I know that a few of your sound like postings do discuss the arrangement but could you make sure to include this aspect when making all of these. The tutorials are awesome and I have learned a lot but even when the you think the arrangement may be obvious it would really help me to see you lay it out. There are a lot of nuances to a good arrangement that I would like to see you do.
In the newer tutorials, there is alot of arrangement covered. Honestly, from there, the best thing for you to do is listen to some of your favorite tracks, import them into your project, and dissect them. Listen to the track 8 or 16 bars at a time on loop and note the changes.
[quote]howiegroove (11/5/2009)[hr]In the newer tutorials, there is alot of arrangement covered. Honestly, from there, the best thing for you to do is listen to some of your favorite tracks, import them into your project, and dissect them. Listen to the track 8 or 16 bars at a time on loop and note the changes.[/quote]
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thats how i learned
What I have learned as well (thank you Sonic Academy), is that alot of changes are subtle. You would have a hard time hearing them unless you had a good ear. Thats not to say that no one can do that, but if you break it down, put up your loop markers and listen to it over and over and over and over and over again, you will notice what is going on. It could be a slight change in the notes, or the rhythm at the end of an 8 or 16 bar loop. You never know unless you listen closely.
I have to emphasize that you also need to know about music production as well. When I first started, I would think that it was an effect that was thrown in to create a build, but alot of times, its the same parts played as normal, except the automation is changing. Knowing your equipment and plugins will help you out with that. You can pick out what would happen when you automate the reverb, with a simple delay, then a pingpong, then a saturater, then chorus, then another pingpong delay, etc etc. These effects can create some interesting changes that can move a track along and build excitement.
Ok, so this is reassuring because…
What I have been doing recently, as my arrangements where a bit ‘baggy’ was listening to tunes I like of a similar style, and literally, with a pen and paper, mapping them out.
Sounds geeky, and cheating… but rest assured everyone else cheated already… so don’t fret.
Listen to a tune you like, and map it out in bars for the intro, bars for the breakdown etc. Even to the level of how many bars before a drum edit, or reverse cymbal etc… anything like that.
You’d be surprised the difference it makes once you see how someone else does it.
First I take a song I like then bounce it into a audio track in ableton. i then add locators to the spots where there are changes in the song or key elements that make it up. You are basically making up a template for your to follow as a guide. This is on the electro house tut that Brian did a few months back. HTSL fedde le grand i think. That probably was one of the most importANT tricks I have learned so far.
personally i’ve just started setting up my qwerty keyboard so that the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 numbers at the top activate the mute on/off in ableton. i then play the loops together muting and unmuting each part until i find something workable, i aslo find this a good way to come up with variations of the riff, bassline and drum fills. once i have a few section down i’ll start dragging them into the arrangement page and build my track edit sections that need it and maybe adding new things to help the track progress in each section.
once i have 9 32bar loops with some kinda variation in them i know i have more than enough to lay down a basic arrangement and edit to a full track
My tips would be to start arranging as soon as you can, quite often (personally) I can build up loop of x number of tracks and sit for hours jamming with the tune by muting on and off. Getting a basic structure helps you to know where the tunes going and you can add in all the fills, automation and trickery afterwards.
If your loop, with most of the tracks playing, sounds like the busiest you want to make your tune, then you know what you are building too.
One method is to copy your loop across the arrange page and arrange subtractively. Basically deleting the blocks you dont want.
I agree with the above too regarding analysing a particular tune you like and copying the structure.