilities are insane, but I guess that can be a downside if you want to limit yourself. It’s very tactile, but the shortcuts take time to learn into muscle memory.
yes omg i used to obsess over eq until i thought it sounded perfect and would listen to it the next day like "how tf did i demolish such a great idea" 😂 now i only hp to 20hz and lp to 10khz and remove only the piercing frequencies that compression couldnt manage, and limit myself to a single boost at the best part
Basic translation: you start with a sound you like. The rest is history, too detailed to recall but enjoyable to listen to. That is a great performance tool/instrument you're demonstrating.
One of the best things about electronic music is how you can just inspire yourself while your making something through its vibe. I often find myself making a base patch for say a pad or something in vcv rack which then evolves into a full song just from me trying to make other voices which work well with said pad i made.
excellent video. I am 5 years into taking music production seriously and you nailed it. A lot of times I just catch myself studying meter's and forgetting I am making something "emotional". and even if it sound's "bad" because of my technically immaturity, I tell myself to remember the days of a fostex 4 track and cassette tape. and like record collectors and punk fans, sometimes the mistakes become part of the feel and don't beat yourself up so much. If "the man" is gonna hire you and make you a rockstar, "he" is gonna run all the stuff thru their technicians and mastering engineers anyway.
I think you'd kinda nail the chill kinda dubstep that some of the Deep Medi guys like Silkie made. It's pretty fun too, you get to use sounds from dub, reggae, jungle, lounge, jazz, soul and more, it all sounds at home.
One of the best burgers I've ever had was from a place in Colorado called Doug's Day Diner. It's called the "Black Betty" and has green chilis, peanut butter, and homemade blackberry jam. I never thought such a thing would taste good, but it was heavenly.
Thank you for this. I was a synth clinician probably before you were born, and this issue of feeling the need to polish a vibe into oblivion unless there's a deadline. Beds and flying logos, particularly live, doesn't allow that sort of mindset. Now is now as opposed to "what if I..." Knob wanking isn't really producing. However, hot sauce DOES go with coffee. As does smoked jalapeno dust. Like EQ, in reasonable quantities. As soon as everyone realizes reverb and delay are instruments there will be world peace.
I've been putting off watching this because I'm in mega-denial about my proclivity for over-working a project and getting bummed about the time I've spent on some infinitesimal aspect of a needlessly complex patch idea or something. As soon as I saw your framing of the video, I was immediately relieved about my own tendencies to 'over-render' sound design ideas. I'm so glad I watched this. Great work!
This was perfect for me right now - just seeing how you start and each step you go through teaches volumes! Of course it's not possible to show every single step without a VERY long video ;) but I thought the balance between too much not enough detail was perfect! Loved this so much! Thank you
Nice. I make synthpop type stuff and I always feel when I'm trying to make things too complicated to just go back to the drums. I like using the Roland 808 and creating beats in its sequencer than outputing the midi and working with the drums of my choice.
Only recently I started writing my music in a "basic" sequencer. God, that helps sooo much to just focus on writing. If it sounds good in there Ill bring it over to my DAW.
"You don't write songs, you discover them"...I so connect with that. Reminds me of I think Michelangelo who I think said something about how he would discover the sculpture in the marble, not turn the marble into a sculpture. Something like that. Anyway, poorly paraphrased and probably not accurate at all but you get the idea.
brother, your vids have really helped me out of this creative block ive been dealing with. Been psyching myself out a lot thinking I just lost it after getting sober but you helpin me get back into things again. Thanks!
Great video. I think it's important to love the process and not worry too much about the end result right away. A combination of choosing the genre, key & the right sounds early can really do wonders for finishing tracks quickly with most of the work already done.
This is some cool stuff man, thanks for sharing. I personally think simplicity is the best recipe when it comes to production, there isn't a need for a complicated approach in most situations.
GarageBand on a MacBook, or even better an iPad,.is great for this. After four instruments, the lines are so squashed together that one cannot see them properly should any more are added. Thank you so much for your channel/programmes. I thoroughly enjoy your theory pieces and have learned such a lot, especially about modes and scales. aAso, you yourself have a very engaging personality and are very entertaining to listen to, so dry and sardonic. Love, light and Peace, Bob McGowan.
Definitely. One of the reasons I started doing so many LIVE's is because it seemed to be the only time I could produce. Ironically, I recently reduced my LIVE schedule, and just finished a minimalist beat...great timing. Nice work. Your last LIVE was awesome!
True. Each song is different. Sometimes a song can only take very little time. Other songs might need more finessing and time to develop. Listen to engineers Phil Tans Story about the neptunes Drop it like its hot. That song was, mixed remixed, Many things were deleted, then at some point, Chad adds this synth, then it was mixed again at another studio 5 months later.... There was so much work put into that song, yet its a simple song w/o many instruments at all.
@1:25 I'm British, but used to live in Taiwan. That was when I discovered restaurants doing burgers with peanut butter. Also some with thin apple slices. I actually really like it! Well worth a try!🤣😂
My first released track was just me coming home from work, pouring a drink. Then making a simple 303 pattern and spending the next hour playing with cutoff and resonance hands-on while recording the automation in Ableton. Then came some weeks of fine tuning and adding the rest, but the basic flow of the track was already there so it was so easy to add things to. What you made here really gave me a Carbon Based Lifeforms kinda feeling. I really need to explore the use of probability more.
This! this!! this over-complication of things and little alignment with simplicity. I do a lot of Oracle work to deal with um everything, and i have received this message in regards to having trouble finishing tracks recently. its a form of self sabotage, this weird constant tweaking one-upping oneself is a real losing battle
I agree with your first tip so much. I get into processing and it becomes a session unto itself. SO counter productive. If your not making a kick dominant bassline a kick is just a friggen transient. Give it some room to breath and move on!
I hope some of the people who stick up tutorials on Y Tube watch this. Far too many subscribe to the more is more school of EM production. Ludicrous...Keep posting. You are one of few who talk sense. Well done.
Thank you for this video! I often find myself in a similar spiral especially when it comes to things like mixing and EQing. It's just so dang easy to fall down the rabbit hole of what is the "correct" way to do things. The Oxi is a really cool piece of hardware- I really like the vibe you made with it!
I did a music production course two years ago and the chap who runs it excels at adding lots of things to a piece, but then he really knows how to find the "holes" that need just a little thing, too. I... haven't got to that point. I put something together and it might have 6 sounds (including drums and bass) and I can't find anything else to add. And that works with adding things to sounds, too - most of my mixing is just balancing levels! Sometimes I make music with my Synthstrom Deluge and a few times I've simply recorded what I've put together and I can't fault it. Much less "mastering" than when I create in the DAW - and it still sounds great. Mixing as I create is a powerful skill. Really interesting to see you show us where you are still learning how to make music.
What's our golden rule? If it sounds good, it is good ☺ Thanks for mentioning Motions and Echoes, found it on spotify and LOVE it! Edit: After letting the entire thing play through twice, I had to save it to my "Tranquila" playlist. Absolutely beautiful. Keep em coming :3
you should check out the Art of Noise from the 80's, I was massively into them. Have you noticed tracks sound amazing right at the end when there is minimal elements?
thank you Venus! this was inspiring and its so true, addition by subtraction can really be a great way to give songs life and change the trajectory of the journey
Cool, I'm using the Polyend Seq to basically do the same thing. I do connect different sequences for a song, but in each sequence, there are no more than 8 tracks playing. With drums, this often isn't enough which is why I sample my drums into a 1010 blackbox and then launch that sample via MIDI from the Seq, compressing like 6 tracks of bass drums, snares, hi hats etc. into a single drum track. But so far, this has always been more than enough. Also if you listen to jazz or electronic or pop music on the radio, there's never more than 4-5 instruments at the same time, often you only hear one voice and one guitar and it's still a cool song. So don't overdo it, you're perfectly right with that 😉
it's a privilege to see and hear your compositions and how you do it The truth seems to be that indeed, even with cutbacks, there is still quite a LOT going on and a lot of Tech is involved... i completely agree with you about "addition by subtraction" as a brilliant technique........there is also "painting with silence" where you superimpose your set of tracks "overlaid" onto a previous similar pattern set ..........(this is in a visual sense Sir) ...... .......i quite literally mean painting with "Silence brush strokes" into your visual representation of your 4 tracks".........but it's done AFTER you have already carried out several "superimposing steps" of patterns over similar earlier patterns..........(thus revealing which areas you want to brush stroke) THere is "photo sounder" tool which offers this superimposing and layering approach. But quite honestly, from your video , you actually seem quite competent to be able to do the above approaches from a purely "track" and "sound point of view".........which is likely down to your experience....... anyway, i feel you are right about this minimalist "get something Done" approach. i believe many people work this way upon discovering it after a lot of personal experience......... Thanks V.
I bought a tr8s at the Nashville guitar center and I also had a 707 at the time, I ended up having to sell them to pay for a laptop for audio engineering school. While I had them they were amazing machines, the flow they had together was really good.
...that's why i'm in love with the 80ies...yah boring ! nah.. the for me "real" the minimal/dark/cold wave 80ies :) ...there are such so minimalistic songs which hooks you, till today, in seconds to the dancefloor with the concentrate universal zeitgeist of a style of music and time... a big thanks to veronica vasicka here...she did so much to dig out these pearls... from big hits like "mussolini" to "push" to the thousands more unknown ones.. "you discover them !" really like your approach ! PS: martin dupont is going back on tour first time since 1987.. they are part this silent heroes of a musical zeitgeist which is still so fresh.
i often get frustrated with all those "lets make this song" videos and they go "add this, add that"... I am like... Noooo.... Don't add, take away. It's the same way with EQ, people tend to add bands, and often forget about 'subtracting' them. I always prefered the 'less is more approach'. Unless I am in the mode of creating a complete orchestra (that's a different mode).
i like this channel for the same reason i like the Making Music book that Ableton sells - solutions to creative problems, not just talking about technical shit.
Love this video so much! This iis so much deeper than people realize on the surface as well. I can remember when I first started with sound engineering stuff (doing analog live sound) I was given this little audio engineers field guide pocket book. It was a tiny reference guide and the first "TIP" on the very top was "Less is More" specifically it was talking about reducing levels of things vs turning a single element up. That always stuck with me, and later I learned more about how summing works, how the sound energy of multiple sources add together and boost the overall greater than you'd expect. You can obviously get deep into the details of managing all that acoustic energy with tons and tons of sources, or you can simply take a more minimal approach. I often end up doing exactly what you are talking about, and doing "to much" but I always take time to listen back and eventually whittle away things until the songs are back to a much more minimal state. Where every element has a purpose. Everything serves and feeds the song. Love your content sir! Always looking forward to more. Your videos have made me less intimidated to explore synth and sound design, and I thank you. Grabbed the Decent Sampler after watching one of your videos on making a sample library, and I've been thoroughly enjoying using all the amazing libraries people have made.
One of the biggest offenders I've discovered in the sort of maximalist high-effort-required mindset is engineering. Its like you said in the beginning. We're led to believe that if we're not doing ABCDEFXYZPURPLE on everything, especially mixing, then our mixes will be bad when that's simply not true. Our goal is to create. Obviously it's nice to have some finer details polished to make our stuff next level rather than some kids fucking around on fl studio mindlessly, but it's unnecessary to harp and tweak and bury your music in one billion layers eqed and compressed to perfection. Because of this complicated=good mindset, I've found myself not wanting to even entertain the idea of engineering. Constantly procrastinating because it's such an overcomplicated ordeal. At the end of the day, I end up throwing my songs into Ozones automatic mastering tool and calling it quits, ironing out bugs as needed, but most of the work is usually done by that point. I've made my album that way. Few actual tracks/elements, very minimal mastering chain. And it just works. And I think that's a beautiful thing.
So interesting question then: what's the least amount of tracks you've used in a project? 🤔
OXI One ► bit.ly/3PId2Qx
Become a Patron ► venustheory.com/buckaroonie-babez
I only used three tracks when I made my demo track for Isometra
4. Cassette multitracker back in the 80s - 8 at the most then with lots of track bouncing going on. TBH even now with a DAW its always generally less than 20, even with drums on their own tracks. I have a hard time coming up with little filler/fluff bits that are only there to dress the track.
Late 70's, early 80's I had a Portastudio 4 track cassette, giving me 7 tracks after bouncing. I had a TR808, Minimoog, guitars and effects pedals. Not bad for high school
12-16 tracks. Drums is one track mostly. Some tracks is just effects. Another tracks mostly melodic stiff: bass lines, arps, melodies, chords, pads. And some old versions of parties keep few tracks.
I find ambient guitar or keys + nature sounds only needs 2 tracks. For Lofi I'll hook up my elektron cycles and Boss GT-1 together and do drums / guitar / bass on a single track while my buddy gets his own track to play guitar over it all. We run both tracks through the Arturia Mello-Fi + my master chain - works great! Just gotta record with good levels.
There are some fantastic Motown documentaries where you can find entire bands carefully managing their velocity to create a good mix in the room with only 2 mics 😮 T'was a different time for sure.
i just want to share with you that today i landed my first job in music after three years since i started. having gone through all ups and downs of creating art, i have to say that it's so satisfying in the end when you feel like it's heading to something tangible. it's partly thanks to people like you who keep feeding those of us behind the screen with valuable information and your positive perspective. so, thanks for that.
Congrats 🎉 love hearing things like this
That's awesome! Good luck on your new journey!
Awesome! Congrats and all the best. That is inspiring.
Congratulations 🍀
Nice one, Evren. I don't know you but, good to hear from someone who's beginning to live the dream 🙂
Couple of weeks ago I decided to make an entire album in 2 weeks. Raced through it cranking out tunes with no time to fiddle obsessively with details and: I actually ended up really pleased with the end result. Most of the neurotic polishing I normally do is close to being a waste of time
^^^^ Same!
The final 10% of finishing a track can be an unhinged nightmare. I'm almost never fully satisfied w the final mix, but I eventually just a reach a point and say fuck it, its done. Let's upload. You truly can spend an infinite amount of time in the final stage, but learning to know when to pull the trigger is almost an art form in and of itself lol
Combining morning coffee with hot sauce sounds like a great idea to
a) get up for work without any thought of sleep left
b) spending most of your companies time on the toilet
Boss makes a dollar while I make a dime, that's why I shit on company time haha
You don't write songs, you discover them! - Venus Theory❣️
Nah, that's a famous quote, however, I don't remember by whom
I have always thought the same thing before hearing this guy say it!! That's why it's amazing, because when I used to be into the flow when I first started producing on Reason years ago, I thought the same thing. I took a break for a while as my life wasn't in the best place, and that thought kind of lost some meaning to me. My passion for creating was violently re-sparked by my favourite artist inviting me backstage during ADE, and the universe seems kind of on a journey to bring me back into music with new meaning, this guy is part of it. Teaching me values I kind of already/intrinsically knew, but with a different perspective. Love it.
Somebody who hasn't spent long hours chipping away at a lyrical block of marble.
Maybe you don't know the Hemingway quote about sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper and bleeding on the page.
"you don't write songs, you just kind of discover them" Venus theory -22
This might be one of the best and most true quotes i have heard from any musician. I usually say "all music is good music in someones ears" wich i feel have a bit of the same feeling to it.
"Coffee doesn't need hot sauce" -- I feel like this is a challenge!
I watch a fair bit of music production side of youtube, you are top-tier at content production, as well as being a very talented artist. Your aesthetic presentation of the information definitely helps sell the information in the video.
Yeah it’s like, I love squarepusher. I noticed the other day my favorite track is the one that’s most chill and simple. UFOs over leytonstone
I find it useful to remember that a good chunk of the best rock and pop songs were made by a drummer, two guitars and singer.
I've forced myself to do all my writing in Reason. Once I have the song where I like it so much I cannot possible fuss with it anymore, I then export it as stems and import that into Logic. This forces me to only mix and engineer in Logic and not keep 2nd guessing my writing decisions. This might seem silly, but I've had songs that have taken me over a year because I get into the loop of writing, mixing, writing, mixing, engineering, re-writing, etc. and getting nowhere. Thanks for this video, it's very reassuring!
Using logic and reason to your advantage, nice
@@ravenatorful Haha
@@ravenatorful lmao that is an epic comment
Ah I know the pain go on rewriting n mix recording making like 5 to 10 different versions of the song
i do the same but using renoise and cubase.
Superb advice, and very insightful.
As someone who started messing around with electronica back in the mid 80s, - after getting into the London hip-hop scene, and then later the Acid and breakbeat scenes, - I often find it alarming at just how many people spend way too much time trying to make a sound fit via corrective plugin usage, or layering, instead of getting the sound correct at source.
Most of the early, and now often classic, Detroit techno, Acid, UK Breakbeat, etc was created on a compact mixer, usually either a Mackie or Soundcraft, with simple eq cuts performed on said desk, maybe some graphic eq, cheap DBX and Drawmer compressors, maybe an Alesis Quadraverb, some pedals, and a Lexicon PCM, if very lucky.
The closest thing I had to a computer was my Akai ASQ-10, the MPC60ii and an S-950.
I'm no great musician, and have only ever approached my creative outlet as a form of aural therapy, that said, I still don't personally understand the over reliance on plugins and in the box production.
What made the older electronica so appealing, even to this very day, was the punk approach to production and sound design, with whatever cheap tools and instruments "we" could lay our hands on, - artists back then weren't trying to pigeon-hole themselves to a particular genre, and they sure as hell weren't trying to sound the same as everyone else...
- it was all about originality, and that seems to have been missed by many new up and coming artists, and personally I feel working in the box makes it harder to come up with a unique sound.
love to ALL, feel no hate
Currently listening to,
Atsushi Izumi - Vendigris, Houzan Archives
Filmmaker - The Love Market, Latex and Leather ep
Autumn's - Your Words, Slow Release
I Speak Machine - War
Would be curious to listen to your tracks, if you still have them around in some form.
The new career for many musicians is content creators. Venus Theory has a talent that is unique to him. His voice is his voice, his videos are equally as enjoyable as his music, maybe more so. Many people are creating music but few can produce great content.
"you don't write songs, you just kind of discover them" made me instant sub great video thanks
Please don’t ever delete your videos I might need these for references. Great content man
Venus Theory: "check out how i keep it simple in this production now!" *extensively processes multiple iterations of noise and pads just to get some background vibe*
cool workflow tho. i feel that! :)
One of the things I often find myself doing is that after I made something I like, I decide to give it some clean up getting rid of ugly bit by ugly bit.
Then by the end of it, I bypass all that clean up and it sounds much richer than after all that attention.
What I often find what happens is that in some attempt to be perfect I kill most of the character of a sound.
This is a lesson to remember about every single topic or activity.
Perfection comes just with practice and (mostly) time! Trying to immediately achieve it (or just the expectation of it) will kill the real beauty of what you are doing.
In music, in programming software, in drawing, organising an event or in planning a travelling 🙂
The illusion of perfection makes us sterilise our work; and sterilisation is about killing what’s alive.
Dirty & from the heart it’s usually better ♥
sometimes you need to add a little back of what you lost in the process...
I find the aim for perfection really kills a process.
I recently gave up on trying to make something good and made more progress than I've done in ages.
When it comes to clean up, I am not doing more than some compression/maximising and a low pass and high pass.
I've also learned there's not much of a point in being very subtle with effects. It might sound nice in solo but you have to commit to it otherwise it'll just be some extra noise in your mix.
THIS
Thanks for video! I also get into same workflow with "external" sequencers recently, but I use iPad as my sequencer. Tons of fun with a myriads different sequencers on iOS, and probably this is a lot cheap option than dedicated hardware sequencer, but of course its working only within apple ecosystem. Totally agree also with mindset where less=better, at least most of the time.
An old producer group I was in used to do something called THTS. Two hour track sundays. We'd pick a theme and start a timer and get to hear all the results. It was great.
My process is pretty much the same as this. Sampling anything interesting, and mutating it beyond recognition into something cool.
99.9999% of people will never notice stuff like eq tweaks or half the things musician/producers fret over.
The OXI One looks very cool. Having an interface that helps you flow and express with both hardware and software is definitely the ideal. Mouse clicking and complicated interfaces/menu diving is a vibe/workflow killer. Music interfaces are a labyrinth that can gobble people up for years. Just wanna make music. I’ve thought maybe the Deluge is the ultimate machine for this kind of thing, but I don’t know how easy it can map to stuff in your DAW, and vice versa. Maybe the OXI One is as good or better in this respect. The OXI One looks to have wonderful sequencing capabilities that would help creatively. The benefit of the Deluge over something like the OXI One is it’s internal synth engines, and it’s portability. You don’t need anything else. You can also do sampling through its microphone. Its sequencing capabilities are insane, but I guess that can be a downside if you want to limit yourself. It’s very tactile, but the shortcuts take time to learn into muscle memory.
yes omg i used to obsess over eq until i thought it sounded perfect and would listen to it the next day like "how tf did i demolish such a great idea" 😂 now i only hp to 20hz and lp to 10khz and remove only the piercing frequencies that compression couldnt manage, and limit myself to a single boost at the best part
Basic translation: you start with a sound you like. The rest is history, too detailed to recall but enjoyable to listen to. That is a great performance tool/instrument you're demonstrating.
One of the best things about electronic music is how you can just inspire yourself while your making something through its vibe. I often find myself making a base patch for say a pad or something in vcv rack which then evolves into a full song just from me trying to make other voices which work well with said pad i made.
excellent video. I am 5 years into taking music production seriously and you nailed it. A lot of times I just catch myself studying meter's and forgetting I am making something "emotional". and even if it sound's "bad" because of my technically immaturity, I tell myself to remember the days of a fostex 4 track and cassette tape. and like record collectors and punk fans, sometimes the mistakes become part of the feel and don't beat yourself up so much. If "the man" is gonna hire you and make you a rockstar, "he" is gonna run all the stuff thru their technicians and mastering engineers anyway.
I think you'd kinda nail the chill kinda dubstep that some of the Deep Medi guys like Silkie made.
It's pretty fun too, you get to use sounds from dub, reggae, jungle, lounge, jazz, soul and more, it all sounds at home.
I LOVE THIS GUY LOOOL- just found this page and have been binge watching it like crazy
It is a vicious cycle. The more doesn’t always mean better. Great video! Thanks man!
This first part of this video is the funniest dang thing I have ever seen about production! Well-written and delivered with perfect timing!
You really have a little slice of heaven up in that attic. If I had a studio like that my wife wouldn't see me downstairs for day's 😁
One of the best burgers I've ever had was from a place in Colorado called Doug's Day Diner. It's called the "Black Betty" and has green chilis, peanut butter, and homemade blackberry jam. I never thought such a thing would taste good, but it was heavenly.
Thank you for this. I was a synth clinician probably before you were born, and this issue of feeling the need to polish a vibe into oblivion unless there's a deadline. Beds and flying logos, particularly live, doesn't allow that sort of mindset. Now is now as opposed to "what if I..." Knob wanking isn't really producing. However, hot sauce DOES go with coffee. As does smoked jalapeno dust. Like EQ, in reasonable quantities. As soon as everyone realizes reverb and delay are instruments there will be world peace.
Thank you for the peace and inspiration. God bless you on your journey. 🙂🙏🏼❤️
I've been putting off watching this because I'm in mega-denial about my proclivity for over-working a project and getting bummed about the time I've spent on some infinitesimal aspect of a needlessly complex patch idea or something.
As soon as I saw your framing of the video, I was immediately relieved about my own tendencies to 'over-render' sound design ideas.
I'm so glad I watched this. Great work!
I love addition by subtraction. You don't always need a beat switch or a key change or a new melody.
i love Boris Brjecha's minimal stuff ..so clean !!
This was perfect for me right now - just seeing how you start and each step you go through teaches volumes! Of course it's not possible to show every single step without a VERY long video ;) but I thought the balance between too much not enough detail was perfect! Loved this so much! Thank you
Nice. I make synthpop type stuff and I always feel when I'm trying to make things too complicated to just go back to the drums. I like using the Roland 808 and creating beats in its sequencer than outputing the midi and working with the drums of my choice.
Thanks for the feature and for this lovely tune!
Only recently I started writing my music in a "basic" sequencer. God, that helps sooo much to just focus on writing. If it sounds good in there Ill bring it over to my DAW.
idk how you hit the nail on the head every time but youre saying stuff no one is saying and its all so true 🙏
"You don't write songs, you discover them"...I so connect with that. Reminds me of I think Michelangelo who I think said something about how he would discover the sculpture in the marble, not turn the marble into a sculpture. Something like that. Anyway, poorly paraphrased and probably not accurate at all but you get the idea.
brother, your vids have really helped me out of this creative block ive been dealing with. Been psyching myself out a lot thinking I just lost it after getting sober but you helpin me get back into things again. Thanks!
I really dig the style of this track! Those chords aren't that complicated but sound very lovely.
This man deserves more subscribers
I love this channel, not just because of the great tips you have but just because you make me want to make music. Great video!
Great video. I think it's important to love the process and not worry too much about the end result right away. A combination of choosing the genre, key & the right sounds early can really do wonders for finishing tracks quickly with most of the work already done.
This is some cool stuff man, thanks for sharing. I personally think simplicity is the best recipe when it comes to production, there isn't a need for a complicated approach in most situations.
GarageBand on a MacBook, or even better an iPad,.is great for this. After four instruments, the lines are so squashed together that one cannot see them properly should any more are added. Thank you so much for your channel/programmes. I thoroughly enjoy your theory pieces and have learned such a lot, especially about modes and scales. aAso, you yourself have a very engaging personality and are very entertaining to listen to, so dry and sardonic. Love, light and Peace, Bob McGowan.
Definitely. One of the reasons I started doing so many LIVE's is because it seemed to be the only time I could produce. Ironically, I recently reduced my LIVE schedule, and just finished a minimalist beat...great timing. Nice work. Your last LIVE was awesome!
That whole intro bit about the EQ'ing on the drumtrack really made me sit back and go "damn" so thank you for that.
True. Each song is different. Sometimes a song can only take very little time. Other songs might need more finessing and time to develop. Listen to engineers Phil Tans Story about the neptunes Drop it like its hot. That song was, mixed remixed, Many things were deleted, then at some point, Chad adds this synth, then it was mixed again at another studio 5 months later.... There was so much work put into that song, yet its a simple song w/o many instruments at all.
This is lovely, very Carbon Based Lifeforms in sound and arrangement structure
@1:25 I'm British, but used to live in Taiwan. That was when I discovered restaurants doing burgers with peanut butter. Also some with thin apple slices. I actually really like it! Well worth a try!🤣😂
This video made me genuinely excited
My first released track was just me coming home from work, pouring a drink. Then making a simple 303 pattern and spending the next hour playing with cutoff and resonance hands-on while recording the automation in Ableton. Then came some weeks of fine tuning and adding the rest, but the basic flow of the track was already there so it was so easy to add things to.
What you made here really gave me a Carbon Based Lifeforms kinda feeling. I really need to explore the use of probability more.
I love that kind of workflow...less is often more!
I have a hybrid workflow as well. But in the end, all that matters is the song.
This! this!! this over-complication of things and little alignment with simplicity. I do a lot of Oracle work to deal with um everything, and i have received this message in regards to having trouble finishing tracks recently. its a form of self sabotage, this weird constant tweaking one-upping oneself is a real losing battle
"You don't write songs, you discover them" - couldn't agree more.
Someday I'll totally understand the first minute of this video. Thanks for a great vlog!
cool texture idea: frying pan noise with a stereo mic. did that in my lofi piano track, gave me a mood.
I agree with your first tip so much. I get into processing and it becomes a session unto itself. SO counter productive. If your not making a kick dominant bassline a kick is just a friggen transient. Give it some room to breath and move on!
This is fascinating, I’ve never even thought of writing music this way. Sounds beautiful to my ears,
I hope some of the people who stick up tutorials on Y Tube watch this. Far too many subscribe to the more is more school of EM production. Ludicrous...Keep posting. You are one of few who talk sense. Well done.
Thank you for this video! I often find myself in a similar spiral especially when it comes to things like mixing and EQing. It's just so dang easy to fall down the rabbit hole of what is the "correct" way to do things. The Oxi is a really cool piece of hardware- I really like the vibe you made with it!
I did a music production course two years ago and the chap who runs it excels at adding lots of things to a piece, but then he really knows how to find the "holes" that need just a little thing, too. I... haven't got to that point. I put something together and it might have 6 sounds (including drums and bass) and I can't find anything else to add. And that works with adding things to sounds, too - most of my mixing is just balancing levels!
Sometimes I make music with my Synthstrom Deluge and a few times I've simply recorded what I've put together and I can't fault it. Much less "mastering" than when I create in the DAW - and it still sounds great. Mixing as I create is a powerful skill.
Really interesting to see you show us where you are still learning how to make music.
What's our golden rule? If it sounds good, it is good ☺ Thanks for mentioning Motions and Echoes, found it on spotify and LOVE it! Edit: After letting the entire thing play through twice, I had to save it to my "Tranquila" playlist. Absolutely beautiful. Keep em coming :3
you should check out the Art of Noise from the 80's, I was massively into them. Have you noticed tracks sound amazing right at the end when there is minimal elements?
thank you Venus! this was inspiring and its so true, addition by subtraction can really be a great way to give songs life and change the trajectory of the journey
Definitely had this problem and this was also what I started doing to help.
Cool, I'm using the Polyend Seq to basically do the same thing. I do connect different sequences for a song, but in each sequence, there are no more than 8 tracks playing. With drums, this often isn't enough which is why I sample my drums into a 1010 blackbox and then launch that sample via MIDI from the Seq, compressing like 6 tracks of bass drums, snares, hi hats etc. into a single drum track. But so far, this has always been more than enough.
Also if you listen to jazz or electronic or pop music on the radio, there's never more than 4-5 instruments at the same time, often you only hear one voice and one guitar and it's still a cool song. So don't overdo it, you're perfectly right with that 😉
it's a privilege to see and hear your compositions and how you do it
The truth seems to be that indeed, even with cutbacks, there is still quite a LOT going on and a lot of Tech is involved...
i completely agree with you about "addition by subtraction" as a brilliant technique........there is also "painting with silence" where you superimpose your set of tracks "overlaid" onto a previous similar pattern set ..........(this is in a visual sense Sir) ......
.......i quite literally mean painting with "Silence brush strokes" into your visual representation of your 4 tracks".........but it's done AFTER you have already carried out several "superimposing steps" of patterns over similar earlier patterns..........(thus revealing which areas you want to brush stroke)
THere is "photo sounder" tool which offers this superimposing and layering approach.
But quite honestly, from your video , you actually seem quite competent to be able to do the above approaches from a purely "track" and "sound point of view".........which is likely down to your experience.......
anyway, i feel you are right about this minimalist "get something Done" approach.
i believe many people work this way upon discovering it after a lot of personal experience.........
Thanks
V.
I bought a tr8s at the Nashville guitar center and I also had a 707 at the time, I ended up having to sell them to pay for a laptop for audio engineering school. While I had them they were amazing machines, the flow they had together was really good.
Best intro EVER! Had me in hysterics, of course never been there myself 🤦♂️😂
...that's why i'm in love with the 80ies...yah boring ! nah.. the for me "real" the minimal/dark/cold wave 80ies :) ...there are such so minimalistic songs which hooks you, till today, in seconds to the dancefloor with the concentrate universal zeitgeist of a style of music and time... a big thanks to veronica vasicka here...she did so much to dig out these pearls... from big hits like "mussolini" to "push" to the thousands more unknown ones..
"you discover them !" really like your approach !
PS: martin dupont is going back on tour first time since 1987.. they are part this silent heroes of a musical zeitgeist which is still so fresh.
i often get frustrated with all those "lets make this song" videos and they go "add this, add that"... I am like... Noooo.... Don't add, take away. It's the same way with EQ, people tend to add bands, and often forget about 'subtracting' them. I always prefered the 'less is more approach'. Unless I am in the mode of creating a complete orchestra (that's a different mode).
juicy coloring work Cam! Very good and important idea of the video
Im just getting into this stuff but this reminds me of like a futuristic PS2 game for some reason, i can't explain it but it gives me that vibe
You are always so helpful and unique in the instruction vibe you present
That is one powerful tool!! I gotta get me one. Thanks for the morning enlightenment. ☕🙏
phantastic music, can listen for hours
Good golly, your storytelling ability is off the chain!
A true master can do so much with so very little.
i like this channel for the same reason i like the Making Music book that Ableton sells - solutions to creative problems, not just talking about technical shit.
I love the carbon based lifeforms vibe
Awesome workflow - especially when the commercial break a commercial for a Midi Pack is - 😀😵💫
Love this video so much! This iis so much deeper than people realize on the surface as well. I can remember when I first started with sound engineering stuff (doing analog live sound) I was given this little audio engineers field guide pocket book. It was a tiny reference guide and the first "TIP" on the very top was "Less is More" specifically it was talking about reducing levels of things vs turning a single element up. That always stuck with me, and later I learned more about how summing works, how the sound energy of multiple sources add together and boost the overall greater than you'd expect. You can obviously get deep into the details of managing all that acoustic energy with tons and tons of sources, or you can simply take a more minimal approach. I often end up doing exactly what you are talking about, and doing "to much" but I always take time to listen back and eventually whittle away things until the songs are back to a much more minimal state. Where every element has a purpose. Everything serves and feeds the song.
Love your content sir! Always looking forward to more.
Your videos have made me less intimidated to explore synth and sound design, and I thank you. Grabbed the Decent Sampler after watching one of your videos on making a sample library, and I've been thoroughly enjoying using all the amazing libraries people have made.
it's a perfect ad integration! 👍
Reminds me of solar fields! I’ve always been curious about the ambient/electronic side of sound design, and this was a great insight into it 🙂
My channel is 99% TR8S and Circuit... and that means I finish a lot of music and I have a lot of fun. Worth a try 😉
"Sound check style" is probably the best style
excellent video. this is what the music world needs. don't do much more than you can perform live. keeps you from becoming icarus
Complexity is simple things strung together.
Listening to your latest album on Spotify right now! Cheers!
You are blessed with a great voice.
That song is so captivating I love it
Another great video and ponder lesson from the V dude :) Thanks for the info and entertainment! H.N.Year!
Your tracks sound really good, it deserve to be finalized but may be you will. Thanks for your great videos.
One of the biggest offenders I've discovered in the sort of maximalist high-effort-required mindset is engineering. Its like you said in the beginning. We're led to believe that if we're not doing ABCDEFXYZPURPLE on everything, especially mixing, then our mixes will be bad when that's simply not true.
Our goal is to create. Obviously it's nice to have some finer details polished to make our stuff next level rather than some kids fucking around on fl studio mindlessly, but it's unnecessary to harp and tweak and bury your music in one billion layers eqed and compressed to perfection.
Because of this complicated=good mindset, I've found myself not wanting to even entertain the idea of engineering. Constantly procrastinating because it's such an overcomplicated ordeal. At the end of the day, I end up throwing my songs into Ozones automatic mastering tool and calling it quits, ironing out bugs as needed, but most of the work is usually done by that point.
I've made my album that way. Few actual tracks/elements, very minimal mastering chain. And it just works. And I think that's a beautiful thing.
I really want an OXI One... you lucky basket! 🙂