I see alot of people who seem to have problems with arranging their tracks. Now their is only one way to learn this and here it is. Take a pro track in the style you are making and copy it bar for bar. Really deeply analyse a tracks structure I used to write it all out on sum paper and make like a reference diagram. But don’t just copy how many bars they have but also little sound Fx and noises copy their arrangement as well. When I was learning to sound engineer we had an assignment where we had to copy a pro track bar for bar but with original music. Let me tell you when you spend hours looking at a tracks arrangement and copying every little sound or noise and placing them exactly in the same positions you really get a fast track education on arrangement. The track I chose as my pro track for my assignment was GTR - Mistral. I reccomend this track as for a basic tune it’s all fairly simple in how it’s structured. Literally if you try to recreate a tracks arrangement EXACTLY sound for sound bar for bar you will never worry about arrangement again obviously when you get the basics you can try changing the arrangement a bit and putting your own individual twist on it. I hope this helps, it seems quite simple but I don’t think anyone can be bothered to actually do this and they remain stuck. I was lucky I guess cos I HAD to do it, thinking now to just do it for myself I too prolly wouldn’t really enjoy it but hey nothing good in life comes easy and you have to work hard for the things you really want I guess 
Nice post and exactly what I do/did
Sounds good…
Check out [url]http://www.scribd.com/_ICN_[/url]
I made some sheets that might help work out the whole structure / arrangement of a track.
Scribd.com look to be asking for $7 to DL them. it was origally free - but they’ve been DL’d so many times now that they probably think they’re worth chargin for. They’re not. Its just a load of sheets I made in excel - LOL!
You can get around it by registering & uploading a .txt or .doc file - anything at all.
Once you’ve done that you can DL whatever you want for free.
Havent got around to it yet, but I’m going to put some Vids on YT & have the links to my skydrive a/c from there.
Good post. Surely we should all be thinking in terms of 4, 8, 16, 32 and so on to roughly sort out arrangements? Look for bigger changes in the bigger numbers, smaller, subtler changes in the lower number of bars. After that it’s a matter of taste no?
For me I think in terms of 8 subtle changes or new sounds being introduced I get easily bored and don’t really like 16 or 32 bars of the same thing but it depends on style but most work in 8 bars.
Deffo… Analyse any amazing track - its all about the fades inbetween every 8 bars.
It’s pretty funny actually I recently did two remixes one of sean pauls temperature and the other of pitbulls hotel room service. It’s quite interesting because in terms of arrangement I’m sticking to 8 bar changes sometimes 16 but the only real solid rule I stick to is a solid 32 bar intro and outro just for dj’s really. I think after a while arrangement becomes like a feeling, a sixth sense you just kinda know it’s weird.
Another thing that I do - Similar to you - Is to have a Ghost track with a similar Vibe or energy that I like… then put markers along the arrange where different changes happen.
Nice to throw in some random changes / patterns of arrangement to your song that you dont have to think too much about.
Can provide some happy accidents that you would never think about & maybe failed to assimilate while being deep in analysis.
Sometimes I’ll stick a Hipass on my master & draw in automated cuts here & there in relation to the ghost track, again to capture some of the energy (especially when listening to the same couple of sections over & over & over again! )
great tip cheers…
I used to do this admittingly in the past, it was a great way of working things out. But I haven’t done it for so long now, I just go with the flow really now.
If anyone’s interested here is a link to a screenshot of an analyse of a track in Ableton I did about 6 moths ago
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2JOXLQBU
Very useful post, I’ve been struggling with exactly this recently, so I’ve picked a track I’m gonna remake, then I’ll go back and work one of my idea into a full track. Do you think it’s a good idea to pick something simple to start with, or something abit more complicated? Or something you just plain love.
[quote]dannycueballtaylor (16/08/2010)[hr]Very useful post, I’ve been struggling with exactly this recently, so I’ve picked a track I’m gonna remake, then I’ll go back and work one of my idea into a full track. Do you think it’s a good idea to pick something simple to start with, or something abit more complicated? Or something you just plain love.[/quote]
Something you love Danny as you will be listening to it alot
Something that makes you go WOW!
Simple & Effective is best.
If you want to do this properly you will be listening to a lot of the same stuff over and over again so it makes sense to pick a track you love in the genre you wish to make it’s important that you pick a song that you feel has similair arrangement to the tracks in the genre you wish to make for example; say you want to make house music I wouldn’t choose Swedish house Mafias one as the arrangement is a bit weird pick something with a good solid intro and outro for the dj’s.
[quote]jjdejong0 (17/08/2010)[hr]If you want to do this properly you will be listening to a lot of the same stuff over and over again so it makes sense to pick a track you love in the genre you wish to make it’s important that you pick a song that you feel has similair arrangement to the tracks in the genre you wish to make for example; say you want to make house music I wouldn’t choose Swedish house Mafias one as the arrangement is a bit weird pick something with a good solid intro and outro for the dj’s.[/quote]
I shall bare this in mind!