Tips? Tricks? Neat ideas?

[~intro]

Maybe some of us can share some of our coolest programming or production tricks. You know, spread the knowledge around a bit. Advice on getting really fat lead sounds, or how to do those wicked drum stuttering effects (which I just learned from Cody W, rock!), stuff like that. Anyone got any tricks to share?

-Mark
www.djintrovert.com

[~PTInc]

Originally posted by intro
Anyone got any tricks to share?

Kinda depends. Do you? Cuz honestly... I really don't like sharing my personal tricks that hopefully differentiate my music from the rest if I get nuttin in return.

[~intro]

I've got a few, but nothing great. Trying to develop an arsenal, quite honestly. But I once saw Francis Preve say in keyboard magazine that he likes to give his tricks out, because it forces him to come up with more original ideas.

-Mark
www.djintrovert.com

[~PTInc]

Well... once Im good enough to have a column in Keyboard magazine, I wouldnt mind giving up a few trade secrets.

Here's an old trick I did once. I took one synthline and played it with four distinctly different patches. Then I edited them to pan left to right and back at different times to simulate these four sounds kinda circling around the listener. It took so long to get it just right. But its still one of the coolest sounding synthlines Ive ever done.

[~arronc]

If you like any of the effect or tricks on any of my tracks on this site (Eight to Infinity) I would be happy to explain how I made them. However most of my most proud programming moments involve specific equipment which you are unlikely to have (commodore 64s usually !)

Cheers,

Arron

[~intro]

PTInc, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Stuff like that synthlead trick you did. I promise I'll try to post some of my own here as I find them. And maybe we can get some of the "bigger" bands to write some stuff as well. Midihead? You around dude? :)

-Mark
www.djintrovert.com

[~cliffwalk]

Instead of sequencing a percussion line try building the tracks, non-quantized, with either drum pads or the keyboard. The key is no quantization, just sync to what you hear.

Lay that over top of quantized skeleton and you can sometimes pull off an immense amount of energy in your rhythm tracks because of the natural mathematical swing that occurs.

[Synthpopalooza]

How to simulate a monosynth lead: Take a string pad, and use the pitch bender to try to get it to play notes. Especially useful if you can tune the pitch bender to go right to the note you want.

How to create a cool sequencer riff in ACID ... first off, start with a one note riff, maybe like this: xx-xx-xx-x-xx-x (x=16th note, - = rest) ... load the riff into the acid, pan it to the left. duplicate the track. Shift the duplicated track forward either 2 or 3 16th notes from the original. pan it to the right. press PLAY.

This kind of effect really caresses your ears, and is MEGA COOL.

[~pop]

Always convert your midi drums to audio. Dump it into Recyle to come up with weird beats......
FYI Synth tricks vary based on your gears.... If I write bunch of tips down, it might be useless information to you. Key is know your gears inside and out. Learn to program sounds......

[~IiI]

Originally posted by pop
Key is know your gears inside and out. Learn to program sounds......

This is the best advice I've seen on this thread yet.

It's funny though, some of the quirkiest noise I've come up with has resulted from me not knowing what the hell I was doing with a new synth. As you get to know it better, funky "accidents" happen less and less...

[~MidiRipper]

Need some funky percussion? Try taking a 16th sequenced track of some synth/piano/string/brass track and assigning it to a drum kit(s). Change the key or octaves. You may get interesting results.

'Ripper