Hey everyone.
I kinda wanted to talk to everyone about something that I have been noticing. You can take it to heart, or not. It doesn’t matter to me, however its meant for everyone to understand what they can do to get themselves better, so here goes.
Something that I have learned through my productions and through learning from my best friend is that you should rarely be happy with the songs you produce. Now, that doesn’t mean that what you produce is junk, its just that you need to work harder to make you music feel GREAT. What would happen is I would make music and have my buddy critique the music to see what he thought. In his responses, he would say over and over the word “FEEL”. “It makes me feel ____.”, or “The FEELING goes away when…”, or “I should be FEELING this here, but…”.
The artists that we look up to are perfectionists. I listen to many of the songs that are made from users on this site and users on other forums and I run into alot of the same stuff. There isn’t that much feeling in the songs and they don’t “MAKE SENSE”. For instance, the peak might be incorrect, or there is a build, and then 16 bars before a break, something occurs where the energy goes away.
With that being said, alot of the technical aspect is there. The song is technically sound, but it doesn’t feel good. Now, I am not condoning the use of drugs but I’m sure many of us has taken ecstasy at one point or another. And more of those people have taken them in either a club environment or a “Rave” at least once in their life. Well, if you can think back to this time and you would listen to that music. There had to be times when you would get this incredible warm and fuzzy feeling you would get when you would hear a certain part in a song. You as a producer has to recreate that type of feeling. Whats more, is you have to recreate that feeling to people that ARE NOT on drugs of any kind. This is one of the ways I feel takes a producer from good to great. When you can recreate the same feeling you get when you are messed up to when you are sober with the music you create. The feeling you get when a transition occurs and you get chills that go up your spine from an occurrence in the music you hear or produce. This is what you should be aiming to recreate.
In your productions, the biggest difference I notice is that working with my friend and learning from him is all the minute changes made. He is never happy with what he is listening to. You have to be a perfectionist. You have to want it. Funkagenda, Mark Knight, Josh Gabriel, Daft Punk, Tiesto, Richie Hawtin, Carl Cox are all amazing producers. I love all of the music they make. They share something in common, and that is their music is not good, its GREAT. My friend works for a label and he told me something one day. I sent him a song that I thought was good and asked him if it was releasable. He told me no. I asked him why he thought that way. He told me this. “Howard, the track is good. It needs to be GREAT in order to be released on a big label. We are not in the business to release mediocre music. We want to release great music. There are too many mediocre music and too many mediocre labels out there, and we don’t want to be one of them.” With that being said, when you think you have a good song, thats when the real work starts to begin. Taking a song from GOOD to GREAT requires 10 times the amount of work that you already have put in to make it GOOD. So when is a song done? I think thats the problem. Only you will really know when its done. The songs made in the tutorials are made to look easy to make. But I guarantee that if you ask them that at the end of the tutorial videos, are those songs releasable, and I would be SHOCKED if they said yes. There is still countless hours and days and even weeks (depending on how much time you have to devote to music) before that song is ready to be released. There is so many little things that have to be done to make it perfect and things that need to be done to make it FEEL good, not just sound good. Close your eyes and you will be able to tell the difference.
You might be asking yourself, who are you? I am nobody. I am just an average Joe that enjoys putting music together in the hopes that someone will listen to it and it will make them happy. These are the notes along my journey in production that I feel is the most important thing I have learned thus far and its my contribution to this forum. The ones that know me know that I am always available to try to help others out. Some of you have instant messaged me on AIM and I will do anything to help a fellow SA member out, whether it has to do do with the technical side of things or whatever. I will say this, you shouldn’t care about the technical aspect of music production and all that junk. That will come over time. But we all have to understand, as producers and artists, that where we want to be is going to be a long journey. It takes alot of hard work, practice, and… especially for me, heartache and battling with depression. My mood shows through in my music. I try to make the listener understand what I feel. I don’t want to make good music. I want to make GREAT music. We can all do this together.
It takes 10,000 hours of dedicated effort to become an expert performer in any field.
-Howard
AIM: howiegroove
You have a valid point completely, it is recommended to turn your monitor off when listening back to your final product to see how you feel, rather than what it looks like.
So on that basis, yeah i agree, you need to really feel your track and it needs to bring a feeling with it.
However on the other side of the scale, one persons turd is another persons great.
There are tracks that you may love for instance that i may hate, so in that respect, who’s to say that your track that you sent to that guy wasn’t great to YOU?? Or even some other producer.
Ie: Josh Gabriel may say it’s crap, Funkagenda might say it’s awesome.
Music is about expression and your feelings, it is your artistic input that makes it what it is.
Look at art, you see some absolutely shocking pieces of sh*te sell for thousands / millions…
So who is anyone really to say “your tune is good but not great”?
After all, i’ve read countless stories of massivly named producers who started out as nobody, wasn’t getting their tracks signed anywhere, so started their own label, released their own tunes and became major successes.
I see your point, but take things with a pinch of salt.
[quote]roben (17/02/2010)[hr]I see your point, but take things with a pinch of salt.[/quote]
This wasn’t meant to be a debate Roben, its meant to help others.
[quote]emilyodwyer (17/02/2010)[hr]test:P[/quote]
Can we please stop with this. Its quite annoying. Thank you.
i agree with roben. i dont think he was trying to argue or debate with you howie, its just that the way you conveyed everything is that we have to look upon the industry and the people who’s made it big as a baramoter to everything we do (especially in the initial parts). Like what roben said “one persons turd is another persons great”, the artists you mentioned ( Funkagenda, Mark Knight, Josh Gabriel, Daft Punk, Tiesto, Richie Hawtin, Carl Cox) have technically great music but except for daft punk none of them are really my cup of tea and would not give me that sorta spine chilling feeling that you said.
although i do get that what you were trying to say howie is that, we should always try and strive to improve our music whether technical wise, mood wise etc. and that we should never be satisfied and push ourselves.
cheers 
you guys both have good points…good post howie, that put things in perspective for me but , roben does have a point… sometime it does come down to someones opinion of art.in this case music…someone might really like your music and others just dont get it…
Its all good. The names were just an example too, not meant to be literal. I guess the point was missed. The whole point of the writing was that even when you think a song is finished, it can always be better. Many songs I hear (including mine) sound good, but dont feel right.
Like I said, it wasn’t really meant to be a debate rather trying to turn people around to focus on feel rather than technical details. Its frequently missed, especially when this is a site that focuses on technical details. There are many songs that are amazing that get released and they are quite simple. They just feel amazing.
one of my biggest problems i have is that i get bored with a song and dont mix it down properly or really get in there and bring it up to a better standard, if i spena weekend on a track i feel like im gonna shoot myself if i have to hear my track again
[quote]tommyt (17/02/2010)[hr]one of my biggest problems i have is that i get bored with a song and dont mix it down properly or really get in there and bring it up to a better standard, if i spena weekend on a track i feel like im gonna shoot myself if i have to hear my track again[/quote]
We all have different tolerances for hearing repetitive material. Just work on it, and start on something new. Then come back to it a week later and you will see things in a completely different manner then you did before.
[quote]howiegroove (17/02/2010)[hr][quote]tommyt (17/02/2010)[hr]one of my biggest problems i have is that i get bored with a song and dont mix it down properly or really get in there and bring it up to a better standard, if i spena weekend on a track i feel like im gonna shoot myself if i have to hear my track again[/quote]
We all have different tolerances for hearing repetitive material. Just work on it, and start on something new. Then come back to it a week later and you will see things in a completely different manner then you did before.[/quote]
Yeah well said! I often have a small handful of projects on the go at the same time, - although not always out of purpose - it does really help working on something, then when your feeling a bit worn down by the track, go work on a different track of yours, then when you come back to the original track, you find sometimes you have new ideas and motivation.
Try not to dwell too long on one track, if you keep repeating it over and over and find your not adding anything new to it, then just save it, close it and work on something else.
Ok this may not be everyones method of working, but it sure as hell works for me
It comes back to Howies ‘feeling’ discussion, if you’re sat there trying to produce your track but there is no feeling there because you are getting worn down by over exposure of the track, you’re not going to come up with anything great to add to it.
Also another thing, sometimes when your head isn’t in it, your head just isn’t in it, go watch some tv, play a game, chat boll0x on internet forums, whatever. You can’t pull blood out of the stone.
Im dreadful at returning to songs… if i cant get it done with that initial spark it takes a really great idea to return to it.
I agree with howard with exception that some tracks just happen and can be done and finished in the moment.
although most of my best efforts where a mixture of a great spark and some hard work.
For me its usually great spark to get the groove and total slog to sort the arrangement.
I definitely think that Howie have a good point . I sincerely think that because technology in Music many people think that is easy to Produce a track . it takes many hours to understand and make your track sound the way you want it . most producers out worked for years before they start to release good Music .
Howie very interesting read.
I noticed that you reference your ‘friend’ quite a bit throughout your post and get the feeling you look up to him. You obviously respect him. Perhaps a little too much?
Without knowing who he is its impossible to know if his advice is sound or not.
Maybe it is maybe it isn’t.? Stay focused all the same on your own game.
Lets not forget there’s an element of elitism in the music industry and sometimes things aren’t always as they seem …‘certain people’ might not necessarily like the idea of someone potentially better than them entering their domain and as such basically talk you down to such a point you loose self belief.
Once that happens you are screwed …everything you do will be soaked in huge doubt and anxiety.
Always get as much feedback on a track as possible before ditching it.
I am sure you know that already though.
For me at least the best tracks write themselves, that may sound weird but sometimes something magical can happen where you I or anyone else for that matter somehow become detached from the process to such a point its like another entity takes over and does the work for us.
When that happens and its rare but I am sure most people making music have experienced it take note.
Never ever feel anxiety that you’ve heard the track before because trust me that will happen. You will hear the track and think I’ve heard it before or its too simple or cheesy but that is a natural feeling induced by the entity factor I described above.
The chances are you have the makings of a hit record that needs very little tweaking.
Maybe I am out of touch but I also think a lot of people here are falling into a big trap and think if they have a daw and a track they are a producer. After all it sounds cool, “hey look guys I am a producer” I have a studio, thats sure to impress right?
Well no! coz every man and there dog these days are doing exactly the same.
To me the label producer is somewhat a downgrade to what anyone should be aiming for.
Aim to be an artist, aim to be original, aim to create emotion not copy emotion and you will stand a chance of rising above the crowd unless of course you want to be a one hit wonder. Still a tall order I know.
One last point Howie, I notice that sometimes you give Roben a hard time on this board. I am well aware Roben can speak up for himself but I don’t think you do yourself any great favours by digging away at him like you do. imo You are bleeding vital karma.
So give the guy a break hey?
Just my thoughts on your post and since its in a general forum its up for debate whether you like it or not 
really cool post howie !
for me i never ever start something new if i get bored of a track im writing,
When i lose the buzz i listen to loads of different styles of music, one style i find really helps with my creativity is jazz i think its because of the unexpected nature of it
I aim for that when i write dance music , but i think your right the tech side of things defo comes in time and for me the creative side is way more important than that!
[quote]krome (18/02/2010)[hr]
Aim to be an artist, aim to be original, aim to create emotion not copy emotion and you will stand a chance of rising above the crowd unless of course you want to be a one hit wonder. Still a tall order I know.[/quote]
AMEN!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! Very well put. Thats why I cringe when everyone wants to sound like the Mau5. He was original and everyone should learn from that as well.
[quote]krome (18/02/2010)[hr]One last point Howie, I notice that sometimes you give Roben a hard time on this board. I am well aware Roben can speak up for himself but I don’t think you do yourself any great favours by digging away at him like you do. imo You are bleeding vital karma.
So give the guy a break hey?
[/quote]
Yes, he can speak for himself and yes I have taken some shots. Both of us have. But you might be missing his posts when he blatantly comes after me for no reason. No biggie, just putting it out there. But we are all good now and I just dont respond to it anymore when he says things to me that get me pissed off.
I think there might have been a slight misunderstanding with my post. I would like to suggest that people should focus on what FEELS good rather then strictly the technical side of things.
[quote]krome (18/02/2010)[hr]One last point Howie, I notice that sometimes you give Roben a hard time on this board. I am well aware Roben can speak up for himself but I don’t think you do yourself any great favours by digging away at him like you do. imo You are bleeding vital karma.
So give the guy a break hey?
[/quote]
[quote]howiegroove (18/02/2010)[hr]
Yes, he can speak for himself and yes I have taken some shots. Both of us have. But you might be missing his posts when he blatantly comes after me for no reason. No biggie, just putting it out there. But we are all good now and I just dont respond to it anymore when he says things to me that get me pissed off.[/quote]
lol another person going on about this!! haha.
Howie I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, i’ve never taken digs at you? At least not intentionally.
Anyways it’s funny because Krome isn’t the first person to mention about you taking random uncalled for digs, so maybe it’s really obvious somewhere? I’ve had numerous PMs from other members of the board asking if there is a problem between me and you, to be honest i’ve no idea what the problem is either but i just ignore it, i’ve kinda got the impression it’s because your american and i’m british and we just have different views, beliefs and sense of humour? Also it is hard to be opinionated and not get up someones nose.
Either way, like i said before, i’ve no problem with you, if you like taking digs then that’s your call, after all, it’s only words my friend.
No problem on my side, in fact, im not even phased, i’m here to enjoy & help the site and it’s members, as well as learn cool things in the process, happy days.
Back to topic…
yeah, like I said, I’m cool.
Besides, wasnt this topic about feeling your music?
HOUSE IS A FEELING
thats why i wish i was in the UK. I never hear good music here…at least not commercially.
All cool then guys 
Hope you resolved your minor differences.